Despite the new model predicting an alarming and overwhelming victory for trump, I do point out that the valid criticisms that applied to the original model (limited evaluation and subjectivity) still aply to this updated model.
While this predicted outcome is alarming, the excercise of reevaluation of Lichtman’s Key does tell us a lot about how Lichtman’s Keys are not likely going to be a reliable indicator of how pesidential elections CAN (emphasize CAN) go, but they can tell us a lot about what Democrats are doing right or wrong.
This report was written before Biden withdrew from the race. However, the only change this makes to the predicted outcome is that all thirteen (as opposed to twelve) keys are false indicating an absolute victory for trump. Fortunately, due to the limitations and subjectivity of this predictive model (especially in light of recent history), we can be reasonably certain that the factors of this kind of model may correlate with presidential outcomes, but do not neccesarily tie into causation (correlation does not imply causation). It may be the result of random chance, where the variables appear to be related, but there might be no true underlying relationship.
The excercise in reevaluation however, is very illuminating in revealing ways that we are looking at and analysing election forecasting and outcomes. As an example, if we accept the premise that the strength of the economy is important because if voters are doing well economically, than the incumbent has an advantage towards being reelected. This premise falls apart however, as we increasingly find that the strength of the economy is becoming less and less of an indicator of how the average is doing economically.
Enjoy the read, and if anyone can help contact Democratic candidates to help distribute the report to those that it could help, that would be swell.
The “Keys” are quantitative BS (which I spoke to on that thread…) ; it’s just common sense, doing focus group interviews of the receptiveness of Swing State voters to Harris now.
<sarcasm>But on to a victory for a vote of your conscience and ideals! Before we get a dictator, we will be able to say for the history books that we wanted the representation of minorities above all else…</sarcasm>
@patrie I believe you miss the point of the report, in that the analysis of Lichtman’s keys is informative of problems with Democrat campaigning, especially because they are a political analysis tool mainstream Democrats rely upon for such and it informs how they run campaigns.
Before passing judgement or making snarky or sarcastic comments on works I have written, I would appreciate if you actually read them first, thank you very much.
But it is not infallible, the way he sells ir. If he had said that the factors are important, but “past performance is no prediction of future…”, I could have taken it seriously. When he showed up on the Wall Street Journal, he was touting: “IT HAS NVER FAILED IN THE PAST X ELECTIONS…”
Well: considering we are seeing a cycle that has a lot that’s NOT in common with the last X elections, it definitely can miss things!
Watch the doc on the thread above that showed how a ton of rocket scientists missed things blindly believing in their quantitative analysis as being the last word in prediction…
@patrie Well, maybe read my report. It’s analysis begins with evaluation of the criticisms of his predictive model. Even once I update the model to incorporate changes in mass media as well as social and cultural factors, those criticisms remain valid.
The report makes clear how the key factors are quite limited in their analytical scope and are still subjective. The lessons from the report have nothing to do with whether or not the predictive model is valid or not, but highlights the problems with using these predictive models as a basis for campaigning.
I was just venting at the way his analysis was sold at the Wall Street Journal -and look who the owner of the Journal is; Murdoch. You better believe Murdoch would want the Dems to stick by Biden.
But in terms of factor analysis, that outcome does not surprise me in the least right now.
I’m just hanging around now to see if we get word of an Open Convention by the end of this week…
@patrie While my report was authored before Biden stepped down, one of the issues it brought up was how the primaries were not truly open, and if my analysis is correct (see report) they HAVE to have an open primary. One of the most important factors I believe, based on historical context and academic research, is that if the Democrats do not seem to discard or set aside establishment Democrats, their electoral chances will really suffer.
have you tried to apply his model to 1968? Just curious how they would compare. 1968 also had an incumbent drop out and 2 blackswan events like Assassination of Kennedy and MLK jr. also massive anti vietnam protests and contested convention. I am very curious about what we new things we can learn from that comparison.
@wrongturn Sure, we could apply predictive models to past events, but we will not learn anything better that just analysing those events directly. This is because in some small part these past elections inform the analysis of the predictive model. For instance the massive anti vietnam protests turned out to be a good indicator of the unpopularity of the Vietnam war, and as such I believe that the current pro-palestinian protests are a good indicator of the unpopularity of the Hamas-Israel war.
The anti Vietnam protestors were disliked and credited with converting the general public to an anti Vietnam sentiment. Academic research, however, suggests that the anti Vietnam protests had little impact on public opinion and other factors drove the growing unpopularity of the Vietnam war at the time.
Since predictive models like Lichtmans are based upon the consistency of behaviour accross time, they are essentially based on past events. So if you apply such a model to a past event, you essentially learn if the past event may have (do not forget that the analysis of these factors are very subjective) influenced or informed the model in question.
Exactly. I think currently the Israel Hamas war is unpopular on the left but not in general public. I wanted to see whether the opinion of the left base regarding Vietnam war had any impact on the elections back then.
According to what I have seen, even in Michigan, according to polling done a couple of months ago, people ranked Israel Hamas war lower on the priority list than economy, inflation, threat to democracy, abortion etc. Which has me wondering whether this is actually having any impact on the elections at all.
Especially since Repubs are going full pro Israel and then saying ceasefire, I wonder if even talking about Israel hamas war would be a kneecap for dems no matter what stance they picked or people just don’t care about it. Like do they even need to try and balance their stance because of their base or nah. (Kind of like what repubs had to do with abortion)
@wrongturn The Hamas-Israel war is going to have a significant impact on the election, but not in the way that any political analyst thinks. Political analysts look at the data and see that such an issue is of little concern compared to what most voters care about. They aggragate the data and work towards how they believe that behaviour is reflected by those factors.
To actually predict and influence behaviour, one most start with the behaviour that is most indicitive of future behaviour (behaviour is consistant), and work from there.
The most important behaviour impacting elections (for US type elections) is voter turnout. If your voters show up, you win. Historically, this has not been an issue for conservatives, because conservatives show up to vote. Aproximately 76 million conservatives voted in the 2020 election, and approximately 55 million conservatives voted in the 2022 midterms. Notice that Democratic voters dropped off by 35% as opposed to 26% for conservatives.
There is no evidence at all at this moment that conservative voting will be affected by recent convictions, scandals, and controversies of the Trump camp, and one might be able to argue that JD Vance’s nomination as vice president could shore up that loss of support. We would have to do the research and one would have to make some educated guesses to come to some sort of conclusion about the effect on such in the analysis.
Anyways, if we make a guess that Trump will lose 10% of his base, which we currently do not know will happen, we can expect 68 million voters voting Republican. This indicates that if the voter turnout is less than approximately 55% voter turnout, Trump can win (for this excercise we are ignoring the effect of swing states).
If conservative voters turn out in the numbers they did in 2020 (76 million), Democrats need a 60% voter turnout to have a high degree of certainty of winning. While it may seem like I went off on a tangent here, we will come back to how the Hamas-Israel war could be one of the factors that lose the presidential race for Democrats.
In 2020, Biden and the Democrats garnered such a large turnout with the work and cooperation of progressive, liberal, and centrist: voters, media, and organisations, including a lot of work from grass roots organisations. That additional support lagged a bit in 2022 and the Democrats lost the house. It is reasonable to conclude here, that if that support drops off even more, the Democrats have little chance of doing well in the election.
There is a very good chance that if voter turnout is not high enough, Trump might win the presidency, and Republicans might take the House and the Senate.
Now think of every misstep the Democrats have taken that might depress voter turnout: The Democrats have not given progressives any significant policies like electoral reform or addressing wealth disparity, and significant portions of the diverse voting public, like black, muslim, middle eastern, etc, have seen little progress towards policies that improve their lives. Furthermore, there have been significant rollbacks of american freedoms and rights, especially as it concerns women and LGBTQ+ people.
In other words, voter turnout might suffer because significant portions of the voting public might be suffering enough to be unable to bring themselves to vote, and by default the conservatives will just win.
Considering the fact that Republicans are currently planning a fascist dictatorship, Democrats are gambling with democracy on the line if they do not do everything in their power to win the election. Unfortunately, elect us or face fascism is not an election strategy that will work, so they definately should not go with that.
your analysis is exactly along the lines I was thinking along. The data is quite informative so thanks for that. I have been trying to look at issues that might energise and dissuade the base vs whether independents will be put off or enegised by anything.
this is why I commented a few days ago that hate politics is likely to hurt turnout this cycle than drive it, we have to offer something to look forward to. Plus the divisions do cause problems with turnout. The thing is in 1968 as well, voter turnout suffered because party couldn’t coalesce behind one person and they couldn’t really bring themselves to drive out the vote for one person. 2016, also dissuaded a lot of voters to bring themselves out to vote for Hillary. I am just trying to see what factors we are heavily treading on this time that would dissuade or drive voters. And while there is none that I find energising at this point, there are many that will dissuade voters. But out of that wars don’t seem to major factor, strangely.
And they’re putting a vote for conscience above that. I wouldn’t fault them in the least if it was McCain or Romney running; but how childish can you get??
@wrongturn For this election, I do not think the choice of candidates is going to have much effect as usual now, as long as there is an open primary, and neither are establishment Democrats from the baby boomer generation.
I believe that the Democrats are either going to put in the work and make major concession to the allies they need to push voters to vote, and win all together. Otherwise they will all lose together.
@patrie I don’t know. If we keep pushing, maybe they will put the country ahead of their naked grab for power. At this point, all we can do is keep calling them out.
Well, you guys have seen my optimism for it; but that was pretty remarkable that you had Pelosi asking for it, then she flipped. I think she could see that it’ could be a 2016 Rinse+Repeat. Then for some reason (a private deal?), she suddenly changed her tune.
I was watching a Harris speech today -TODAY!- and she did the spontaneous cackle laugh again. How do these freaks think that she will relate to many voters??
@patrie While Kamala’s unpopularity would normally be a problem, I do not think it will be a problem in this election. The Democrats are going to need to do some serious heavy duty coalition building, and if the Democratic candidates can deliver on the concessions needed to do so, such a coalition will be able to get the voters out to vote and help win the election for the Democrats.
Open 
Convention by the end of this week…