Predicting the Next President

By Allan J. Lichtman

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!

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