Allan Lichtman has been wrong for 30 years.
From the re-election of Ronald Reagan in 1984 to the victory of Donald Trump in 2016, the American historian has been accurately predicting for 30 years who will be the new occupant of the White House.
With less than three months to go until the November election, in which President Trump is seeking reelection and former Vice President Joe Biden is bidding for the job for the third time, Lichtman has already revealed his prognosis for the outcome.
Donald Trump will lose the election this time, he said in an interview with The New York Times published on Wednesday.
Allan Lichtman. AFP via Getty Images
Lichtman, 73, is not the Walter Mercado of politics. This forecast and all previous ones - it is worth noting that it also predicted Trump's impeachment - are not based on hunches.
The also writer and professor at the American University in Washington DC relies on a quasi-mathematical system invented by him in the early 1980s and which is based on the so-called "13 keys . " These take into account factors such as the economy, social unrest and scandals of the current Administration, as well as the personal charisma of the candidates.
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The model was developed in 1981 together with his colleague Vladimir Keilis-Borok and gives the forecast based on the binary values (true or false) associated with the candidates in each of the "keys". If six or more keys are false, the party that is ruling the country will come out of power.
His prediction model, he says, is based on paying attention to the "big picture," and not to the daily ups and downs of each presidential race, political commentators or polls. In fact, in 2016 they indicated that former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton would be the winner of the presidential race. Lichtman was the only one who said Trump would win.
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"Pollsters and experts cover the elections as if they were horse races," Lichtman told the Times . “But history tells us that voters are not fooled by the gimmicks of the campaign. Voters vote pragmatically according to how well the White House party has governed the country. "
The polls are "snapshots in time," Lichtman said. "None of this ultimately has any impact on the outcome of a presidential election."
Trump's campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh rejected Lichtman's prediction in a statement sent to CNBC.
"This is a choice like no other in history and the choice could not be clearer: between President Trump's set record of achievement for all Americans and Joe Biden's 47 years of failure and acquiescence to the far left, " Murtaugh said. "American voters will decide this election, not academics or professors."