Many Americans probably wish they had a magic crystal ball to foretell the outcome of the November presidential election, and perhaps the next four years that follow the outcome. While that’s not possible, and this presidential race has been fraught with more controversy, division, drama, and heresy than most elections, it’s also an election that many Americans feel they have more stake in than ever before. Americans are worried about things like race relations, health care, unemployment, relationships with other countries, and they are increasingly divided and confused over new information they hear every day about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, arguably two of the most infamous and controversial presidential candidates of all time.
Part of the nervousness is the same with every election: most are not won by a landslide, so it remains any man or woman’s game right up until each voting precinct reports. Many Americans have expressed that they are not voting “for” a candidate as much as they are voting “against” another one. That may be a sad commentary on American politics, but one professor says that regardless of why people are voting for which candidate, he knows who will win – and he’s never been wrong in 30 years.
Allan Lichtman, professor and writer, says that Donald Trump will be elected on November 8, according to The Washington Post . His book, Predicting The White House: Keys to the Next President 2016 is not simply opinion. It is a scientific method based on historical happenings, demographic data, shifts in perspectives, and current trending topics important to the presidential race. Taking all this into consideration, Lichtman has come to the conclusion that Hillary Clinton can pack her bags and call it a day – or perhaps call it an entire career. He says she’s over.
How does he arrive at his conclusion, you may wonder? He uses a system of true/false statements based on all kinds of data that lead him to an answer. There are “keys” to the presidency that can be easily answered, Lichtman explains, and using those true/false statements will lead you to the answer of who will be the next president of the United States. Some may call him lucky, but his formula of predictive factors for determining an outcome has not been wrong in thirty years. In those 30 years, we’ve seen some hairy situations: the whole voting “chad” catastrophe in Florida, with presidential outcomes being uncertain for weeks after the election. Even then, Lichtman had correctly predicted the outcome: George Walker Bush would be president. He won.
Lichtman looks at the following factors when determining who will win a presidential race: Party mandate (meaning that the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives), Contest (there is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination), incumbency (the incumbent is the sitting president), Third Party (there is no serious third party candidate), Short term economy (the economy is not in recession during the U.S. election), Long term economy (real per capita growth exceeds the previous two terms per capita growth), Policy Change (the incumbent will incur major changes in U.S. policy), Social Unrest (there is an absence of serious social unrest during the election period), Scandal (the incumbent party is unmarred by real or rumored significant scandal), Foreign/Military Failure (the incumbent party has had no serious foreign or military failures), Incumbent charisma (the incumbent is a national hero) and Challenger charisma (the challenger is not charismatic or considered a national hero).
Lichtman says that six or more key “falses” predict the challenger will win. Lichtman believes that has occurred.
“It’s interesting, I don’t use the polls, as I’ve just explained, but the polls have very recently tightened. Clinton is less ahead than she was before, but it’s not because Trump is rising, it’s because Clinton is falling.”
[Featured Image by Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images]
