‘Prophet of presidential elections’ predicts Kamala Harris will win the White House

Alan lickman he's an American presidential historian he's predicted nine out of the 10 last elections correctly presidentially and since 1984 he's been able to identify the next US president with the exception of the 2000 election when Republican nominee George W bush defeated incumbent vice president Al Gore by a razor thin margin lickman uses a model that he created in 1981 that ignores polls ignores pollsters and focuses on 13 Keys you can see them there that lead to a White House victory and now lickman has made his prediction for the 2020 2024 us election he says kamla Harris will be the next US president presidential historian and professor at American University Alan liman joins me now Professor it's good to speak with you again thanks for coming back my pleasure so after the first 2024 presidential debate you warned that Biden dropping out of the race could be a tragic mistake for the Democrats but now you're predicting that kamla Harris is is is going to win how did we get to this point of Harris stepping up and now being the predicted winner in your modeling well what I was worried about was they were the Democrats publicly trashing their nominee and sitting president so I was worried they would push him out which would cost one key the incumbency key but that they would make a big mistake and have a big party brawl they seem to be moving to that which would cost them a second key the contest key and I warned against that well it turned out they did somehow grow a brain and a spine they United behind Harris which saved the contest key so they only lost one key and it seems as well since then that Harris has had a positive effect on two other Keys making perhaps less attractive the Third Party candidate Rober F Kennedy Jr since voters don't have to choose between two old white guys hate to say it being an old white guy myself and his campaign is fizzled and I think having car Harris front in Center rather than the sitting President Biden has dampened the incentive for big protests helping with the social unrest key that's how we getting to my prediction okay there's a few things to go through there because because your model is as you you pointed out based off these 13 keys to the White House you look at to determine the winter that you've been using this since 19 uh to determine the winter excuse me you you've been using this since 1981 this election though an assassination attempt the incumbent president stepping down in the summer you know in the runup and and and the two major Wars happening in the Middle East and in Ukraine can that affect a prediction even this late in the game can that affect your model that sort of volatility and those sorts of factors my favorite comedian the late great gild radna had a character called Rosanne rosan Dana who was famous for saying there's always something well there's always something in a presidential election in 2008 people told me you got to change your keys we've never had an African-American running as a major Party candidate America is not ready for that we have a woman running gotta change your keys we have Donald Trump a new kind of candidate gotta change your keys but the beauty of the keys is they're the north star of prediction because they tap into the fundamentals of how elections really work as votes up or down on the strength and performance of The White House Party they transcend all of these soal unique events of the campaign nothing counts unless it affects a key and I explained exactly how Biden's withdrawal and the Harris candidacy affected the keys okay so of the 13 Keys you you say eight of them are true for Harris so that gives her the numbers that she needs uh to to win or based on your predictive model but let's talk about one of them social unrest you have that in Harris's favor but we do have these protests we've seen at University campuses there is a anger at at the administration's approach to the Middle East conflict among say the the the Muslim population for example in key States like Michigan how do you award that in her favor when that unrest is directed at them is it just not of critical mass or what or how do you describe it yes it's always directed against the incumbents but you got to look at how the key is defined according to my book predicting the next president and you can catch also my live show Tuesdays and Thursdays at 900 p.m Eastern at alen lickman when I explained this to turn that key it has to be massive sustained social unrest that calls into question the stability of the country you always have some degree of social unrest but this is nothing like for example like we saw in the 1960s or early 1970s it was in fact a very easy call given how the key is defined and how it's been turned since 1860 when I went back retrospectively to develop the keys okay so you have eight in kamla Harris favor three in Donald Trump's favor and two undecided at this point and those have to do more with with foreign policy which could be linked to the social unrest one as well I mean watch your thought process there yeah it's a little bit confusing let me straighten this out the simplest way of thinking about the keys is how many keys count against the White House Party there are no keys for right challeng and there are definitively three keys against the White House part the Mandate key because they lost seats in the 2022 midterms in the house obviously the incumbency key and the incumbent Charisma because Harris is you know not a Franklin Roosevelt or a Barack Obama and there are two keys only two other keys that could fall and those are the foreign policy military failure and Military success Keys which I've split for a deficit of Four Keys two keys short of predicting Donald Trump returning to the White House and even if because you know Wars are so fluid and unpredictable even if both of those keys flip negative that would still be only five Keys against Harris still one key short of predicting her defeat well walk me through your decision making process on incumbent Charisma is that just because she's not the incumbent or because she lacks Charisma because I think one of the revelations I think for some people is that she's better at speeches and campaigning than people thought and the first woman of black and South Asian descent has an appeal to constituencies where you're seeing High voter registration uh how how did you decide to to award that one sure again it's easy she certainly has some appeal but let's not forget she didn't do well in the 2020 Democratic nomination battle she was pretty invisible as a vice president nothing against her I think she is appealing but that's not the definition of the key to secure that key as the incumbent candidate whether you're the sitting president or not you have to be one of those once in a generation truly inspirational transformational candidates who broadly appeals across party lines the iconic examples are Franklin Roosevelt on the Democratic side and Ronald Reagan on the Republican side she isn't in that category and she really hasn't had enough time to build up to you know even achieve that level it's very rarified there only like half a dozen candidates or presidents who have fulfilled that standard since the turn of the 20th century so you've been using this since 1981 uh nine out of the last 10 elections you you've nailed it correctly the outlier is the Al Gore George W Bush election and let's face it that one's an outlier right the Supreme Court and Florida and hanging Chads that's a strange one but when you look at this campaign it's only September we've still got the rest of this month of October there's always an October surprise of some sort though we may have had all of them this summer I mean how how how confident are you in this like the degree of error in this prediction and and the possibility of change between now and the 5th of November the October surprise is a big myth I've always predicted my elections independent of what would happen in October sometimes the keys fall into place very early I called the very hard to call 2012 election when a lot of pundits were pick Romney in 2010 the keys don't easily change because they're the big picture of incumbent strength and performance and are not tilted typically by events of the campaign that's why I'm not worried about an October surprise although as I've told you given two Wars the two uh foreign military keys are somewhat fluid right but even if they both turned negative it wouldn't matter right so the the Democrats basically they got their act together and that's going to save the White House for them is what it comes down to to some degree you're 100% right by uniting behind Harris they avoided the disaster of losing both the incumbency and the contest key which almost always is the kiss of death for the White House Party I'm a little surprised you know that the Democrats finally grew a spine and a brain but at the last minute they did okay well Professor it's always good to talk to you we we'll find out in just a few weeks about six seven weeks from now whether you're right that's presidential historian Alan lickman thank you sir my pleasure