And the next President of the United States is...

Would you believe a historian has accurately predicted the winner of every US presidential election since 1984?

Allan Litchman is an American historian. In the early 1980s he adapted to election prediction a set of statistical methods originally designed to predict earthquakes. He then analyzed all of the US presidential elections from 1860 to 1980. He discovered there are 13 key factors to winning the presidency. Specifically, he discovered that as long as the party that currently holds the presidency has not lost six or more of these 13 keys, they keep presidency. They keys are:

• Midterm gains

• No primary contest

• Incumbent seeking reelection

• No third party

• Strong short term economy

• Strong long term econony

• Major policy change

• No social unrest

• No scandal

• No foreign/military failure

• Major foreign/military success

• Charismatic incumbent

• Uncharismatic challenger

Litchman was notable for predicting George W. Bush would defeat Al Gore and that Donald Trump would win in 2016. This year, the believes the Democrats are losing on Midterms gains, Incumbent seeking re-election (since Biden is not), No foreign/military success and charismatic incumbent (suggesting that Trump is more charismatic than Harris). Litchman has explained why they have lost these 4 key factors. In short, he says that it’s governance not campaigning that wins elections. His system, which has accurately predicted the outcome of every presidential election since Reagan ran for re-election in 1984, says that the party holding the White House must lose six keys. The Democrats have only lost four. With that in mind, on September 5th he predicted that Kamala Harris will be the next President of the United States.

Regardless of his prediction, if you are a registered voter should still vote as it’s an important way we make our voices heard.