Published 18:19 IST, August 9th 2020
American Professor, famous for accurately predicting US elections, says Trump will lose
A historian, famous for accurately predicting the winner of US presidential elections since 1984, has predicted the 2019 election results in favour of Joe Biden
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An American historian, famous for accurately predicting the winner of US presidential elections since 1984, has predicted the 2019 election results in favour of Democratic nominee Joe Biden. American University professor Allan Lichtman uses 13 historical factors or "keys" to call an election result and had successfully predicted the surprise win for incumbent Donald Trump in 2016.
Lichtman has authored a book titled The Keys To The White House which talks about 13 “keys” which includes four political, seven performance, and two personality factors to arrive at a result. He looks at the underlying fundamentals that have driven every presidential election since 1860. The blurb of the book says Lichtman dispels much of the mystery behind electoral politics and challenges many traditional assumptions.
"The keys predict that Trump will lose the White House," said Lichtman in a New York Times video op-ed released on August 5.
Predicted impeachment
The professor had not only rightly called a surprise win for Trump in the 2016 elections, but he had also predicted that the US President would be impeached. House of Representatives impeached the US President earlier this year for alleged misuse of his official powers to pressure a foreign government to interfere in the US elections for his personal political gain. However, he was acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate.
Lichtman identified 13 keys for winning the White House and each key is a binary statement which asks for True/False as input. If six or more keys are false, the prediction system argues that the incumbent would lose the election. The historian said that Trump had only four negative keys in late 2019 but the handling of the coronavirus crisis has pushed the negative keys to six. Trump will be up against former Vice President Joe Biden, who is currently looking for a running mate.
18:19 IST, August 9th 2020