Election 2020

[ResidentArtist]

Has anyone ever read The Keys to the White House by Allan Lichtman? It proposes a system of 13 keys, or qualifications, that can indicate whether or not the incumbent party will remain in the White House for four more years. It has a very good track record, correctly predicting the outcome of almost every election since 1984 except for the 2000 election, and made one of the few predictions in favor of a Trump victory in 2016. I bet we can use it indicate the 2020 outcome all the same.

Trump needs five or less of the keys to be false (and eight or more right) in order to secure reelection. The election should be more of a toss-up if the score is 7-6. They go as follows:
* 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.
* Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.
* Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.
* Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.
* Short term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
* Long term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.
* Policy change: The incumbent administration enacts major changes in national policy.
* Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
* Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
* Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
* Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.
* Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
* Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.

To clarify the requirements for the second and fourth keys, a serious primary contest is defined as having the opponent secure at least one-third of delegates while a significant third party bid results in that candidate winning at least 5% of the vote. The most obvious ones seem to be keys 2 and 3 in Trump's favor, and 1 and 9 for the Democrats.