Allan Lichtman, the Nostradamus of the United States

As the US presidential elections approach, Allan Lichtman, professor of history at American University in Washington, gave an interview to the Guardian where he predicted the next US president.

Now 77 years old, former long-distance running champion Allan Lichtman is best known for inventing a predictive model capable of determining the winner of the American presidential election. The story begins in 1963, when he met Vladimir Keilis-Borok, a leading authority on earthquake prediction and passionate about American politics. The two colleagues will decide to rethink electoral statistics based on the seismology model.

After analyzing all the presidential elections since Abraham Lincoln’s victory in 1860, the two friends developed a statistical method based on 13 key statements. Some examples of these statements: “the candidate of the ruling party is the outgoing president” or “the economy is not in recession during the campaign”. According to this model, if six or more of these key statements can be answered falsely, the ruling party is defeated. On the contrary, less than six and he wins.

A method that worked from the first time since in 1982, Ronald Reagan won as expected despite the recession, his low popularity and his advanced age. Same in 1988: Bush Sr. won despite being 18 points behind his Democratic opponent. Almost flawless, because in 2000, A. Lichtman and V. Keilis-Borok predicted the victory of Al Gore and it was Bush who won. Finally, if we can speak of an error because Al Gore had the popular election stolen by the voters, a stolen victory is not really a defeat. Clearly, we can therefore consider that the Nostradamus of the White House has succeeded in bingo so far.

On November 5, the method will be used again to decide the return match between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. According to Lichtman, it is Joe Biden who should win because he has two keys out of thirteen to win: that of the outgoing president and that of internal competition. The 81-year-old president crushed his few symbolic rivals during the primary.

But it is still too early to comment on the outcome of the vote. Indeed, no one is safe from a cataclysmic event. Above all, it is an unprecedented situation with a former president, who is also the candidate of one of the two major parties, and who is being brought to justice. His conviction could cause a lot of upheaval. On election day, Lichtman’s model will therefore be awaited at the turning point because many people expect him to be wrong.