Allan Lichtman, a history professor at American University who has accurately predicted past elections, said in an op-ed on Saturday that President Joe “Biden can win” against former President Donald Trump in this year’s presidential election.
After Biden’s weak showing against Trump, the GOP presidential nominee as of Monday, at the first presidential debate late last month in Atlanta, there have been growing calls among Democrats in Congress and other prominent members of the party for Biden to step aside. Biden, however, has repeatedly vowed to stay in the race.
The general consensus among the over 30 Democratic lawmakers who have recently called for Biden to exit the race is that, while the president is an accomplished and respected public servant, he doesn’t have what it takes to beat Trump. Despite Biden telling reporters at a press conference last week that he “beat [Trump] once and I will beat him again,” dozens of Democrats in Congress believe it’s time to “pass the torch” and let the new generation lead.
Lichtman, however, said in an interview for the Houston Chronicle’s opinion section published on Saturday, “Of course Biden can win.”
He added: “All those critics who say Biden can’t win—the journalists, the political operatives, the pundits, the columnists, the Democratic pols—what do they have in common? They have zero track record predicting elections.”
When reached by Newsweek about Lichtman’s comments, Trump’s spokesperson Steven Cheung said via email on Saturday afternoon “Who is Allan Lichtman?”
Newsweek has reached out to Biden’s campaign via email for comment.
Professor Allan Lichtman speaks on April 13, 2012, at American University in Washington, D.C. Inset, President Joe Biden speaks at the 115th NAACP National Convention on July 16 in Las Vegas. Lichtman, a history professor…
Paul J. Richards/AFP via Getty Images/Mario Tama/Getty Images
Lichtman, using his “Keys to the White House” model, has correctly predicted the winner of every presidential election since 1984. However, as his model only accurately predicts the popular vote result, it showed former Democratic Vice President Al Gore would win in 2000, whereas former President George W. Bush actually won in the Electoral College. In 2016, it correctly predicted that Trump would win, but inaccurately suggested that he’d win the popular vote. Trump only won in the Electoral College like Bush. His model uses 13 “diagnostic questions” that determine whether the president—or his party’s nominee if he isn’t running again—will be reelected.
The elections forecaster called critiques of Biden’s ability to win the election in November “sports talk radio.”
“It has no scientific basis. It may be interesting, but you should do with it what the great philosopher David Hume said you should do to works of superstition: discard them in flames,” Lichtman said.
He continued: “I have a system with a 40-year track record which taps into the structure of how elections really work. Each key is a vote up or down on the strength and performance of the White House party. And the keys show not only can Biden win, but a lot would have to go wrong for Biden to lose.”
The 13 keys in Lichtman’s model, which he developed with Russian geophysicist Vladimir Keilis-Borok, are as follows: party mandate, no primary contest, incumbent seeking re-election, no third party, strong short-term economy, strong long-term economy, major policy change, no social unrest, no scandal, no foreign or military failure, major foreign or military success, charismatic incumbent and uncharismatic challenger.
Within this model, if five or fewer keys are false, the incumbent nominee is predicted to win the election, but if six or more keys are false, the incumbent’s challenger is predicted to win.
“The party holding the White House has never, I repeat, never, won reelection since the turn of the 20th century when there is an open seat with no incumbent running and an internal party contest,” Lichtman told Newsweek via telephone on Saturday afternoon.
He added: “The Democrats are doing everything in their power to reverse the verdict of history, to do something counterproductive and unprecedented in all the years of our democratic republic. And who knows? They may succeed in slitting their own throats and turning the election over to Donald Trump and putting our Democracy in parallel.
“And unfortunately, the media is in complicity with this overwhelming reporting about the democratic struggles, reporting all these criticisms as if they had some merit and enormously downplaying…the fact that Donald Trump is lying his way into the presidency.”
Lichtman, meanwhile, has yet to make his final prediction for November.
“There’s so much still up in the air. I’m waiting for the Democratic Convention to see if we get an explosion of social unrest like we saw in 1968. I don’t expect it, but that could turn the social unrest key against the administration,” he said.
He continued: “I’m also waiting to see if [independent candidate] RFK [Robert F. Kennedy] Jr. stabilizes to at least 10% in the polls. We don’t know that yet. And I’m also waiting to see if against all odds Biden brokers a cease-fire and a hostage release in Gaza. That could greatly affect my foreign policy keys.”
Biden has supported Israel’s right to self-defense after Hamas led the deadliest Palestinian militant attack in Israel’s history on October 7, 2023. However, he has also recognized the humanitarian crisis in Gaza amid Israel’s military operation in the region that has killed over 38,900 Gazans, according to the territory’s Health Ministry.
On Friday, Lichtman wrote on X, formerly Twitter, “I have never seen a party so intent on self-destruction as the Democratic Party is right now, trashing their own president and presumptive nominee who was selected by the voters.”
He added in a follow-up post: “If Democrats hope to retain the White House in November, they need to support Joe Biden!”
I have never seen a party so intent on self-destruction as the Democratic Party is right now, trashing their own president and presumptive nominee who was selected by the voters.
— Allan Lichtman (@AllanLichtman) July 19, 2024
If Democrats hope to retain the White House in November, they need to support Joe Biden!
— Allan Lichtman (@AllanLichtman) July 17, 2024
Update 7/20/24, 3:01 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from Cheung.
Update 7/20/24, 3:24 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from Lichtman.
Update 7/20/24, 4:45 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.
