Think about how long 40 years is. That’s more than a generation. That’s enough time to have kids that have kids.

And yet, in that time, Allan Lichtman has been “wrong” in his prediction about the outcome of a presidential election just once. That election? It was the year 2000, when the Supreme Court intervened in order to stop the ballot recounting in Florida, essentially handing the election to George W. Bush.

Were it not for their intervention — which they ruled could never be used as precedent in the future — Al Gore would have been president. He won the popular vote, just as Lichtman predicted, and would have won the electoral college as well, if not for the SCOTUS.

Oh, did I mention the SCOTUS was 5-4 conservative at the time? We could have avoided the Iraq war if it weren’t for William Rehnquist and Clarence Thomas.

ANYHOO.

Journalist Chris Cillizza interviewed Lichtman for his Substack journal and posted his views about it n his YouTube channel.

“The big news in politics today is these New York Times/Sienna College polls that have Donald Trump leading in, I think, six out of the seven swing states that they tested.”

Then Cillizza goes into his interview with Lichtman, in which Allan shared his 13 keys that clue him in on who is likeliest to win. Although Cillizza doesn’t do all 13 on the YouTube video, he does discuss a few:

“He basically has 13 statements, ok? If eight or more of these statements is true, the incumbent party wins; if eight or less of the statements are true, the challenger party wins. It’s that simple.

Number two is ‘Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.’ That is true for Biden.

Number six, ‘Long-term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.’

In nine of the last 10 presidential elections, that little thing that I said, the 13 keys, the Lichtman Model, has accurately predicted the winner of the presidential election. That includes, I’ll note, 2016, when no one — this guy included — thought Donald Trump was going to win, Allan Lichtman did, and I know it, because I talked to Allan Lichtman. I was at The Washington Post at the time. I talked to Alan Lichtman ’cause he was one of the only people out there saying it.”

Now? Lichtman thinks it will be Biden, despite the polls that have Trump ahead in the swing states.

“He thinks Joe Biden is going to win. That is right. So, even though we have polling today that shows that Donald Trump’s ahead, and even though there’s been polling for months that shows that Donald Trump is ahead in key swing states, Allan Lichtman believes Joe Biden — not because of polling — but because of economics, because of incumbency, because of not scandal, etc. These 13 keys, there are enough there that Joe Biden is going to be re-elected.”

That’s music to my ears, even if I’d rather have a candidate a little further to the left myself.