A forecaster who has successfully predicted every presidential winner for the last 40 years has revealed Robert F Kennedy Jr.’s prospects for this year’s election.
Allan Lichtman, a professor of history at American University in Washington, DC, has quashed RFK’s hopes of entering the White House.
He dismissed him as a ‘third party candidate’ who is likely to ‘fade as it gets closer to the election.’
‘It’s not even clear how many ballots RFK junior is going to get,’ he told Fox 5, describing why he does not see him as a threat to Biden’s Democrat nomination.
Lichtman devised a system for predicting election outcomes, which he terms ’13 Keys to the White House.’ He recently said that ‘a lot would have to go wrong’ for Joe Biden to lose the White House to Donald Trump
Allan Lichtman, a professor of history at American University in Washington, DC , has quashed RFK’s hopes of entering the White House
He dismissed RFK as a ‘third party candidate’ who is likely to ‘fade as it gets closer to the election’
He says his keys technique enables him ‘to predict the outcome of the popular vote solely on historical factors and not the use of candidate-preference polls, tactics or campaign events.’
He judges candidates on 13 key criteria, and who ever wins more is his prediction to win the election.
One of the keys involves a third-party candidates. But, Lichtman dismissed Biden losing that key saying RFK’s 8.5 percent polling is likely to fade as November draws near.
He also hit back at pundits who say Biden should step down to make way for a younger candidate, insisting the Democrat’s ‘only chance’ of winning is with their incumbent running.
Despite polls showing Biden in trouble nationally and behind in several swing states, Lichtman believes its still in the president’s favor to retain office, with two of his 13 keys – lack of serious primary challenge and incumbency – already in Biden’s favor.
‘That’s two keys off the top,’ he said. ‘That means six more keys would have to fall to predict his defeat. A lot would have to go wrong for Biden to lose.’
However, he acknowledged the president has already lost two keys.
The first is mandate, after losing US House seats in 2022 and the second is charisma.
‘He is no John F. Kennedy or Franklin Roosevelt,’ Lichtman said. ‘There are also four shaky keys which would have to fall to predict Biden’s defeat.’
Among those are how he performs on foreign policy, social unrest and the threat posed by a third party challenger.
‘Third party, how strong will RFK emerge as we get closer to the election? He’s been all over the map so far.’
However, he added that he ‘really does not expect’ Biden to lose on this key.
By contrast, there are currently prolific scenes of social unrest across the country as university campuses explode into pro-Palestine protests over Israel’s bombing of Gaza.
Despite polls showing Biden in trouble nationally and behind in several swing states, Lichtman believes its still in the president’s favor to retain office
Lichtman devised a system for predicting election outcomes, which he terms ’13 Keys to the White House ‘
While he said this year’s result is too early to call, he declared that ‘a lot would have to go wrong’ for Joe Biden to lose to Donald Trump in November
The conflict as well as the war in Ukraine may also prove fatal for Biden, according to Lichtman’s system.
‘A lot would have to go wrong on these keys for Biden to lose, but that is still possible,’ Lichtman added.
The professor slammed pundits who rely on polls for their predictions, insisting they only present a snapshot of sentiment at the time.
An example of this was the 1988 election in which Republican candidate George H. W. Bush lagged behind his Democratic opponent, Michael Dukakis, by 17 percent.
But Bush ultimately went on to trounce his by 49 states to one.
Lichtman has successfully predicted the winner in every election since 1984.
It should be noted that while he technically was incorrect in 2000, predicting Al Gore would win, he believes that to be a stolen election and said that Gore won the popular vote.
However, he also takes credit for getting Trump’s 2016 victory correct despite Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote.
He admits that regardless of result, no system can ever be completely foolproof.
‘It’s nerve-racking because there are a lot of people who’d love to see me fail.’ And if he does? ‘I’m human. It doesn’t mean my system’s wrong. Nothing is perfect in the human world.’
Read More: World News | Entertainment News | Celeb News
Mail Online
