2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumProfessor who’s predicted 30 years of presidential elections correctly is doubling down on Trump win
Washington PostAllan J. Lichtman, distinguished professor of history at American University, said Democrats would not be able to hold on to the White House.
In the intervening weeks, the campaign was rocked by a series of events. The release of the Access Hollywood tape obtained by The Washington Post was followed by accusations from a growing list of women of various improprieties on Trump's part, ranging from verbal abuse and harassment to outright sexual assault. Fix founder Chris Cillizza named Trump the winner of the inauspicious Worst Week in Washington award for four weeks running. At the same time, WikiLeaks released internal Clinton campaign emails, and the U.S. government flatly accused the Kremlin of being involved. And let's not forget those presidential debates.
So plenty has changed. But one thing hasn't: Lichtman, author of Predicting the Next President: The Keys to the White House 2016, is sticking with his prediction of a Trump victory.
Panic!
beachbumbob
(9,263 posts)Can get 6-1 odds...that's a good return...the bookies still seeing it as a Hillary slam dunk
dofus
(2,413 posts)You left out a verb.
UtahJosh
(131 posts)all the way up until 2008 when they all were.
Farmgirl1961
(1,493 posts)I mean it seems practically statistically impossible, so on what basis would he said that Trump will win? What does he know that we don't?
grossproffit
(5,591 posts)CincyDem
(6,363 posts)What makes this unpredictable to me is that I believe there are many women out there who live in homes with Trump signs in the front year and who walk around the rallies with hubby. They have a hard edge and say all the right things...and when it comes to the privacy of the voting booth where one can keep the ultimate secret, the vote HRC. Maybe because deep down they really do think Trump is an asshat. Maybe it's because they get to stick one to hubby. who knows - a vote a vote.
In that same privacy, I think there a lot of guys with HRC signs in the front yard and "feel" like total democrats and in their private moment, they're going trump. Whether it be sexism or racism, I have this concern (I know I know - +12, don't worry)...I have this concern that more so than any other election people are being "not honest" with the pollsters either purposefully or sub consciously.
My goal is to just keep working my friends group and keep them on the right path.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)I'll be nervous. That such a dangerous person could come within an election of the oval office is already a failure of our democracy.
Btw, that anti-Trump nuclear war ad with the mushroom cloud is playing in battleground states. It's not hyperbole. We really could wake up one morning to find millions of people were dead and dying because a President Trump thought someone wasn't being "nice" to him.
Farmgirl1961
(1,493 posts)Theoretically it is possible...perhaps not probable, but the whole possibility puts me on edge. And I agree...he's a dangerous man who must be stopped. I'm just hoping the majority of Americans are sane enough to make the right choice.
grossproffit
(5,591 posts)yellowcanine
(35,699 posts)And his system has worked fairly well up to now. But some things have changed - notably the "electoral college lock" which has developed for Democrats over the last several elections. And of course we have never had a candidate like Trump and his model depends on major parties selecting candidates who the parties unite around.
The statistical sites such as 538 have a very good track record in recent years for general elections.
anneboleyn
(5,611 posts)That is why I think sites like 538 are much better at determining the likely outcome in a year like this one.
Democat
(11,617 posts)You and VaderMike post concern about Clinton quite often.
7worldtrade
(85 posts)Anybody predicting what everyone else is predicting gets zero news now and later. If his prediction fails (which it will) nobody blames him - just chalk it up to the circumstances. But if he's right, he becomes the most popular person on the right for a very long time. its a win, no lose or win/win proposition. That's all it is.
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)Lichtman has apparently found some correlations which are only useful for predictions until they're not.
meadowlark5
(2,795 posts)Here are the 13 questions that he makes his prediction on:
Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.
Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.
Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.
Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.
Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
Long-term economy: Real per-capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.
Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.
Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.
Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero
BobbyDrake
(2,542 posts)I doubt this model accounted for one candidate bragging about all the sexual assault he committed.
Cha
(297,323 posts)years better not mean he's right about this one.
uponit7771
(90,347 posts)... party you're supporting.
book_worm
(15,951 posts)DetlefK
(16,423 posts)13 questions only?
And the possible answers are binary Yes-vs-No only?
Come oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon. Any fuzzy-logic routine from the 1990s is more sophisticated than that.
If that professor tried to apply a similar technique for predicting anything scientific, he would get laughed out of the room by his colleagues.
Blue Idaho
(5,049 posts)So I hope he enjoys his moment in the sun...
workinclasszero
(28,270 posts)..till he was wrong.
meadowlark5
(2,795 posts)But it seems the answer to some of those questions could be quite subjective. And the first one about the congress and midterms should not even be considered due to gerrymandering over the last 8yrs. More dems voted in 2014 than republicans but because of gerrymandering, republicans still won/held seats.
mahatmakanejeeves
(57,499 posts)Just because they're rare, that doesn't mean they don't exist.
Metaphorically:
The black swan theory or theory of black swan events is a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight. The term is based on an ancient saying which presumed black swans did not exist, but the saying was rewritten after black swans were discovered in the wild.
And this:
Downturn
....
LTCM was essentially betting that the share prices of Royal Dutch and Shell would converge because in their belief the present value of the future cashflows of the two securities should be similar. This might have happened in the long run, but due to its losses on other positions, LTCM had to unwind its position in Royal Dutch Shell. Lowenstein reports that the premium of Royal Dutch had increased to about 22%, which implies that LTCM incurred a large loss on this arbitrage strategy. LTCM lost $286 million in equity pairs trading and more than half of this loss is accounted for by the Royal Dutch Shell trade.
The company, which had historically earned annualised compounded returns of almost 40% up to this point, experienced a flight-to-liquidity. In the first three weeks of September, LTCM's equity tumbled from $2.3 billion at the start of the month to just $400 million by September 25. With liabilities still over $100 billion, this translated to an effective leverage ratio of more than 250-to-1.
Full disclosure: I made an investment in the wake of this black swan event, and it turned out well.
Black swans do happen.
According to other posts I've seen by brooklynite, I am sure that he is well aware of LTCM. They had a foolproof algorithm that took account of everything - until a black swan event occurred that the algorithm could not accommodate. The one guy saying "it can happen" might be right.
When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management is a book by Roger Lowenstein published by Random House on October 9, 2000. The book puts forth an unauthorized account of the creation, early success, abrupt collapse, and rushed bailout of Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM). LTCM was a tightly-held American hedge fund founded in 1993 which commanded more than $100 billion in assets at its height, then collapsed abruptly in August/September 1998. Prompted by deep concerns about LTCM's thousands of derivative contracts, in order to avoid a panic by banks and investors worldwide, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York stepped in to organize a bailout with the various major banks at risk.
....
Overview
The book tells the story of Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM), an American hedge fund which commanded more than $100 billion in assets at its height. Among LTCM's principals were several former university professors, including two Nobel Prize-winning economists.
....
Between 1994 and 1998, the fund showed a return on investment of more than 40% per annum. However, its enormously leveraged gamble with various forms of arbitrage involving more than $1 trillion went bad, and in one month, LTCM lost $1.9 billion. On the precipice of not only an American financial disaster, the fund's imminent collapse had significant international monetary implications, jeopardizing the financial system itself. Prompted by deep concerns about LTCM's thousands of derivative contracts, in order to avoid a panic by banks and investors worldwide, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York stepped in to organize a bailout with the various major banks at risk.
Don't stay home on November 8 in the belief that your vote isn't needed.
still_one
(92,219 posts)criteria he uses:
METHOD:
Lichtman first developed the Keys system in 1981, in collaboration with Vladimir Keilis-Borok, founder of the International Institute of Earthquake Prediction Theory and Mathematical Geophysics. The methodology used in the development of the Keys is described in Keilis-Borok and Lichtman (1981) and Lichtman (2008, 2010a). As shown in Table 1, each of the thirteen keys is stated as a threshold condition that always favors the re-election of the party holding the White House. For example, Key 5 is phrased as The economy is not in recession during the election campaign. Each key can then be assessed as true or false prior to an upcoming election and the winner predicted according to a simple decision rule. Unlike other systems for predicting election results, the Keys do not assume a fixed relationship between election results and one more dependent variables, such as economic growth or presidential approval ratings. Rather predictions are based on an index comprised of the number of false or negative keys: When five or fewer keys are false, the incumbent party wins; when any six or more are false, the challenging party wins.
The 13 Keys to the White House and their coding (1: True; 0: False) for 2016
1 Party Mandate After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than it did after the previous midterm elections.
2 Contest There is no serious contest for the incumbent-party nomination.
3 Incumbency The incumbent-party candidate is the sitting president.
4 Third party There is no significant third party or independent campaign.
5 Short-term economy The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
6 Long-term economy Real per-capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.
7 Policy change The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.
8 Social unrest There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
9 Scandal The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
10 Foreign/military failure The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
11 Foreign/military success The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.
12 Incumbent charisma The incumbent-party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.13 Challenger charisma The challenging-party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.
https://pollyvote.com/en/components/index-models/keys-to-the-white-house/
The question is what f**king excuse is Lichtman going to use if trump loses? A more likely scenario is he won't even be covered
molova
(543 posts)For embarrassment purposes.