No. He's a total fraud. His keys are simply his ridiculous opinion and not a model. He said before Biden was pushed out that if the Dem nominee was anyone but Biden that Trump would win. Then immediately flip flopped. He's like Aloha on steroids. Trump should easily have 9 or 10 of his keys.
As Lichtman often says, you're free to make your own predicitons, establish and define your own standards, and he encourages you to do so. But the keys that he uses are based on studying every US Presidentail election back to 1860, and determine which apply to the White House party when they win or lose the next election. So if you want to use his system you have to adhere to his keys and how he defined them in 1980, and then used them in 1982, to predict that Reagan would be re-elected.
At that point in time the US was in a depression, Reagan trailed in the polls and was hugely unpopular. Like Biden, the general consensous was that Reagan was too old. Lichtman never predicted Biden to win in 2024, he just said that he would make a prediction following the end of both conventions. He did say it would be a mistake for the Dems to lose Biden AND then have a messy convention fight because that would mean the loss of two keys.
But Biden is aware of the keys, so he made the smart move of endorsing Kamala and thus avoiding the messy convention. Because of that the Dems only have 3-5 keys against them. Also nominating Harris resulted in RFK Jrs campaign collapsing which secured the "no significant 3rd party key".
As to your asinine statement that "Trump should easily have 9 or 10 keys", you're talking about your keys not Lichtman's.Lichtman's are very clearly defined and are based on historical comparisons. Take for example the claim that Trump is "charismatic"...
Trump lost two elections by a combined 10 million popular votes- that is the very opposite of charismatic. He's never recieved over 48% (much less 50) of the vote share and compares negatively to actual charismatic figures like Reagan, FDR and Obama who each won multiple popular votes across party lines. Being the leader of a cult does not equate to being charismatic, at least by Lichtman's definition...
Btw for anyone making the ridiculous claim that Lichtman's picks are biased , he has picked nearly the same amount of Pubs as Dems. He predicted victories for Reagan, Bush,Bush Jr and even Trump. And for anyone crying crocodile tears claiming Harris never won a single Primary vote, that's also true of Lincoln, Grant, Teddy Roosevelt and any other person elected POTUS prior to 1900,when the first Primaries were held.
And also regarding 1900, there have been ZERO White House parties that have retained the WH when the Incumbent POTUS was not the nominee and the Party engaged in a protracted Primary fight and convention brawl to choose his successor. So anyone who wants Trump to lose and possibly feel like Harris wasn't the best choice, history says the exact opposite.
