Predicting the Next President: The Keys to the White House

by Allan Lichtman

Overview

In the days after Donald Trump’s unexpected victory on election night 2016, The New York Times, CNN, and other leading media outlets reached out to one of the few pundits who had correctly predicted the outcome, Allan J. Lichtman. While many election forecasters base their findings exclusively on public opinion polls, Lichtman looks at the underlying fundamentals that have driven every presidential election since 1860. Using his 13 historical factors or “keys” (four political, seven performance, and two personality), that determine the outcome of presidential elections, Lichtman had been predicting Trump’s win since September 2016. In the updated 2020 edition of this classic text, Lichtman applies the keys to every presidential election since 1860 and shows readers the current state of the 2020 race. In doing so, he dispels much of the mystery behind electoral politics and challenges many traditional assumptions. An indispensable resource for political junkies!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538148662
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	08/07/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	1
Sales rank:	955,662
File size:	454 KB

About the Author

Allan J. Lichtman teaches history at American University in Washington, D.C. He is a regular political analyst for CNN Headline News and also provides political commentary for national networks and newspapers. He is the author of White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement.

He has published more than one hundred scholarly and popular articles that have appeared in such
journals and newspapers as the American Historical Review, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, New Republic, Washington Monthly, New York Times, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, and Los Angeles Times.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Logic of the Keys: How Presidential Elections Really Work
Chapter 2: Turning the Keys to the Presidency
Chapter 3: Civil War and Reconstruction
Chapter 4: The Gilded Age
Chapter 5: Rise and Fall of Progressivism
Chapter 6: Depression, War, and Cold War
Chapter 7: New Directions, War, and Scandal
Chapter 8: The Reagan and Beyond
Chapter 9: A False Dawn for Democrats: 1996-2004
Chapter 10: The Winds of Political Change: 2008
Chapter 11: Stability in the White House 2012
Chapter 12: The Obama Legacy Repudiated: Where the Keys Stand for 2020
Chapter 13: Lessons of the Keys: Toward a New Presidential Politics

Editorial Reviews

07/04/2016
With this book’s tantalizing chapter 1 subhead, “How Presidential Elections Really Work,” readers may be moved to grab it off the shelf and get a jump on 2016’s presidential election results. And it’s true, committed political enthusiasts will be rewarded with juicy inside election tales from political analyst Lichtman (White Protestant Nation). The casual reader’s eyes, however, may glaze over upon encountering statistical charts. Anyone looking for the inside track in Vegas betting isn’t going to find a sure thing here, but curious and persevering readers will gain an abundance of new information and insight into the process of election decision-making. Using 13 “keys” that measure the incumbent administration’s performance, Lichtman has devised a diagnostic prediction system for U.S. presidential races. He introduces the system—“the keys to the White House”—in the book’s first few pages. In the balance of the book he uses election result specifics, from 1860 to the present day, to illustrate the keys and their outcomes. In the book’s concluding pages, Lichtman provides insight into this year’s election and offers some advice for Obama’s contribution to the Democratic campaign, capping off a timely and rewarding read. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Ofthe hundreds of books written about presidential elections, one of the best is Allan J. Lichtman's The Keys to the White House.

Roll Call

Animportant reminder to all of us, professional political analysts and interested citizens and observers alike, that fundamentals matter. Presidential elections are not personality contests or astrological events. Rational forces drive presidential election outcomes and nobody does a better job of making that case than Lichtman does.

Charlie Cook

An important reminder to all of us, professional political analysts and interested citizens and observers alike, that fundamentals matter. Presidential elections are not personality contests or astrological events. Rational forces drive presidential election outcomes and nobody does a better job of making that case than Lichtman does.

Of the hundreds of books written about presidential elections, one of the best is Allan J. Lichtman's The Keys to the White House.

This intriguing study offers a radical system for determining in advance the winners of American presidential elections, a system integrating historical analysis and mathematical pattern-recognition methods.

From the Publisher