Professor Masks Evidence, Discredits Own Election Model in Trump Victory Prediction

Free Republic ^ | 9/24/2016 | Pocono Pundit

[poconopundit]

For the last few days, the news has spread about history professor Allan Lichtman's prediction that Trump would win the election.  Trump retweeted it today and many FReepers have commented on the the original WaPo story.  Lichtman claims his model has accurately predicted the POTUS winner for 30 years. 

Being curious how the professor came up with his conclusion, I searched and I found his methodology in a Wikipedia entry entitled, The Keys to The White House.

Now when I listened to Professor Lichtman's analysis in a Washington Post video, it immediately raised some red flags about the guy's legitimacy and objectivity.  For instance:

1. For a supposedly objective observer of elections, Lichtman spent quite a lot of time explaining how evil a candidate Trump is. 

2. At the end of his analysis, Lichtman was strident about Trump being such an unusual candidate that you could more or less throw Lichtman's predictive model out of the window. 

3. Finally, Lichtman claimed that 6 of the 13 Keys to the White House this year favored Trump.  However, when I scored the Keys myself, I counted 10 of the 13 Keys are positive for Trump!  That's a very big difference, suggesting Lichtman is biased.

According to the Election Prediction Model, the 13 Keys are statements that favor the re-election of the incumbent party.  The winner is determined as follows:

The incumbent party wins when: Five or fewer statements are false
The challenging party wins when: Six or more statements are false.

So here's my own scoring of Lichtman's model.  Please refute me if you disagree with my True/False answers:

1. Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S.  House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections. 

   False, the Republican Party gained House seats in the 2014 mid-terms. 
   

2. Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination. 

   False, Bernie Sanders put up a substantial fight for the Democratic nomination. 
   

3. Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president. 

   False, the incumbent candidate, Hillary, is not the sitting president. 
   

4. Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.

   False, the Gary Johnson candidacy is a significant one.  Polls show him gaining a decent, but small share of votes. 
   

5. Short term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.

   True, we are not currently in recession.
   

6. Long term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.

   True, while the accuracy of data and the meaning of "real" can be questioned, the per capita GDP in the most recent term is higher than in previous terms. 
   

7. Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.

   True, the Obama administration has effected massive changes in national policy -- Obamacare, wide open borders, massive environmental regulations, federal censure of local law enforcement, exit of ground troops in Iraq, support of the Muslim Brotherhood, and more.

8. Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.

   False, mass murders by ISIS terrorists, illegal immigrant/gang violence, and BLM-sponsored riots and police killings is a growing trend in our inner cities. 

9. Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.

   False, are you kidding me? The scandals never end.  Benghazi, Iran ransom for hostages, national security breaches around email, IRS targeting of conservatives, Clinton Foundation collusion with State Department business, etc.

10. Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.

    False.  The global rise of ISIS terrorism and massive refugee exits from Syria occurred during Obama and Hillary's terms in office.

11. Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.

    False.  No recent successes to speak of.  In fact, the Iran agreement and policy clashes with Russian on Syria have made the world more dangerous.  Respect the for US is down.  On arrival in Shanghai for the global summit, the Chinese government would not even provide a stairway for our sitting president to exit Air Force One. 

12. Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.

    False.  The incumbent candidate is a national disgrace through her breaches of national security, her constantly lying, labeling one fourth of the voting public as "racist, homophobic, Islamaphobic, and xenophobic", her international corruption and US policy influence peddling through the Clinton Foundation while she was Secretary of State.  As far as charisma goes, when a major candidate in the last 60 days of a national election can only draw an audience of 200, her candidacy can only be described as repulsive.

13. Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.

    False.  Trump is one of the most charismatic of candidates ever to run for President.  He is a national business hero and for 15 years was the star of the hit NBC TV show, the Apprentice.  Several times a week he draws thousands of people to his rallies.  He also captured more primary votes than any Republican candidate in history, and this was against a field of 16 opponents.

[SkyDancer]

Trump has to win otherwise what will all those liberal outlets have to do? If they don’t have Trump then all the media has is glorifying Hillary.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Thanks for doing your own scoring. I read the article about his model this morning and thought his “scoring” was preposterous. Many of the categories are highly subjective and scored very differently based on your leaning. I thought his scoring of major achievements, recession, and scandal (in particular) were outrageous. I agree with your scoring much more than his.

[Jim W N]

FR, the Free Intelligence Agency (FIA) of a free people.

Good job poconopundit.

[poconopundit]

It's a very interesting case when a Professor tears down his own 30-year success story of prediction.

I took the professor's methodology and show why the guy is sandbagging Trump's chances to get elected.

The original WaPo story contains the video of his analysis -- or more truthfully his Trump takedown.

[sparklite2]

red flags about the guy’s legitimacy

---

If he correctly predicted elections for the last thirty years, questioning his legitimacy must rely on a definition of legitimacy I’m not familiar with.

[Red Steel]

He looks to be the usual liberal academic who has to placate the other liberal loons. They always lie to each other.

[Verginius Rufus]

Re #1: it is true that the Republicans have more seats in the House now than they did in the preceding Congress (elected in 2012), but they didn't win as many seats in 2014 as they did in the previous midterm election in 2010.

Current breakdown is 246-186.
After the 2012 election it was 233-199.
After the 2010 election it was 257-178.

[poconopundit]

You make a good point.

But consider this: if the guy's analysis is misleading, it leads you to question the legitimacy of his analysis.

For instance, what's to say the guy (when he was 30 years old) didn't start with 25 analytics models. And he found one of them that worked for every election. So that's the analytic model he trots out in public.

[thoughtomator]

All but #7 are false. Blatantly manipulated government statistics are not a valid basis for an answer, and all other indicators indicate a big-D Depression.

[hinckley buzzard]

Agreed. I had the same reaction to this guy's whitewash. It seems to me he tried to hedge his own bet so that if Hillary wins, he can still salvage his "model" and his reputation by claiming the election was so borderline the model was just slightly off. These liberals are so transparent.

[poconopundit]

He's hedging his bets for sure.

And my guess the condition of getting covered by WaPo in the first place was that he would trash Trump in the video.

[xzins]

Good job, Poconopundit.

I agree with you.

I noted that at a minimum there was a huge contest for the democrat nomination. Had it not been rigged and all the super-delegate numbers always put on Clinton’s numbers from the very first primary, she would not have seemed to be running away with the race. It would have been neck and neck, and that would have strengthened Sanders and weakened Clinton.

Sanders truly was cheated, and then the WikiLeaks emails came out to prove it.

[poconopundit]

What this guy's election model does not account for is the massive citizen revolt against the government.

So in that sense, you're correct. You can't tell the average voter that the economy is going well.

[sodpoodle]

I posted this on an earlier thread.

The professor’s record is based on only EIGHT elections.

1984 Reagan Obvious - a popular incumbent
1988 GHW Bush Not so obvious but was (a Navy Pilot hero)&
VP
1992 Bill C Good guess
1996 Bill C Incumbent & Newt did the heavy lifting
2000 GW no incumbent and Clinton disgraced the office
2004 GW Incumbent and a decent man
2008 Obama Obvious - no incumbent & slick marketing
2012 Obama Obvious - Incumbent

[FlingWingFlyer]

People need to throw all of the goofy “models” and “predications” out the window. The upcoming election is not going to be a normal election and it is unlike any other presidential election we had when America was America with normal citizens and voters. This year’s election is going to be a freak show loaded with massive and “yuge” amounts for voter fraud. We never have had an election where the ruling party was allowed to import foreigners for the election and pump them out as “u.s. citizen” with the right to vote. We’ve never had an election before where 30 to 50 million America-hating, illegal alien freeloaders, criminals and invaders were encouraged to vote by the government.

[HarleyLady27]

I read this earlier from another site, shock my head and thought: This guy is stupid, he’s pushing Hillary...

Thanks Poconopundit for detailing why I thought that...

Great article...

[justlurking]

True, we are not currently in recession.

Technically, we may not be.

But, I think there are a lot of people out there that FEEL they are in a recession, for a variety of reasons.

So, I'd rate this one "half True".

[Windflier]

Like all liberals, the professor becomes conflicted and discombobulated when confronted with a sobering fact that is predicated upon his own line of reasoning, yet conflicts with his utopian worldview.

Painted himself into a corner, didn’t he? Heh...

[V K Lee]

Frankly, the public saw more than enough of Allan Lichtman
during the Clinton administration at the time of his impeachment. Allan was on the tube night after night; a typical liberal who attempted to be what he was not. WTP have had our fill of the Lichtman types (Sabato)
Perhaps they should stay in university classrooms and forget the attempt to spout their nonsense on broadcasting Tee Vee
Teaching marshmallows is not the true reality of a real world.