So, after applying Lichtman's 13 keys yesterday, I'm kind of underwhelmed by the model. I've never been big on it in the first place, but putting it into action made me realize how bad of a model it actually is. Sure, the model is generally correlated with election victories, but at the same time, it's not perfectly correlated with them or where voters' heads are at. Often times turning of keys false is related to other problems associated with a candidacy, but if you live in a weird time, like 2024, where I kind of feel like things are so weird the keys lack the predictive power they'd normally do, maybe the model will fail. Another issue is that many keys can be interpreted subjectively where they are only really applied in hind sight correctly, and as such, cannot predict elections. I'll discuss these problems as we go back over the 13 keys in general and how they apply to this election.
1) Party mandate
So this one basically looks at the trend the party has had in recent elections. Has the party been gaining or losing seats in the house. That is a valid way of looking at things, but generally speaking, gaining or losing seats is cyclical. When one party is in power, unless they're generally beloved by the public, like what happens after/during a realignment, they tend to lose seats. This key can predict elections in that sense, but it's kind of a weird predictor in some ways. It's normal for a party to lose seats, especially as their guy runs for reelection. of course it's looking at the net result of the previous two election cycles, so the last presidential and the mid terms, but still. Kind of a weird metric. Either way, the fact that dems LOST seats in 2020 actually should have been the first sign of trouble with Biden in 2024, as dems would be expected to GAIN seats with Trump into office. So perhaps this is a sign of weakness for Biden's coalition. One of those structural things that kinda made him doomed from the get go.
I'm gonna say this one is kind of okay at predicting I guess. Not sure if it's perfect, but it probably does mean something for the strength or weakness of the party.
2) No primary contest
Here's the problem here, with how this applies to 2024. If a primary contest appears, then that's normally a bad sign. It means there's widespread voter dissatisfaction with the candidate at hand. There wasn't one going into 2024. BUT...let's talk about why. The dems actively suppressed a primary. They kind of do this thing where they like to sweep problems under the rug. They believe that if they admit there's a problem, it means the problem exists, but if they deny it, it doesnt exist. So they bully and gaslight voters into accepting their candidates and systemically ensure there CANT be a primary challenge to turn this key true.
And that's what we're seeing now. We're seeing, going into July, that our candidate is actually a feeble old man who might not be up to the rigors of a second term. This might be a key that while currently true now, will be considered false in the history books. Because the dems tried to play it "by the book" and then argue with voters to maintain confidence and voter discipline, often trying to bully them into supporting them. They have this attitude that it's only a problem if they admit it is, when in reality, the problem comes to being because of voter dissatisfaction.
3) Incumbency
First of all, it should be noted that incumbent presidents can keep their approval ratings relatively high. Biden hasn't. Incumbents also tend to only be going for a second term. A lot of the fatigue associated with a party and their governance only manifests themselves in a third term. We seem to have this 8 year cycle in politics barring realignments where the opposing party wins the presidency, then in the mid term loses seats, manages to rally people for a second term, wins by narrower margins than the first, and then loses even more seats in the second mid term, and by the time they get to the third election in a row, the country is fed up with that party and votes for the other party. It seems like the only times candidates can avoid this cycle is if we're undergoing a realignment. Or alternatively, sometimes incumbent candidates fall apart if there's widespread voter dissatisfaction. Either because they are the third term of the party (Bush Sr.), or because they face major challenges in which they're in over their heads (Carter, Trump, even Biden). And that's the thing. I think we're in one of those cycles where incumbency doesn't mean a ton. At the same time, as I said a reason I dont wanna replace Biden is because I fear losing incumbency will make the party worse off. Sometimes changing the candidate can alienate parts of the coalition as the policy differences could either alienate moderates or more extreme members of the coalition, or they fail to have the charisma to win, etc. I mean, replacing an incumbent can be risky. So maybe there is something to incumbency, but I do think that generally speaking barring realignments, parties are on a time limit and it's normally 8 years.
4) No third party
I've always said it. Third parties being popular is a sign that the existing coalitions are failing in some realm of politics. And yes, third parties gaining traction is a sign of a failure of the two party system to satisfy voters. HOWEVER, the problem with this key is it's subjective. Lichtman says 5% of the vote is needed for this key to turn false. However, we wont know until election day. As such, he says 10% is needed in polls as third party candidates often underperform. Okay, well, RFK is in this weird 7% area, does he count? Technically no, but also maybe yes. Again, the problem with the keys is we can go back afterwards and say "oh yeah I guess RFK was significant after all" if we get the results and Biden lost...in part because RFK was there.
5+6) Strong short/long term economy
On #5, it seems to be related to the economy being in recession. But at the same time he has admitted subjectivity and the people FEELING like the country is in a recession might be valid too (at least according to wikipedia). But here's the thing, given it is about voters, what if people FEEL the economy is bad even if it's not technically bad? What about inflation? Recessions suck but inflation is the other side of that coin. An economy with high inflation can be as bad as a recession in another way. But this metric seems to be applied dogmatically by Lichtman. Honestly, i think recent elections are marred by economic dissatisfaction regardless of the reality. 2016 people were unhappy and still felt like it was part of the great recession. In 2020, we WERE in a recession due to COVID. In 2024, the economy is "great on paper" but people are upset about inflation.
Much like with #2, democrats like to just ignore the problem exists. They'd rather "tick boxes" and tell voters the economy is great even if it isn't for whatever reason, or voters dont feel that way, and try to invalidate voters' feelings and tell them that they're stupid or it's their fault for them not doing well in it, and that creates resentment which leads people to vote for populist demagogues.
Long term economy, I get it, growth is good, and a lack of it can be associated with recessions, but again, I really do think that it ultimately comes down to the feels, not the reals. And that's what these metrics are missing. The keys are technically true by the numbers, but go a little deeper and they could turn false. Of course, you'll need to acknowledge subjective feelings for that, which I'm not sure lichtman does, and dems DEFINITELY don't. They'd rather just yell at voters and call them stupid for thinking there's a problem when people dont see how the metrics actually translate to helping them.
As I said, we live in strange times, between people starting to fall out of love with the traditional idea of the economy (hence my variation of human centered capitalism), and 2024 just being this sucko high inflation year that kind of breaks the model in the first place.
7) Major policy change
The way Lichtman defines it, he defines it as a major piece of legislation, and it doesnt matter how people feel about it. The problem with this is normally a major piece of legislation is something that the party in power can go to their base and say "we did this for you", and people like them for it. But with Biden, his major policy changes was stuff like the American Rescue Plan, which helped bail us out during COVID, but that was 3 years ago, the stuff it did is gone now, it's been rolled back, and a lot of it was controversial and is now blamed for inflation. I'm not saying it caused inflation. If anything I'd argue it didn't. But voters dont always understand that. So now looking into a second term for this guy, they're like "but what did he do for me?" and temporary stuff from 3 years ago that's largely expired doesn't count.
8) No social unrest
In Lichtman's model it has to be widespread social unrest, hence this key being true, but people are unhappy over Gaza and he has faced repeated harassment and annoyance over the free palestine weirdos. I admit, they are relatively isolated and a small percentage of the population, but they punch above their weight, and they are having a visible impact. It's kinda like a mini 1968 for us. Idk, this is a key that could be subjectively applied in hindsight even if it's rated as true now.
9) No scandal
This one's pretty clear, but if it does turn out that the DNC is "weekend at Bernie's"ing this guy, is that technically a scandal? It's rated as true, but it could be false if it turns out Biden is truly in cognitive decline and it's being covered up. Another one for the history books.
10/11) Foreign military failure/success
What counts as a failure? Some would call Afghanistan a failure. Although others have been wanting us out of it for years. Does it hurt Biden at all? Does it help? Does it matter? Does anyone care?
Some call gaza a failure. Is it really a failure? Again, totally subjective.
I don't think he has anything that can clean cut be called a success though. I would say that having failures and successes related to your career can impact your perception in the next term. But generally speaking, I think people have to care about what's going on. Like with iraq, people wanted OUT in 2008. Getting out of iraq couldve been seen as a "failure" in the same way but it was actually what the people wanted. Same with Afghanistan under Biden.
I mean, if youre dealing with a really clear cut situation that is at the center of attention, that's one thing, but does anyone care this time around? If anything people seem to hate that foreign policy has the outsized attention it does. Americans seem in a very isolationist mood right now. They dont wanna spend money on ukraine or israel, they go on about why does the government spend the money here in the US, and yeah. I think that this metric needs to assume people care. Although if they don't, is it a major success or failure? Probably not.
12/13) Charismatic incumbent/uncharismatic challenger
Ok so Biden aint charismatic, we all know that. But what of Trump? Lichtman rates this key as true. Trump is uncharismatic. A lot of people have issues with this. They point out that trump is a celebrity, and that he is very popular among a lot of the population. But thats the thing. Lichtman would say his appeal is too narrow. When he talks charismatic people, he seems to mostly be talking about those once in a generation realigning figures, and think trump fails to fit the bill.
I personally am actually mixed on Trump's charisma. I think he is potentially a realigning figure. A polarizing one, it's not a clear realignment with the GOP winning in a landslide, but he is realigning the parties. To be fair, william jennings bryan was seen as a charismatic figure too and he lost. He never was president. So idk, if anything, I think Trump could be that kind of guy. The fact that the dems failed to capitalize on bernie could mean that we do realign with trump taking all of the populist energy to the GOP while the dems continue to be stuffy and push boring uncharismatic centrists. That seems to be the realignment that's happening.
The problem with realignments is we often don't know what they look like until we look in hindsight. I mean, sure the simple ones are pretty easy. Like Abe Lincoln in 1860, FDR in 1932, etc, but sometimes we don't know until hindsight. The reagan alignment actually started shifting that way as early as the 1960s, with the dixiecrats leaving the democratic party and nixon bringing them into the GOP via the southern strategy. Reagan was the charismatic guy in 1980, but until then, no one had any idea wtf was going on.
In that sense, maybe Trump isn't "the guy", but he might retroactively end up being the guy if no one else appears and we look at this secular realignment in hindsight.
That's the problem with a lot of these keys. Lichtman is a historian, and he looks at this stuff in hindsight. He can point to the election of 1892 and apply his model and it works, but applying it to 2024 doesnt necessarily mean it will, because we dont know how the keys actually will turn out.
We don't know if trump is considered charismatic. We dont know what's considered a foreign policy failure or success, we don't know if gaza unrest is significant to be considered unrest. If Biden really is gonna face a primary challenge at the convention or not. If RFK will be a factor. WE DONT KNOW. And in a lot of ways, that's the strength of this model. We can just retroactively apply it in whatever way we see fit and say that it works. If Biden wins, we can rate some keys true but if he loses, we can rate them false and say the model was correct either way.
Also, this model seems correlated with electoral success in intuitive ways, but what happens when you got the democrats just "ticking boxes" and ignoring widespread voter dissatisfaction to force the keys to tuern true instead of false? Biden faces no primary challenge unless they say he does, so they can just artificially keep the key turned to true even if everyone hates biden. The fact is, what makes the key matter is the fact that people dont like current guy. But the dems just tick the box to make it look like biden faces no challenge when in reality most people didnt even want him to run again, they cant stomach the thought of voting for him, and now most voters dont think he has the chops to do the job.
Or what of the economy? The economy looks good on paper yet much like with 2016, there's widespread dissatisfaction that's ignored by this model. This is further complicated by us having an election year where we are experiencing high inflation. From a keynesian perspective like my own, high inflation CAN be as badly received as a recession. And that could invalidate both those keys.
That's the problem with Biden and the democrats in general. They love to run on this picturesque idea of everything going good and fine in their time, and there's no problems at all, but in reality they're just ignoring the problems and the fact that they exist in order to tick off boxes. it's as if they think acknowledging the problem means they wont be reelected, but ignoring it means it will.
But what do the keys actually predict? Isnt the entire point to predict how voters will ultimately vote? If the metrics fail to actually measure how voters think, then this model is completely garbage and doesn't predict anything.
And this is where I think we'll run into issues with 2024. As of now, my own analysis of it as 8 TRUE and 5 FALSE, this means Biden should be reelected. Lichtman would have 9 true and 4 false, or some variation thereof, with the major difference is him marking #5 as true. Based on this, Biden should coast to reelection.
And yet, in the polls he's down. There's widespread dissatisfaction among his leadership. People are starting to call for him to step down. And no one actually likes this guy.
On polling alone, I have Biden at a 24% chance of winning, and a 76% chance of losing. I think, after carefully following the data for months and running the scenarios, this is accurate. Biden CAN still win and overperform, but the probability of him doing so isn't good. And after this debate, I think my fears regarding him have been confirmed.
As such, I would actually predict this model to get it wrong. And I'll tell you why. Because again, dems do tick boxes like no primary challenge and a strong economy without acknowledging dissatisfaction happens under the surface. if anything they sweep all of our problems under the rug and pretend they dont exist to artificially inflate the metrics of what a strong reelection campaign looks like. They think they can then go to the voters and tell them what to think and convince them to vote for him. I think that this is wrong and you can't piss on peoples' legs and tell them it's raining. This is what the dems did in 2016, and it didn't work. They literally haven't learned since then.
I also think many of these keys are too ambiguous to predict much of anything, rather, we can just retroactively interpret them to fit the model and then say the model works. I don't think the model has strong predictive power. Rather, I think we kind of shape the model around the outcome and then declare it to never be wrong.
I'm not saying the model can't get it right most of the time. It definitely can, because the measures are generally correlated with reelecting presidents. But correlation isnt causation, and sometimes I feel like this whole thing is a giant McNamara fallacy where we kind of just focus so hard on the metrics that we ignore what the metrics are supposed to measure and correlate with.
Ultimately what wins elections is VOTERS. These measures are broad indicators of voter satisfaction/dissatisfaction. But we live in strange times where the metrics look good, but the voters are unhappy. As such, I expect the model to actually fail and fall flat on its face this election.
I think that in 2024, much like in 2016, we live in strange times where just because things look good on paper doesn't mean people are happy, and will vote the way those indicators would expect them to.
I really don't think this model works as well as its often purported to, and that this election it's massively overhyped. i think the polls tell the real story, not this model.
We'll see how 2024 turns out. I'd be happy to be proven wrong, this election cycle of all cycles. I really dont want to see Trump win.
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