Keys Democrats need to unlock the White House

The key factors to who will win the White House in November can be found in the style of the campaign to find the nominee, writes James Zogby.

The White House is seen in Washington March 28, 2016. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

This year’s US presidential contest has proven to be both fascinating and, at times, frightening. Both parties are engaged in near existential struggles.

In an effort to get the long view of the dynamics at work in this contest, I interviewed Allan Lichtman, Distinguished Professor of History at American University in Washington and author of The Keys to the White House, which lays out his proven method of predicting the winners in presidential elections.

Prof Lichtman often begins with the admonition to “throw away the polls and ignore the pundits”. Instead of looking at polling numbers that show a snapshot of public opinion at a point in time or listening to the pundits whose predictions are largely based on guess-work, Prof Lichtman has developed a method of prediction that analyses macro trends in the economy and society.

Prof Lichtman developed his model in 1981 basing it on an analysis of presidential contests going back to 1860 and he has been using it to correctly call the results of every race since 1984.

He has identified 13 indicators that define the contours of the political landscape and calls them his “13 keys”. According to Prof Lichtman, if the incumbent party can claim eight of the 13 keys, than they can be assured of victory in the next election. Holding fewer than eight keys means that the political setting is so hostile to the incumbent party that victory is impossible.

The “13 keys” are: (1) the incumbent party holds more seats in the House of Representatives after the last midterm election than it did after the previous midterm election; (2) the incumbent party has no real contest for the presidential nomination; (3) the incumbent party’s candidate is the sitting president; (4) there is no real third party threatening the incumbent party; (5) the short-term economy is not in recession; (6) in the long-term, per capita economic growth is improving.

He goes on: (7) the incumbent administration effected major policy changes in the past four years; (8) there is no major social unrest; (9) the incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal; (10) there have been no major military or foreign policy failures in the past four years; (11) there was a major military or foreign policy success during the past four years; (12) the presidential candidate of the incumbent party is charismatic or a national hero; and (13) the challenger is not charismatic and not a national hero.

Prof Lichtman concludes that, at this point, Democrats can comfortably claim only seven of the keys. If there is a serious third-party challenge, it will come from the right (4). The short-term economy shows no sign of going into recession (5). On the macro level, over the long-term, per capita income has been rising (although it has been stagnant for 80 per cent of the population) (6). Despite the rise of the Tea Party and the “Black Lives Matter” movements, there is not the level of social unrest the US witnessed during the Great Depression or with the civil rights and anti-Vietnam war movements (8).

The US president has not been implicated in any major scandals (9), nor suffered a major foreign policy defeat (10). And none of the GOP candidates can be considered charismatic or national heroes (13).

On the negative side, Democrats can expect to lose at least four of the keys. They held fewer seats in the Congress after the 2014 election than they held after the 2010 midterm contest (1); Barack Obama is not running for reelection (3); while the administration won major domestic victories in its first term, they have been forced to spend the last three years on the defensive (7); and Prof Lichtman doesn’t see either of the Democratic candidates as charismatic national heroes (12).

For Prof Lichtman, this election comes down to keys 2 and 11. A year ago, it was assumed that Hillary Clinton would easily win the Democratic nomination, but challenger Bernie Sanders has made it a real race.

According to Prof Lichtman, unless Mrs Clinton can sew up the nomination soon and win with two-thirds of the vote, Democrats might well lose this key (2). As for (11), while the administration will claim, with some justification, the environment pact with China, the completion of negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Iran nuclear deal as victories, these “successes” have been controversial, have not gained substantial traction with US public opinion, and, to some degree, they have been overshadowed by the unravelling of Libya, the continuing bloodshed in Syria, the Russian occupation of Crimea, and the rise of ISIL. Prof Lichtman notes that this last key may be the Democrats’ best chance to secure the eighth key they need to win the White House.

But to turn this key in their favour they must, before November, either resolve one of the still unresolved crises listed above, or do a better job of convincing the public that the agreements with China, the TPP, and Iran are the victories they claim them to be.

Dr James Zogby is the president of the Arab American Institute

On Twitter: @aaiusa