An American Historian's Prediction: 'Trump Will Win the U.S. Election'

The U.S. presidential election is less than six weeks away, and fortune will favor one of the two main candidates: Donald Trump or Hillary Rodham Clinton. The betting market is heating up as everyone awaits to see which candidate will gain more strength after three debates, the first of which was held on Monday night, October 5. Until November 8, speculation will remain high. However, there is one person whose predictions about the winning candidate in the U.S. presidential election have not been wrong since at least 1984. Allan Lichtman, a history professor at American University, does not use methods such as horse race boards, charts, or political views of the candidates for his predictions; instead, he employs a system based on 'true' or 'false' answers to a set of key questions known as the 'Keys to the White House'. According to the Washington Post, based on this American historian's assessment, the winner of the 2016 election will be none other than Donald Trump. The factors Lichtman outlines in his book 'The Keys to the White House 2016' include 13 items: party status, competition, incumbency, third party, short-term economy, long-term economy, political change, social unrest, scandal, foreign/military failure, foreign/military success, charisma of the incumbent party candidate, and charisma of the challenger party candidate. Lichtman recently gave an interview to 'The Fix' website, explaining his views on the winning candidate and why predicting this year's competition is very difficult. He states that the 'Keys to the White House' system has a historical basis, having been derived from U.S. presidential election results from 1860 to 1980. Since then, he has accurately predicted the outcomes of the last eight elections from 1984 to 2012. According to Lichtman, if six or more of the 13 keys yield 'false' answers, it means the incumbent party candidate will lose. Conversely, if fewer than six keys yield 'false' answers, the incumbent party will hold the presidency for another four years. Lichtman considers Hillary Clinton to lack the charisma of Barack Obama and believes that the current president's 58% approval rating does not guarantee that Democrats will win the November election. He also notes that Trump's presence in this election cycle has made assessments of the competition since 1984 more challenging. He states, 'We have never seen a candidate like Donald Trump, and he may break all the rules of competition that have existed since 1860.' Lichtman describes the Republican candidate as someone who 'has fattened his life at the expense of others' and as the first candidate in U.S. presidential election history who 'weaves truth and lies together.' The controversy over Barack Obama's birthplace, the use of violence against opponents, inviting a hostile foreign power to interfere in U.S. elections, threatening to blow up ships in the Persian Gulf if they come close to American warships, among other examples, are instances that this historian claims were never raised by any other presidential candidate before Trump and have shattered the electoral rules of the past 150 years. Nevertheless, based on the formula he follows, Allan Lichtman believes Donald Trump is the definitive winner of the November presidential election, as at least five of the 13 keys he considers yield 'false' answers for the Democrats. Key number one, 'party status,' indicates that Democrats were shattered in the midterm elections. Key number three states that the current president is not set to be re-elected. Key number seven indicates that no major political change occurred during Barack Obama's second term, such as the implementation of the healthcare law. Key number eleven states that there were no significant successes in foreign policy. Key number twelve states that Hillary Clinton is not a Franklin Roosevelt. Another key that Lichtman believes will pull the Democrats down is the presence of a candidate named Gary Johnson in the election. 'One of my keys is that the incumbent party scores negatively in another way, which is that a third-party candidate receives 5% or more of the votes. Gary Johnson is currently polling at 12 to 14 percent in third place. My rule is that this number must be halved. This means Johnson will receive six to seven percent of the vote, which is the sixth and final key against the Democrats.'