Allan Lichtman has a crystal ball in his hands. The winner of every US presidential election in the last 40 years has been right, except for 2000, when George W. Bush beat Al Gore after losing the popular vote. In 2016, he was one of the few people who predicted the victory of Donald Trump, when the polls predicted the victory of Hillary Clinton. His predictions gave rise to the peculiar nickname Washington's oracle.
Their predictions are based on The keys to the White House prediction system, a list of thirteen premises that measure the degree of strength of the president in office: if five or fewer are false, it can be predicted that the incumbent party's candidate the white house will win the election.
Nine months before the elections, he is still ready to make predictions. And even more so when the likely opposition candidate faces 91 criminal charges in four court cases. No article of the Constitution prohibits a defendant, a sentenced person or an imprisoned person from standing in the elections. But there is a provision that makes the heads of lawyers from all over the country dance.
This is Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, under which the Colorado Supreme Court barred Trump from running for election for participating in an insurgency with an attempt to rig the 2020 election and obstruct the peaceful transfer of power, which culminated in the storming of the Capitol.
Trump appealed against the sentence to the Supreme Court and the initial arguments begin on Thursday. The tycoon alleges that the article - written in 1866, after the War of Secession, to prevent those who had been part of the Confederacy from coming to power - does not provide for the figure of a president, because textually it reference to an "official". But Allan Lichtman, along with 24 other historians from the country, has signed a report addressed to the Supreme Court in which he states that the historical evidence is overwhelming: those in charge of drafting it did include the figure of a former president.
Under the 14th Amendment, why shouldn't Trump's name appear on the ballot?
Section 3 clearly covers the President. This question came up during the drafting in 1866, and years later, when Congress passed an amnesty bill for most ex-Confederates, they decided not to give it to former President Jefferson Davis, precisely because they recognized that he was disqualified from running for president under Section 3. Had he been granted amnesty, his name could have appeared on the Democratic Party ballot. This is the historical evidence that we presented to the Court.
Trump alleges that would be an intrusion of the judiciary.
Yes, I have heard the argument that it is the people who must decide, and not the courts. Well, we do not live in a plebiscite, but in a democratic republic governed by the Constitution. And the 14th amendment is no less applicable because a candidate is very popular. It is as valid as clauses that disqualify presidents by age or place of birth.
His defense denies that it was an insurrection and argues that he did not directly participate in it, since it was not in the Capitol.
During the Reconstruction period, many ex-Confederates were disenfranchised without having directly participated in the insurrection: to be an insurgent you don't necessarily have to participate in violence: you can incite rebellion, like Trump, who then went sit while his followers attacked the Capitol.
Trump has benefited electorally from the cases against him. Why does almost half of the population continue to support him?
I'm surprised his support has lasted as long as it has. He is a unique figure in American history: since he came out as a candidate in 2015, for almost nine years, his approval ratings have barely changed, staying around 40%. It seems impervious to anything that happens, like sexual assault and fraud convictions. Because? Many Americans feel alienated from their society and politics, they feel they have been left behind in economic, religious, racial and gender terms. And Trump exploits all these feelings.
Nine months before the election, do you already have a prediction about who will occupy the White House?
It's still early, but I can give you a few hints. Right now, Biden is an unpopular candidate, especially because of his age. But I still think he's the Democrats' best bet to win. The fact that he is running already fulfills two of my 13 keys, because he is the president in office and there is no opposition in the primaries. Of the remaining 11, six would have to be false to predict his defeat. And the economy does not seem to have to go into recession, which confirms another premise. Nor has there been a major scandal in his presidency: another. What will determine Biden's chances of re-election are his successes and failures in foreign policy: we will have to pay attention to the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine.
Of all the elections you have predicted, is this the most uncertain?
I'm not Jean Dixon and I don't have a crystal ball. But my prediction model is solid, because it's based on history. It goes back to 1860, with the election of Abraham Lincoln, and my first survey was in 1984, with the re-election of Ronald Reagan. This does not mean that it has to last forever: there may be a cataclysm that changes the pattern of history. And a criminal conviction for Trump could fall into that category.
Can we expect a new insurgency attempt if Trump loses the election?
Assuming he isn't disqualified by the Supreme, I see little chance of him having to accept defeat. I do not believe that he will again allow a peaceful ratification of power. But if that happens, it will be very complicated, because he is no longer the president. He won't have any of the powers he used four years ago. Therefore, if he loses, our democracy will survive his attempts to take it away from us.
