I want to tell you about an interesting man name Allan Lichtman who has an impressive knack for predicting elections.
But first, let me tell you who I am writing this post for. And I will do that by telling you who I am not writing it for.
I am not writing this post for folks who have decided that the United States, politics, or people in general are hopeless.
I get these feelings because I have had them before, and I am sorry you have them. They can be painful.
But if you find yourself in that category of folks who feel like things are generally hopeless, this post probably won’t be helpful.
This post might.
So, now that I have told you whom I am not writing this post for, let me tell you who I am writing it for.
I am writing this post for folks, like me, who love the United States and value the tradition of fair elections in our country and wish to preserve it.
If you are anything like me, you probably know that our country isn’t perfect, and you probably also know that politics can be corrupt sometimes.
Nevertheless, you probably also recognize that the United States has a long tradition of striving for justice and fairness.
And it has often achieved these goals admirably.[1]
The general history of our elections is one such example of this.
Because I value this tradition in our country, I care about election integrity. And I want to make sure that elections continue to be fair.
And this means that I am willing to support any candidate elected fairly as president, even if I don’t like the person.
By support, I don’t mean I agree with everything, or even anything, the person does.
In fact, I might think that the elected candidate is the wrong choice for president and try to convince people to vote otherwise in the future.
By support, I just mean that I recognize that the person has a legal right to be president.
I am very concerned that elections be fair. I want to know that whoever is president has a legal right to be president.
And this brings me to Allan Lichtman, a man with an amazing knack for presidential predictions.
Lichtman, a history professor at American University in Washington DC, has been correctly predicting presidents since Ronald Regan’s re-election in 1984.
However, Lichtman gained national recognition in 2016 when former President Trump was elected.
Lichtman correctly predicted that Trump would win the election, even when very few people thought the former president had any chance of winning.
Allan Lichtman, picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
In fact, after Trump won the election, Trump wrote Lichtman congratulating him for his accurate prediction.
Now here is something interesting about Lichtman: When Lichtman predicted Trump would win, he was not a fan of former President Trump.
But Lichtman’s predictions are not based on who he likes or dislikes as a candidate, or on who he wants or doesn’t want to win.
Rather, his predictions are based on something called the Thirteen Keys to the White House.
Picture, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
You can read more about the keys at the link above.
But here is the basic gist. The thirteen keys are a list of presidency traits or occurrences that benefit or harm a candidate.
If eight or more of the keys are true for a candidate, they win the election.
Lichtman’s website notes that Lichtman and his colleague developed the keys “based on their analysis of trends in presidential campaigns since 1860.”
Once again, Lichtman has correctly predicted presidential elections since Regan’s re-election in 1984.[2]
I definitely became interested in Lichtman when Trump was elected.
Like many people, I was startled by Trump’s election, and I worried that our election integrity had suffered some kind of corruption.
Nevertheless, the more I studied Lichtman’s system, the more I became convinced that the election was fair.[3]
Interestingly, Lichtman also correctly predicted that Trump would lose and Biden would win in the 2020 election.
He predicted this because of issues such as the pandemic, a loss of midterm elections, Trump’s impeachment, and the George Floyd protests (as well as other issues).
Such issues, Lichtman argued, eventually cost Trump too many keys to the White House.
You can read more about Lichtman’s explanation about why Trump lost here.
Now, of course, the reasonable question at this point is whether Lichtman has predicted the winner of the 2024 election.
He recently made his prediction.
But I wanted to end by mentioning what you likely already know.
When Trump lost the election in 2020, there were a lot of people (including Trump himself) who claimed the election had been stolen.
Frequently folks who claimed this offered no thorough, thoughtful evidence for their claims.
Sometimes, the only evidence they offered was a gut feeling that the election has been stolen.
Of course, sometimes gut feelings are spot-on.
But frequently they are nothing more than a passing feeling.
That’s why it’s important that we have thoughtful, rational, well-considered principles to guide our gut feelings.
In fact, one of the hallmarks of a thoughtful, reasonable, and moral person is that they are willing to accept conclusions their gut dislikes if reason warrants it.
I want to be a thoughtful, reasonable, and moral person. I imagine you do, too.
Shelly, I enjoyed reading this article however, I would offer one small point of concern. You repeatedly referred to former President Trump as President Trump, he is NOT the president. He has referred to himself as President Trump ever since he won in 2016. In his office in Mar-a-Lago above his desk he has a form of the seal of the United States of America and he has printed On it “ office of the president of the United States of America”., which it is not. He is not the president. He is a former president and will be up until the day, God forbid, that he might be reelected.
Hello There, Maggie. I appreciate this comment. I recognize your concerns in this area. I tried to write “former” most of the time, but I will correct this.