‘Astrology for Politicos’: Why the 13 keys to the White House are a farce

Allan Lichtman is the author of Keys to the White House, a book and forecasting model that he states can accurately predict the winner of every presidential election. According to Lichtman, the keys have correctly predicted every presidential election since 1984. While Lichtman has been accused of molding the interpretation of his keys to the eventual winner, let’s take his keys at face value. According to Lichtman, the rule is that if 8 or more of the keys are true, the incumbent will win. If 6 or more keys are false, then the challenger wins. Many are calling his 13 keys, ‘Political astrology’. They are right.

The 13 keys are:

1. Midterm gains: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.
2. No primary contest: There is no serious primary challenger to the incumbents nomination.
3. Incumbent seeking re-election: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.
4. No third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign challenger..
5. Strong short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
6. Strong long-term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.
7. Major policy change: The incumbent enacted major policy changes during his first term in office.
8. No social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
9. No scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandals.
10. No foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
11. Major foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves major success in foreign or military affairs.
12. Charismatic incumbent: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
13. Uncharismatic challenger: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.

The problem with the keys is that many are up for interpretation. Much like in astrology, you can mold your image of someone based on your broad interpretation of them. In this scenario, you can mold your preferred candidate into matching the description of the keys. This is exactly what Lichtman has done. Lichtman is very Anti-Trump and we know this due to his book, Thirteen Cracks: Repairing American Democracy after Trump. Lichtman is a Biden loyalist, and very Anti Trump. We know this based on his X account:

Currently Lichtman has 9 of his keys favoring Biden, and 4 of them favoring Trump. This means that he predicts Joe Biden will win the presidency in November. So which of the keys are wrong? Well because this is political astrology, that’s up for everyone else to decide. What we can do is speculate on which ones could easily be interpreted to go into a different category:

3. No Third Party: RFK Jr. is pulling around 8% nationally at this moment, unclear what his support will be come November.

5. Strong Short Term Economy: Public opinion polling still shows Americans having a bad view on the current state of the economy, mostly due to inflation. Is it really that strong in the short term?

7. Major Policy Change: What major policy change has Biden enacted? If you ask this to the general public, it is unclear what they will respond with.

8. No Social Unrest: Can we consider the Israel/Gaza protests a sign of social unrest?

13. Uncharismatic Challenger: Many view Trump as an extremely charismatic figure, although the scope of this is unclear.

Bonus:

9. No Scandal: The debate performance and post-debate fallout has definitely been a scandal for incumbent president Joe Biden. So much so, that the leaders of his own party have urged him to step aside.

Will the keys hold up come election time? We will just have to wait and see.