In Predicting the President: The Keys to the White House (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024), historian Allan Lichtman lays out the historical reasons the presidents won their elections in history since the 1800s, using his own system of “keys” to predict which candidate or political party will win for the upcoming election. Even after reading the book, I’m not sure how or why all the keys actually do work in predicting the presidents (of the past, at least) but they do! The keys can explain the historical elections, and he has predicted the elections for the last 10 elections.
(The only exception was Bush versus Gore, which technically should have gone to Gore, due to the votes not counting in Florida. He now adds a disclaimer that his prediction works for the popular vote, and not necessarily for electoral victory, due to the changing nature of the electorate map; California’s huge population is not accounted for in the electoral college.) His prediction for this
His system includes 13 keys, of which the incumbent Presidential party cannot lose more than five or they will be predicted to lose the presidency in the upcoming election. These keys include political, performance, and personality indicators such as long- and short-term economic markers, mid-term election gains or losses, major crises, military victory, candidate personality power (such as an FDR or JFK or Obama), and so forth. I found his analysis of elections past fascinating, both as a review of history and as an introduction to the more specific world of elections and the effect economy, world events, and domestic matters have on the electorate. It is not a perfect system, in my opinion, because modern media, the spread of disinformation, and the inequalities between the electoral college and popular vote has disrupted some of the historic order to presidential politics
The current status of the keys suggest that Kamala Harris will win the election, since only 3 or 4 keys (depending on the next few weeks) have been “lost.” However, because the electoral college distribution in the country is not indicative of population distribution or majority sentiment, while it is pretty sure (in my opinion) that Harris will win the popular vote (thanks to California’s giant population), the electoral victory can only be determined after votes are cast and counted. I sure hope, however, that the keys have once again predicted the next president.
