Former vice president Joe Biden continues to lead president Donald Trump in the US election polls, with an edge of 7.6 percent nationally, according to the latest average on politics site FiveThirtyEight.
But he’s also leading by another measure: Biden is ahead in the 13 election “keys” co-created by American University professor Allan Lichtman, who says this formula has called every election since 1984.
“The keys predict that Trump will lose the White House,” Lichtman says in a video posted by the New York Times.
Biden has seven of those keys in his favour, versus six for Trump. He explains his system – and why Biden has an edge – in the video below:
But Lichtman also warned that there are a couple of wild cards that could change the race.
“Don’t just take my word for it. There are forces at play outside the keys,” he said. “Voter suppression. Russian meddling. It’s up to you, the voter, to decide the future of our democracy, so get out and vote.”
Lichtman’s claim of long-term success does come with an asterisk.
In 2000, he predicted Al Gore would defeat George W. Bush. Lichtman claims that his prediction holds since Gore won the popular vote. However, he also gives himself credit for predicting a Trump win in 2016, despite the fact that Trump lost the popular vote.