Allan Lichtman's final prediction for the 2024 presidential election

[Lyubov]

14 hours ago, Hardkill said:

Yes. That's a good idea. That's how my dad has been making for our family for many years now. You have to be a smart, knowledgeable, disciplined, and methodical buy-and-hold investor like Warren Buffett has been all of his life. 

Steer clear from fast trading, crypto, and questionable tech stocks. Only do fundamental trading, which involves choosing stocks that you clearly see have solid prospects for long-term growth.

Btw, even though a lot of stocks are overvalued, the stock market isn't so inflated to the degree that it was during dot.com bubble in the late 1990s to 2001.

This is the only stuff I buy. I lose money in this shit whenever I go off the beaten path. All my shit is in classic blue chip. Oil. I sold Lockheed Martin years ago. I inherited thousands of dollars in this stock but profiting off of a company that makes weapons for war, idk. 

[Leo Gura]

Don't forget that just a few months ago Licthman was arguing that Biden should not be criticized or replaced.

So excuse me if I don't take him seriously. Without Kamala we would be in deep shit right now.

 

Edited September 7 by Leo Gura

[Leo Gura]

8 minutes ago, Lyubov said:

All my shit is in classic blue chip.

If the market crashes, all the blue chip will crash too. Today's top blue chips are all Big Tech companies. And they will drag everything down if the AI bubble bursts.

With that said, I am not saying you should sell. You can play the long-game and just stay vested indefinitely.

Edited September 7 by Leo Gura

[Hardkill]

1 hour ago, Joshe said:

On the surface, I see at least two issues with his model, which might indicate deeper issues:

• Social unrest key: Would social unrest always be detrimental to the incumbent?
• Charisma: Who gets the key if both candidates are equally uncharismatic? He has a seeming arbitrary rule for application here.

Just came across the first lefty channel calling it something like a "feel-good thing for Trump haters", which I think is largely accurate. People want to think it's valid. 

 

 

Jonathan V. Last's arguments against the keys were very weak and unconvincing. He doesn't understand or know that the key are not as subjective as he thinks. He also doesn't seem know or understand US political history well. Also, he and the other guy he was talking to in the vid digressed into talking about other stuff that Lichtman has done in his life that has nothing do with the keys.

At the end of the day, guys like Last and other in the Bulwark are just a bunch of hucksters from the failed political consultant class who have been notoriously for getting so many things wrong in the past just like virtually every pollster, pundit, the political consultants, and advertising and media strategist out there have been terribly wrong in the past. In fact, they've caused Democrats to lose way more elections to lose than they should be. 

Yet, they still keep making fly by the seat of their pants opinions on all kind of election cycles because punditry, polling, campaign consultant, and advertising and media strategizing have all become part of a big businesses for making money. Hence, some have called this the political industrial complex.

Edited September 7 by Hardkill

[Joshe]

7 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

Jonathan V. Last's arguments against the keys were very weak and unconvincing. He doesn't understand or know that the key are not as subjective as he thinks. He also doesn't seem know or understand US political history well. Also, he and the other guy he was talking to in the vid digressed into talking about other stuff that Lichtman has done in his life that has nothing do with the keys.

I agree, their analysis seemed weak. I wouldn't rely on their sensemaking but they did at least critique the model, which is something. 

Edited September 7 by Joshe

[Hardkill]

4 minutes ago, Joshe said:

I agree, their analysis seemed weak. I wouldn't rely on their sensemaking but they did at least critique the model, which is something. 

Democrats tried using the advice of these same kind of elite political consultants gave during the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s for "winning" high profile races. Yet, how has that been working out for the Democratic party?

[ryandesreu]

Alan Lichtman's model is like an old, reliable car. It has a long history of getting the job done, and it still works well today. But sooner or later, it might stop working, and you're just hoping it lasts a little longer. As the world changes, especially with new technology and shifting politics, there’s a chance that this model won’t keep up forever. Let's just hope it's not today.

As for how I think about the election situation itself, it could be better, and it could be worse. I’m just glad the Democrats have a fair chance, about 50%, of winning. It would feel hopeless if their chances were slim.

[Hardkill]

1 hour ago, ryandesreu said:

Alan Lichtman's model is like an old, reliable car. It has a long history of getting the job done, and it still works well today. But sooner or later, it might stop working, and you're just hoping it lasts a little longer. As the world changes, especially with new technology and shifting politics, there’s a chance that this model won’t keep up forever. Let's just hope it's not today.

As for how I think about the election situation itself, it could be better, and it could be worse. I’m just glad the Democrats have a fair chance, about 50%, of winning. It would feel hopeless if their chances were slim.

Yeah, even Lichtman himself has conceded that it's absolutely possible that his model could stop working one day. He even has said that if certain major fundamental changes were made to our country's election system such as abolishing the electoral college or something like the implementation of ranked choice voting nationwide for all elections then the 13 keys system could very well be obsolete or made need to be significantly modified in some way.

One way the keys might not work anymore is if at some point in the future the major political parties, the Democratic party and the Republican party were dissolved and replaced by brand new major political parties. That's one reason why Lichtman decided not to have his system go back to any time in America before 1860. The Republican party was originally founded in 1854 and even then it still wasn't developed enough yet as a truly major opposing party that would be able to truly compete with the Democratic party in anyway in the country until 1860, the year that Abraham Lincoln was first elected president.

Another way that the 13 keys might become useless is if there are no battleground or swing states anymore in the electoral college. In such a scenario, it would be very obvious as to which party was going to win the presidency because without any possible battleground or swing states then it would only be a matter of which party holds all of the safe states that altogether total up to 270 or more electoral votes.

Then again, if either such scenarios that I just mentioned above where to happen in the future, that might actually lead to both parties, especially the GOP, to be forced to go back more to the center or become much more similar to each other nationally in order to be competitive again.

Edited September 7 by Hardkill

[ryandesreu]

@Hardkill Then in 1864, Lincoln chose Democrat, Andrew Johnson, as his running mate, being the last time a dem/rep ticket ran. They ran under the National Union Party to promote unity during the Civil War.

[Hardkill]

10 minutes ago, ryandesreu said:

@Hardkill Then in 1864, Lincoln chose Democrat, Andrew Johnson, as his running mate, being the last time a dem/rep ticket ran. They ran under the National Union Party to promote unity during the Civil War.

True. However, Andrew Johnson lost the Democratic nomination for president in the 1868 Democratic Convention. So, he couldn't run for another term as president.

Moreover, even though Johnson was a Democratic president, the Republican party was still technically the incumbent party holding the White House during Johnson's presidency.

Edited September 7 by Hardkill

[Joshe]

Imagine you came up with 100 arbitrary variables, for example:

• age
• amount of noticeable wrinkles 
• body shape
• # of years married
• was there a solar eclipse
• did the olympics go well

Now, pick 3 random variables of the 100 and swap out the following 3 variables from Lichtman's model:

• Incumbent charisma 
• Challenger charism
• Social unrest

Run this through a simulator until all possible combinations have been tested.

Do you think there would be any winners? I do. I'm way out of my depth here but this is what I intuit the problem is. 

Edited September 7 by Joshe

[ryandesreu]

@Joshe it's possible. 

Don't forget to factor in rust and mileage.

[Hardkill]

40 minutes ago, Joshe said:

Imagine you came up with 100 arbitrary variables, for example:

• skin color
• age
• amount of noticeable wrinkles 
• body shape
• # of years married
• religion
• was there a solar eclipse
• did the olympics go well

Now, pick 3 random variables of the 100 and swap out the following 3 variables from Lichtman's model:

• Incumbent charisma 
• Challenger charism
• Social unrest

Run this through a simulator until all possible combinations have been tested.

Do you think there would be any winners? I do. I'm way out of my depth here but this is what I intuit the problem is. 

• Age and wrinkles: The 13 keys system worked in 1980 when Reagan won that election at the age of 69 years, which back then became the record for the oldest elected US president ever. It worked again in 1984 when broke the record for the oldest elected president again after winning re-election in a truly historic landslide at the age of 73 years, despite serious concerns about his memory and the fact that most people back then thought he was too old to be president again. The 13 keys system worked again in 2016, when Trump broke the record for being back then the oldest elected president at age 70. It worked again in 2020, when Biden broke the record for the oldest elected US president ever at the age of 77 and got inaugurated into office at the age of 78 years. Before he won the election, numerous people around the country were of coures very worried about Biden's age and mental faculties. When Biden turns 82 year old in a couple of months, he will undoubtedly be the very first octogenarian sitting president in US History.
• Skin Color: The keys worked for 2008 when Obama became the very first African-American ever in US History to be elected president. They worked again in 2012 when he became the very first African-American ever to be re-elected president.
• Body Shape: The keys worked in 1908 when Taft became the most obese and the most rotund man to be elected president ever in US History. He was 5 feet 11 inches (1.80 m) tall and his weight was between 325 pounds (147 kg) and 280 pounds (130 kg) toward the end of his presidency. Lincoln, was in appearance arguably the lankiest US president ever. Coolidge was the president with the lowest recorded weight not just since 1860, he held the distinction of being the lightest US President ever at 148 lbs.
• Height: The keys worked in 1888, when Benjamin Harrison became the shortest person since 1860 to be elected president at 5'6". James Madison was actually the shortest president ever in US History at 5'4" during the early 1800s. Abe Lincoln was the tallest elected president not just since 1860 but the tallest elected US president ever. 
• Religion: The keys certainly worked in 1960, when JFK jr. became the very first Catholic ever elected US president. Biden became the 2nd Catholic in US history to be elected president.

Edited September 8 by Hardkill

[ryandesreu]

16 hours ago, Hardkill said:

Coolidge was the president with the lowest recorded weight not just since 1860, he held the distinction of being the lightest US President ever at 148 lbs.

This wording could be misunderstood. Father of the Constitution James Madison was the lightest ever at 100 lbs. 

[Joshe]

I saw a man with a telescope 

[Philipp]

the biggest flaw is that he attributes causation to a predictive model, which is false. 

for example: the incumbancy key might be predictive exactly because it means that the incumbant presidant is still cognitively fit enough to run for a second term. 

If you start to intetionally act to flip keys, the predictive values of his model could and probably would disapear.

In social science causation can only be implied if you do a randomly controlled experiment.

Furthermore: predicting retroactively is completly irrelevant. There is an infinite set of keys that can retroactively predict every election. So this aspect of his model should not even be mentioned. 

Edited September 9 by Philipp

[Hardkill]

On 9/6/2024 at 2:34 PM, Emerald said:

His keys are based off of clearly defined qualifiers that have been observed consistently in every election going back to the mid-1800s.

And he has gotten every election outcome correct in his lifetime, with the exception of Bush v. Gore... of which Gore would have won the electoral college without voter suppression in Florida.

So it's actually pretty good science despite the relative subjectivity of human patterning, because it deals with observing repeatable clearly defined phenomena over time.

So even though he's not studying bacteria in a petri dish here... he is studying how human patterning generally works.

Think of it more as a social science.

I'd be curious if you could apply these qualifiers outside of the US context to predict head to head election outcomes in other representative democracies.

The 2000 presidential election was widely disputed. Lichtman, in fact, proved to the US Commission on Civil Rights in his report that racial voter suppression in Florida, notably by officials such as Governor Jeb Bush at the time, impacted the outcome. Additionally, it's important to remember that the controversial decision by the Supreme Court prevented a complete recount, which would have shown Al Gore winning Florida by a thin margin.

https://www.usccr.gov/files/pubs/vote2000/report/appendix/app10.htm

 

You know, Lichtman has been frequently asked by international observers whether his system's applicability extends beyond the US. Unfortunately, he says that his system is not readily applicable in other representative democracies. This is due to differences in election systems and each country's unique political history, which diverge significantly from that of the US.

I mean, It's definitely possible to tweak Lichtman's 13 keys system to work for other Western countries. For example, if you want it to work in the UK, you could get some top UK history and political science experts to modify it in a way that would accurately predict the outcomes of every UK parliamentary general election.

Edited September 9 by Hardkill

[Hardkill]

On 9/7/2024 at 1:36 PM, Leo Gura said:

Don't forget that just a few months ago Licthman was arguing that Biden should not be criticized or replaced.

So excuse me if I don't take him seriously. Without Kamala we would be in deep shit right now.

 

To be clear, he didn't say back then that Biden would absolutely win. He said that a lot would have to go wrong for Biden to lose if he stayed in the race and that Biden staying in the race would've guaranteed Democrats both party unity advantage and incumbency advantage. He also was very worried that Democrats would end up making the same mistake they made in 2016, whereby they had no incumbency advantage and lost the no-contest key because of how Bernie Sanders bloody fight with Hillary Clinton weakened and divided the Democratic party. Luckily, the Democrats learned from that mistake by uniting strongly behind Harris.

Also, what about the fact that Cenk wrongly predicted in 2020 that Bernie would win the Democratic nomination? What about the fact that he and Ana also wrongly predicted that the Democrats would be annihilated in the 2022 midterms just a few weeks out?

 

Here is Cenk going off on Election Day for the 2022 midterm, yelling about how the Dems totally blew it and ruined their chances in the midterms:

 

Edited September 9 by Hardkill

[Leo Gura]

Stop looking for the predictions of others, think for yourself, and make your own predictions.

[Hardkill]

Well, we now undoubtedly avoided a recession before the election. 

GDP growth for the 3rd quarter of 2024 was a solid 2.8% and the unemployment rate is still at an historic low of 4.1%. 

Plus, according to Lichtman's livestream episode tonight three days ago, he stated that key 10, which is false, and key 11, which is true, are now set in stone:

So, it looks like Harris and the Democrats in the end got 9 out of the 13 keys for certain for this election. I think that should further cement Harris's victory.

 

The 1888 and the 2000 presidential elections, were the only two elections since 1860 where the incumbent party lost 5 keys but still officially lost the White House to the party out of power.

That's why I am really glad that Harris and her party only lost four keys. Since 1860, no incumbent party has ever lost the White House when losing 4 or fewer out of the 13 keys.

Edited November 1 by Hardkill