Election 2020

[Eric the Green]

(02-15-2020, 10:23 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(11-12-2018, 10:18 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The Lichtman test, as you may recall, consists of thirteen keys for predicting who wins result of the next Presidential election.

(update, 15 February 2020)

The Keys are statements that favor victory (in the popular vote count) for the incumbent party. When five or fewer statements are false, the incumbent party is predicted to win the popular vote; when six or more are false, the challenging party is predicted to win the popular vote.

Code: red -- favors Democrats without ambiguity.
blue -- favors the Republican (Trump, or in case something happens to him, Pence)
green -- yet to be decided
-- ambiguous and subject to interpretation.

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.

1. GIGANTIC NEGATIVE. We now have a definitive and irreversible answer as of November 6, 2018. The GOP not only lost seats in the House of Representatives, but also its majority. This is usually a negative for practically any administration. This was green (pending) until a the 2018 election.

2. NOW NEGATIVE. Bill Weld got 9.1% of the vote in the supposedly-uncontested Republican primary in New Hampshire. I do not see President Trump anywhere close to losing the nomination, but the vote for Weld indicates that some Republicans have cold feet about the nearly-certain nominee of their Party for President. Those cold feet could go either to the Democrat  (a 0.5% even swing which would likely be concentrated in states close in 2016 would be enough to defeat Trump) or to a conservative Third Party, a right-wing equivalent of the Green Party. Even if Bill Weld has the relevance of Harold Stassen as a perennial nominee (is he still a candidate even if now deceased?) in multiple years, a President who barely got elected and then under flukish circumstances and who has apparently gained no significant support, such bodes ill for a re-election campaign that can afford no significant hemorrhage of support in any direction. This is much more severe than the meaningless opposition to Barack Obama from a crank like Lyndon LaRouche in 2012.

Obama could afford to lose a little support from 2008 and win. Even a slight loss of popular support for Donald Trump is enough to defeat him in the general election. Lichtman was ambiguous in saying how much support for an intra-party challenge was. It takes much less to defeat someone who barely got elected (think of Jimmy Carter) than someone who won in a binary near-landslide (Obama). If people are writing in "Santa Claus" or "Mickey Mouse", then who cares?  If people are voting for a former State governor (Weld, Kasich)  instead of the incumbent within the primary, then such protest votes will be relevant in what can at most be a close win for the incumbent.

Effective Presidents rarely get elected the first time by unimpressive margins, and those that face challenges from ideological purists or ethical dissidents have troubled Presidencies. Trump had little room for any reduction of support from 2016, and demographics of the vote aren't going his way. William Weld may not be quite the same sort of internal challenge to Trump that Teddy Kennedy was to Jimmy Carter in 1980, but the election of Donald Trump wasn't impressive to begin with.  

I do not see this as Democrats doing mischief to the Republicans; Democrats themselves have a contested process of nomination.    

3. A Republican will be President in 2020 and the incumbent will be running even if something happens to President Trump. Pence would run for re-election.

4. I think that there will be, but that is too far into the future for any discussion yet (although time is clearly running out). Still, the Libertarian, Reform, and Constitution Parties have their conventions yet to come... and if either one of them can field someone attractive enough to take more votes from the Republicans than from the Democrats, then this goes negative. 
 
5. Still too early to tell. Ask again in August or September 2020. Because the only bubble is valuation of stocks, I see no pervasive meltdown likely. Real-estate valuations are in bubbles where the economy is strong (let us say Boston), but terribly depressed where the economy is in the tank (Cleveland).

6. The Obama economy had a growth rate unusually high, as it was a recovery from a nasty recession. This will be impossible to meet. I treat this as a negative even if Trump is not at fault.

7. NOW NEGATIVE. He hasn't yet. The tax bill is it. I expect more efforts at deregulation of industry, union-cracking, and privatization even if those prove unpopular. This is a positive key even if the changes are widely unpopular. Time is running out, and he must achieve something significant for such to happen. 

8. GIGANTIC NEGATIVE.  Sure, the President did not directly inspire one of his supporters to send bombs to Democratic politicians and celebrities, but he consider himself lucky that none of those bombs blew up a target. Donald Trump may be no antisemite, but the creep who mowed down eleven Jews in a Pittsburgh synagogue did so out of a concern that the  specific Jews had been  supporting immigration of non-white people. Worse, he has bumbled in his response. The frequent polite demonstrations from the Women's March on have not been unrest, but they can certainly call attention to his awfulness and aid in organizing an electoral opposition. 

President Trump's political image is being hit by both polite and civilized opposition (which is more effective) and by politically-charged violence *which is not so effective in forcing change, but is effective in discrediting the President.. He has offended thoughtful people who are organizing against him while his supporters and people that he has stirred up with his vituperation against immigrants and Islam. The polite and civilized opposition is far stronger than was the Tea Party against Obama, and politically-charged violence of any kind that people can trace to his rhetoric disgusts average people. Lichtman dismissed Tea Party protests, and Women's marches, marches for science, Black Lives Matter, and anti-gun protests get similar treatment from me. When one of the President's  loud supporters mails pipe bombs to Democratic politicians and to celebrities, or someone mows down Jews in a synagogue service in response to the President's rhetoric against a different group of people, then we have more dangerous unrest than the usual detraction that every President faces. This has gone from 'ambiguous' to 'solid negative' against the President. Worse, the President has bungled his response which solidifies the negative. To predict further unrest or political violence is irresponsible; for the sake of this country and innocent people I wish that there is no further more activity of the sort.

I can say this, though: brotherly love will not suddenly break out in America with this President unless it makes him the goat. 
 
9. GIGANTIC NEGATIVE.  This is the most systematically and severely corrupt Administration in American history. The legal problems keep piling up. The acquittal of the President in the impeachment is a blatant, almost-strictly-partisan, whitewash that convinces only the President's base. Governors, Senators, and Representatives with scandals of any kind tend to go down to defeat because Americans traditionally show little tolerance for such. 
  
10. (now) GIGANTIC NEGATIVE. I do not trust the deal with North Korea, and this President is insulting so many of America's traditional allies that something will go bad. The tariff is a disaster waiting to happen. He even bungled the memorials of the centennial of the end of World War I. If Trump had been wise, he would have deputized Barack Obama to do the job. Then again, this President knows about as much about scuba diving, which is nothing.  Worse, the impeachment was over an attempt to push a corrupt deal with a foreign government (Ukraine) that refused. This dovetails with "scandal" as Key 8... 

11. The nuke deal with North Korea? There is no enforcement in place. The President would need China and ideally also Russia as an enforcer, and ignored both. It turns out that the North Korean leader has dismantled some obsolete nukes while building more effective ones. Maybe the situation does not implode in the next two years. Let us all hope that this key does not turn negative. I prefer that South Korea fit the description "I have seen the future -- and it works" rather than be largely uninhabited, radioactive moonscape.   

12. NOW NEGATIVE. Trump already seems much less charismatic now than in 2016. He still has as solid support as ever from his cult. In the event that the Grim Reaper takes President Trump, Mike Pence has the charisma of a smelly cat box -- and he is clearly not a war hero.

13. We have no idea who the Democratic nominee will be.

One clear blue, eight red, three green (has not happened yet but still can), one purple (ambiguous). He must turn back two of the keys and prevent others from turning against him if he is to be re-elected.

I sure hope you're right. I don't think Lichtman would agree yet though. 

I don't think the Democrats have turned Key 2 yet. Weld is not a serious enough challenger yet.

Key 6 probably hasn't been turned, because the Trump economy is better than the first Obama term, if I remember correctly.

I'm not sure about Key 10. Trump's foreign policy is abysmal, but I'm not sure any one mistake has been serious enough to be considered a failure yet.

Trump could be turning Key 11 if the deal in Afghanistan goes through.

He still has the power to inspire and deceive his base. His demagogic talents are formidible. But Trump is not "charismatic" enough to turn that key #12, if that's the standard for this key.

If Bernie is nominated, Lichtman might give the Democrats Key 13, but I'm not sure.