Professor Who Predicted Past 8 Elections Correctly: Trump Favorite to Win

Republican candidate Donald Trump is headed for a win according to Professor Allan Lichtman, who has correctly predicted every presidential election in the past 30 years.

Lichtman, a distinguished professor of history at American University, and author of "Predicting the Next President: The Keys to the White House 2016," explained his result and his methods to The Washington Post.

Instead of relying on polling data, demographic studies or his personal political opinions, he uses a series of true/false statements known as the "Keys to the White House," which he claims can predict the winner.

The keys, from his book, are:

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.
2. Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.
3. Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.
4. Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.
5. Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
6. Long-term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.
7. Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.
8. Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
9. Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
10. Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
11. Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.
12. Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
13. Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.

Based on the idea that "elections are primarily judgments on the performance of the party holding the White House," if six or more of the 13 keys are false, then the incumbent party loses the White House.

By Lichtman's count, six of the keys are false. Democrats were hammered in the midterm elections, President Barack Obama is not running, his administration didn't have any major policy victories, national or foreign, in his last term, and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton is not charismatic enough.

He adds that Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson is, by his methods, likely to win 6 to 7 percent of the vote in November, which is "the sixth and final key against the Democrats."

Lichtman does admit that Trump's unconventional candidacy makes this election more difficult to predict.

"All of the lies and dangerous things he's said in this campaign," he told the Post, "that could make him a precedent-shattering candidate."

"As people realize the choice is not Gary Johnson," he continues, "the only choice is between Trump and Clinton, those Gary Johnson supporters may move away from Johnson and toward Clinton, particularly those millennials."

Lichtman compares this to the 1968 election, in which young liberals dissatisfied with the Democratic establishment represented by Hubert Humphrey elected Richard Nixon.

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