Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Allan Lichtman: Presidential Historian on the US Election ahead of the announcement of Kamala Harris' running mate

Transcript

Allan Lichtman: Presidential Historian on the US Election ahead of the announcement of Kamala Harris' running mate · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: To the United States we Go. Karmena Harris is set
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: to announce her vice presidential pick tomorrow, ahead of their
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: first public appearance together in Pennsylvania on Thursday. Presidential historian
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Alan Lickman has correctly predicted almost every US election since
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties through a process called the Thirteen Keys
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: to the White House. He's with us this morning, Allen,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: thanks for being on the show. Who's going to Win?
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Well? I have not made a final prediction yet. I've
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: been misinterpreted as having made one, but I'm not going
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: to make one until after the Democratic Convention. But I
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: have been saying for months, and the switch from Biden
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: to Harris has not changed that that a lot would
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: have to go wrong for the Democrats to lose. That's
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: certainly possible, that can happen. Things are very fluid, But
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: a lot would have to go wrong for the Democrats
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: to lose. According to my Keys to the white House system,
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: which taps into the structure of how American presidential elections
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: really work as votes up or down on the strength
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: and performance of the White House Party, and the system
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: has been right since I predicted Ronald Reagan's reelection in
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  Speaker 2: April nineteen eighty two, nearly three years ahead of time,
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  Speaker 2: when America was then in the worst recession since the
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Great Depression, and sixty percent of Americans thought Ronald Reagan
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: was too old to run again. And of course I
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: was virtually alone in predicting Donald Trump's win in twenty sixteen, which,
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: as you can imagine, did not make me very popular
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: in ninety percent plus Democratic Washington, d C. Where I
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: teach at American University.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: That your formula works, you're stuck to it, You're held
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: to ground. I think that's when I last interviewed you.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: You've got these thirteen keys. Some of them are about
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: the economy, you know, the short term economy, the long
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: term economy. Obviously there's been inflation in the US. The
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: stock markets are in turmoil at the moment. Do you
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  Speaker 1: weight the keys differently or they all weighted the same.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: There are two secrets to the successful use of the keys,
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  Speaker 2: and one is they are weighted as one. The problem
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  Speaker 2: is when you wight parameters of any system, they have
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: to be based on past elections, but the weights will
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: then unpredictably change in a future election, creating errors. Secondly,
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: there are trigger effects, so if one key is big enough,
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: it will trigger other keys. For example, in the sixties,
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: the war in Vietnam triggered Lyndon Johnson to withdraw from
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: his re election campaign, losing the incumbency key, losing the
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: party contest key. The war created a great deal of
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: social unrest and democratic losses in the midterm elections of
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: nineteen In sixty six.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: You mentioned the incumbency key. Does Harris get that even
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: though she wasn't the president in this term?
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, I was very critical of the democrats
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: shameful public trashing of their incumbent president, and I thought
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: they were heading for the disaster of both losing the
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: incumbency key if they forced Biden out and losing the
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: party contest key, because they were heading for a big brawl.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: But somehow the Democrats grew a spine in a brain,
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  Speaker 2: did the right thing, united behind Harris, which avoided the
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: loss of the contest key. And so this major change
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: only cost the Democrats one key, the incumbency key, and
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: did not fundamentally change my assessment.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: What about Robert F. Kennedy, one of your keys is
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: a third party being involved. What do you think his
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: chances will be? And who does it hurt.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Third parties in my system count against the White House
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: Party because it's a sign of discontent. But it's a
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: high threshold key. You've got to anticipate the third party
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: candidate to be getting at least five percent of the vote.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Of course I don't know that, So it's the one
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: time I have to use a poll. But I don't
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: take the poll at face value because typically, as a
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: result of the Lickman wasted vote syndrome, I love you
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: RFK JR. Which can't win, so I won't vote for you.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: I cut the poll numbers in half. So he's got
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: to be polling at at least ten percent. I don't
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: think that's going to happen.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Ell in one of your caves. The final question is
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: incumbent charisma challenge a charisma, who's more charismatic.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: It's not a question of who's more charismatic. It's a
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: question of whether these candidates fulfill my criteria, which is
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: they have to be one of these once in a
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  Speaker 2: generation inspirational, broadly appealing candidates who converts members of the opposition,
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  Speaker 2: like the Democrat Franklin Roosevelt or the Republican Ronald Reagan,
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  Speaker 2: who won six elections in landslides or near landslides. Clearly,
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: Paris has not yet emerged as an FDR, and Trump
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: is not a Reagan. He lost two elections in the
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  Speaker 2: votes of the people by ten million votes. There are
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: not Trump Democrats like there were Reagan Democrats. He only
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: appeals to a narrow base and thus does not fit
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: the criteria either. For more from news Talks at b
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: listen live on air or online, and keep our shows
• 5:46
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