Professor Known for Accurately Predicting Elections Says 2020 ‘Too Close to Call’ | Eastern North Carolina Now

Publisher's note: This informational nugget was sent to me by Ben Shapiro, who represents the Daily Wire, and since this is one of the most topical news events, it should be published on BCN.

The author of this post is Ashe Schow.

    In eight of the nine last presidential elections, American University professor Allan J. Lichtman has correctly predicted who would win. He now says that, according to his model, the 2020 election is "too close to call."

    The only election he called wrongly was in 2000, when he correctly predicted Al Gore would win the popular vote but also determined the former vice president would win the electoral college - which did not come true. Lichtman, now 72, recently told The New York Post that the coming presidential election was too difficult to determine at the moment.

    "This is a very close and very difficult call. I don't think either the Democrats or the Republicans should be sending up any victory flags at this point," Lichtman told the outlet. "Too much is still up in the air and in the age of Trump, things can change very quickly."

    Lichtman created a set of 13 criteria that he used to predict the outcomes of presidential elections. The Post reported these metrics "include things like scandal, foreign military failure and social unrest." Lichtman used the model to correctly predict President Ronald Reagan's re-election in 1984. While that doesn't seem like much, Lichtman stunned people with his prediction because he made it in 1982 and during a recession.

    Lichtman also raised eyebrows in 2016 when in September he predicted Donald Trump would win the election and not Hillary Clinton, who was leading in nearly all the polls at the time and was considered by the media to be the eventual winner.

    After Trump won, Lichtman also predicted Democrats would move to impeach, which didn't take a professor to figure out since they were calling for his impeachment as soon as he was elected. Lichtman, however, told the Post that impeachment wouldn't necessarily cause Trump to lose the election. Remember, while Democrats in the House are preparing articles of impeachment against Trump, Republicans control the Senate and are unlikely to actually remove the president from office.

    "The party holding the White House would have to lose six keys to count them out. If you add in the inevitable impeachment, that would be a fourth key," Lichtman told the Post.

    He added that the ongoing impeachment efforts could result in additional criteria being met.

    Still, Lichtman told the outlet that he expected the Senate to acquit Trump, even though he has called previously for impeaching the president.

    "If he's not held accountable, he's just going continue what he's been doing and you will set a precedent for any future president to rig elections by working with a foreign nation," Lichtman told the Post. "Even if it doesn't result in conviction in the Senate, a real red flashing warning sign will be put up. Otherwise our democracy could go down in flames."

    As one can see, Lichtman is no fan of Trump. Still, his predictions may still prove to be accurate.

    And impeachment may not be the boon to Democrats they hope it to be. Before the impeachment hearings, Trump was trailing several Democratic presidential candidates. Now, polls show that Trump is beating all Democratic nominees in three key battleground states - Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin - the three states that helped Trump win the electoral college in 2016.