An American University history professor who has predicted nearly every presidential election since 1984 projects former Vice President Joe Biden will best President Trump in the general election.
Historian Allan Lichtman, who wrote a bestselling book in 2017 arguing that Trump be impeached, based his Wednesday analysis on 13 factors. If six or more of the key factors weigh in favor of the challenger, he said the result is a “political earthquake.”
“The keys predict that Trump will lose the White House,” Lichtman said in a New York Times video.
Lichtman calculated his prediction by analyzing whether the incumbent’s political party makes gains in the midterm elections, the president faces a serious primary challenger, the incumbent is seeking reelection, a serious third-party challenger is in the race, and if the president has enacted major policy change to reverse his predecessors.
However, two economic keys weigh in Biden’s favor. Lichtman said both the country’s short-term and long-term economic losses due to coronavirus puts Trump in a politically precarious position. Social unrest following the death of George Floyd, Lichtman said, also worsens the public’s perception of Trump.
The historian said Trump’s polarizing personality, scandals during his first term, and lack of major foreign policy victories also give Biden the edge with seven keys in his favor.
“It’s up to you, the voter, to decide the future of Democracy,” Lichtman said in the video. “Vote in person. Vote by mail. As Abraham Lincoln once said, the best way to predict the future is to choose it.”
Lichtman has correctly predicted the winner of each presidential election for the past 36 years with the exception of the 2000 contest, in which he predicted former Vice President Al Gore would beat the eventual President George W. Bush. Bush lost the popular vote, which the historian has argued proves his prediction true, but won the Electoral College.
