Donald Trump Will Still Win, Says Professor Who Has Accurately Predicted Last 30 Years Of Presidential Elections

A distinguished history professor at American University is doubling down on his previous prediction that Donald Trump will win the election. Allen J. Lichtman has accurately predicted the last 30 years of presidential elections with a unique prediction model. Lichtman’s recent comments preceded the FBI announcing they will be re-opening their investigation in Hillary Clinton’s emails just 11 days before the election.

Lichtman doesn’t reach a conclusion by studying trends in the polling. His “Keys to the White House” is a prediction system developed from studying American presidential elections from 1860 to 1980. It was first tested in the 1984 presidential election by predicting Ronald Reagan would win, and it hasn’t been wrong since.

“The keys are 13 true/false questions, where an answer of ‘true’ always favors the re-election of the party holding the White House,” Lichtman told the Washington Post. “If six or more of the 13 keys are false — that is, they go against the party in power — they lose. If fewer than six are false, the party in power gets four more years.”

The methodology is laid out in his book Predicting the Next President: The Keys to the White House. According to the test, the Democratic Party cannot win the election. Lichtman said in Septemeber that according to his model, Trump would win.

“Based on the 13 keys, it would predict a Donald Trump victory,” Lichtman said. “Remember, six keys and you’re out, and right now the Democrats are out — for sure — five keys.”

Two examples of Lichtman’s keys include if the incumbent party is hounded by scandal and if the opposing party has a charismatic nominee. The Washington Post recently asked Lichtman again if he stood by his prediction that Trump would win after the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape and multiple women accusing Trump of sexual misconduct.

“By the narrowest of possible margins, the keys still point to a Trump victory,” he said.

He also points out that Gary Johnson’s voters have the power to change his prediction.

“It takes six keys to count the party in power out, and they have exactly six keys. And one key could still flip, as I recognized last time — the third party key, that requires Gary Johnson to get at least five percent of the popular vote. He could slip below that, which would shift the prediction.”

There are plenty of pollsters who disagree with his prediction. The Upshot gives Trump an 8 percent chance of winning the election and FiveThirtyEight says Trump has an 18.4 percent chance. If the election was held today and the polls were accurate, Clinton would probably win. But at this point in the 2012 general election, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama were in a virtual tie with less than one point separating them in the polls.

Jill Stein and Johnson supporters could be the deciding factor in this election. Johnson was polling around 9 percent in early September. Today, he’s averaging around 5 percent.

If the Access Hollywood tape was the October surprise, the conclusion of the renewed investigation into Clinton’s emails are shaping up to be the November surprise. On Friday, FBI Director James Comey, after being briefed on the incident, sent a letter to Congress announcing the FBI’s looking into additional classified materials sent using Clinton’s private email server.

“I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation,” Comey wrote.

This election will probably go down as one of the most unpredictable in history. Trump was not expected to rise above more than a dozen Republican officials to win the nomination. Based on a majority of the polling, Trump’s also not expected to win the election. But he’s defied nearly every expectation throughout this election. Lichtman has put the reputation of his prediction model on the line by announcing Trump could still win. Now that the FBI has given Trump and his supporters the fuel to ramp up enthusiasm and strengthen his message, the only thing left is for voters to head to the polls.

[Featured Image by Win McNamee/Getty Images]