The Keys to the White House

The Keys to the White House, also known as the 13 Keys, is a prediction system for determining the outcome of presidential elections in the United States. It was developed by American historian Allan Lichtman and Russian geophysicist Vladimir Keilis-Borok in 1981, adapting prediction methods that Keilis-Borok designed for earthquake prediction.

The system is a thirteen-point checklist that uses true-or-false statements to assess the situation of the United States and its political system ahead of a presidential election: when five or fewer items on the checklist are false, the nominee of the incumbent party is predicted to win the election, but when six or more items on the checklist are false, the nominee of the challenging party is predicted to win.[1][2][3]

Some of the items on the checklist involve qualitative judgment, and therefore the system relies heavily on the knowledge and analytical skill of whoever attempts to apply it. Using the system, Lichtman has correctly predicted the popular vote outcome of each presidential election from 1984 to 2012. Though Lichtman claims that he correctly called the 2016 election by using the system, his 2016 book and paper stated that the Keys to the White House were designed to predict the outcome of the popular vote, which Donald Trump lost.[4][5][6][7] Following this, he stated that recent demographics changes give the Democratic Party an advantage over the Republican Party in the popular vote in close elections. He correctly called the outcome of the 2020 election.[8][9]

Lichtman argues that the system’s reliability proves that American voters select their next president according to how well the country was governed in the preceding four years and that election campaigns have little, if any, meaningful effect on American voters – if voters are satisfied with the governance of the country, they will re-elect the president or elect their party's nominee, but if they are dissatisfied, they will transfer the presidency to the challenging party.[10][11]

  1. ^ Beyer, Elizabeth. "Meet Allan Lichtman, the professor who predicted the president (and the last 9)". USA TODAY. Retrieved 2024-08-20.
  2. ^ Smith, David (2024-04-26). "'A lot would have to go wrong for Biden to lose': can Allan Lichtman predict the 2024 election?". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-08-25.
  3. ^ Schechtman, Jeff (2024-05-17). "An Election Prophecy: How 13 Keys Unlock Presidential Election Outcomes". WhoWhatWhy. Retrieved 2024-08-26.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference :2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference :3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Allan J. Lichtman (Oct 2016). "The Keys to the White House" (PDF). Social Education. 80 (5): 256–258. As a national system, the Keys predict the popular vote, not the state-by-state tally of Electoral College votes.
  7. ^ Edelman, Gilad (2024-10-16). "The Man Who's Sure That Harris Will Win". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2024-10-16.
  8. ^ Lichtman, Allan J. (October 2020). "The Keys to the White House: Final Prediction for the 2020 Election". Social Education. 84 (5): 264–266.
  9. ^ Lichtman, Allan J. (2020-07-15). "The Keys to the White House: Forecast for 2020". Harvard Data Science Review. 2 (4). doi:10.1162/99608f92.baaa8f68. ISSN 2644-2353.
  10. ^ Housman, Patty (2020-10-28). "Does Allan Lichtman stand by his "13 Keys" Prediction of a Joe Biden Win?". American University. Retrieved 2024-08-25.
  11. ^ "The 13 Keys to the White House". American University. 2016-05-04. Retrieved 2024-08-25.