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Allan Lichtman, whose almost unfailingly accurate presidential election predictions saw him rise to international prominence, seemed to be at a loss for words on Tuesday night as Vice President Kamala Harris appeared to be on the verge of losing the White House to Donald Trump.
“Time is running out,” said Prof Lichtman on the election episode of his live YouTube show. “Trump has maintained his lead in Pennsylvania.”
Several months ago, Prof Lichtman made his much-anticipated prediction, saying that his famous 13 keys system showed that Ms Harris would emerge victorious.
In a previous interview with The National, Prof Lichtman said that while he was confident in his prediction, he still gets nervous during every presidential election cycle.
“That's why I still get butterflies in my stomach on election night,” he said. “Could I be wrong? Sure. But so far my predictions have withstood the test of time.”
This time, it appears Prof Lichtman's prediction was wrong.
“I'm not doing any interviews, I'm done with that. I will make a statement [about it] and I'll decide when my next show is going to be,” he said, as he finished a four-hour live-stream show on YouTube.
“Good thing I have nothing to do tomorrow. You know what happens if Trump wins? He won't serve a full term, he'll turn it over to JD Vance.”
Prof Lichtman said he did not believe Mr Trump's health would allow him to serve a full term.
While Prof Lichtman had been popular in political science circles for many years, it was his 2016 prediction – which said that Mr Trump would win, going against the popular wisdom at the time – that put him in the rarefied air of political stardom.
A few years later, he correctly predicted that Joe Biden would defeat Mr Trump.
Throughout his most recent live-streamed show, hecklers populated the chat room to try to provoke Prof Lichtman into addressing his inaccurate prediction.
He did not interact, instead addressing the kind words he had received as results began to come in.
“I'm heartened from all the kind emails I've been getting, a lot of people say we should keep doing this show,” he told his son, Sam Lichtman, who appeared alongside him.
“I'm going to sleep all day tomorrow.”
This is not the first time Prof Lichtman has been incorrect.
In 2000, he predicted a victory for Al Gore, and while this came to fruition in terms of the popular vote, there was controversy over vote tallies in Florida. Ultimately a Supreme Court decision gave Mr Bush the electoral college victory.
“Al Gore, based on the actual verdict of the voters, was the winner. What happened in Florida was voter suppression,” Prof Lichtman told The National last year. “And I wasn't the only one to come to that conclusion.”
Prof Lichtman is not without his critics.
Prominent statistician and journalist Nate Silver described the 13 keys method as “superficial” in 2011.
“I wrote him [Mr Silver] a 30-page response … and offered to write a joint article with him,” Prof Lichtman said. He added that he wanted to write about how two analysts using two different methods could ultimately come to the same conclusion.
FiveThirtyEight, founded by Mr Silver and operated by ABC News, ultimately published Prof Lichtman's response, but Mr Silver did not directly address it.
“I never heard a word from him,” Prof Lichtman said.
Lichtman's 13 keys to the White House:
- Party mandate: After the midterm elections the incumbent party holds more seats in the US House of Representatives than it did after the previous midterm elections.
- Contest: The candidate is nominated on the first ballot and wins at least two thirds of the delegate votes.
- Incumbency: The sitting president is the party candidate.
- Third party: A third-party candidate wins at least 5 per cent of the popular vote.
- Short-term economy: The National Bureau of Economic Research has either not declared a recession, or has declared it over before the election.
- Long-term economy: Real per-capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds the mean growth during the previous two terms.
- Policy change: The administration achieves a major policy change during the term comparable to the New Deal or the first-term Reagan Revolution.
- Social unrest: There is no social unrest during the term that is comparable to the upheavals of the post-civil war Reconstruction or of the 1960s, and is sustained or raises deep concerns about the unravelling of society.
- Scandal: There is no broad recognition of a scandal that directly touches upon the president
- Foreign or military failure: There is no major failure during the term comparable to Pearl Harbor or the Iran hostage crisis that appears to significantly undermine America's national interests or threaten its standing in the world.
- Foreign or military success: There is a major success during the term comparable to the winning of the Second World War or the Camp David Accords that significantly advances America's national interests or its standing in the world.
- Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is a national hero comparable to Ulysses Grant or Dwight Eisenhower or is an inspirational candidate comparable to Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan.
- Challenger charisma: The challenger party candidate is not a national hero comparable to Ulysses Grant or Dwight Eisenhower and is not an inspirational candidate comparable to Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan.
– Source: Allan J. Lichtman, The Thirteen Keys to the Presidency
