Lichtman Predicted Bush would be reelected in April 1992

[OSR stands with Israel]

https://www.csmonitor.com/1992/0422/22013.html

Allan Lichtman, a historian at American University, says only a foreign-policy disaster or some other major setback could prevent the Republicans from retaining the presidency.

To win reelection, the "in" party, currently the GOP, must have between eight and 13 keys in its favor. A higher number, such as 12 or 13, indicates the president will win big. But a smaller number, such as eight, indicates a closer race.

Lichtman says that currently eight keys favor the Republicans. But the other five keys are flashing warning signs:

And the other analyst at the time made this prediction:

Ray Fair, an economist at Yale University, calculates that Bush's margin over Governor Clinton will be a landslide, especially if the economy shows a few more signs of improvement.

[OSR stands with Israel]

While I am sure almost everyone thought Bush would be reelected, that shows that Lichtman 13 keys model isnt anymore better than any model.


By September or whenever Lichtman revised his prediction to a Clinton victory doesnt really show anything as I am sure the vast majority of pundits by that time also thought Clinton would win

[brucejoel99]

Key #4: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.

The article even points out how Ross Perot hadn't declared (yet, as we now know) at the time that Lichtman looked toward his keys in April 1992. With the declaration of his candidacy came the undoing of a key that was in Bush's favor &, as such, lowered the number of keys in Bush's favor from 8 to 7, meaning the model no longer predicted a Bush victory.

I'm not at all a believer in the 13 keys, mind you, but even I can see how the circumstances changed (& the model was thus impacted) between April 1992 & Election Day.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Key #4: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.

The article even points out how Ross Perot hadn't declared (yet, as we now know) at the time that Lichtman looked toward his keys in April 1992. With the declaration of his candidacy came the undoing of a key that was in Bush's favor &, as such, lowered the number of keys in Bush's favor from 8 to 7, meaning the model no longer predicted a Bush victory.

I'm not at all a believer in the 13 keys, mind you, but even I can see how the circumstances changed (& the model was thus impacted) between April 1992 & Election Day.

But there were already polls conducted with Perot as an Independent candidate , and that key should be called ambigious(and Lichtman does that as well for early predictions)  . He counted it for Bush

[brucejoel99]

Key #4: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.

The article even points out how Ross Perot hadn't declared (yet, as we now know) at the time that Lichtman looked toward his keys in April 1992. With the declaration of his candidacy came the undoing of a key that was in Bush's favor &, as such, lowered the number of keys in Bush's favor from 8 to 7, meaning the model no longer predicted a Bush victory.

I'm not at all a believer in the 13 keys, mind you, but even I can see how the circumstances changed (& the model was thus impacted) between April 1992 & Election Day.

But there were already polls conducted with Perot as an Independent candidate , and that key should be called ambigious(and Lichtman does that as well for early predictions)  . He counted it for Bush

Didn't he only develop the keys in the '80s? Perhaps early on, he was comfortable counting it for Bush absent an actual declaration & campaign on Perot's part, but consequently learned after an election like 1992 (with a major 3rd-party candidacy) that ambiguousness is sometimes called for.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Key #4: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.

The article even points out how Ross Perot hadn't declared (yet, as we now know) at the time that Lichtman looked toward his keys in April 1992. With the declaration of his candidacy came the undoing of a key that was in Bush's favor &, as such, lowered the number of keys in Bush's favor from 8 to 7, meaning the model no longer predicted a Bush victory.

I'm not at all a believer in the 13 keys, mind you, but even I can see how the circumstances changed (& the model was thus impacted) between April 1992 & Election Day.

But there were already polls conducted with Perot as an Independent candidate , and that key should be called ambigious(and Lichtman does that as well for early predictions)  . He counted it for Bush

Didn't he only develop the keys in the '80s? Perhaps early on, he was comfortable counting it for Bush absent an actual declaration & campaign on Perot's part, but consequently learned after a election like 1992 (with a major 3rd-party candidacy) that ambiguousness is sometimes called for.

Maybe that could be it

[Pericles]

The Perot vote would have gone 38% each to Bush and Clinton with the rest not voting according to exit polls, if he wasn't in the race. I guess Perot's candidacy proved there was deep dissatisfaction with Bush and the direction of the country. However, the whole "Bush would have won without Perot" idea is a myth.

[brucejoel99]

The Perot vote would have gone 38% each to Bush and Clinton with the rest not voting according to exit polls, if he wasn't in the race. I guess Perot's candidacy proved there was deep dissatisfaction with Bush and the direction of the country. However, the whole "Bush would have won without Perot" idea is a myth.

Nobody in this thread was saying that.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

While I am sure almost everyone thought Bush would be reelected, that shows that Lichtman 13 keys model isnt anymore better than any model.

Maybe in 1991 this was a reasonable thing to believe, but unemployment broke 7% in January 1992 and kept rising, despite the recession ending in March 1991. In August of 1991 HW's approval rating began to decline sharply from 75%+.

Not coincidentally, the last poll of 1991 was also the last poll that would have HW with a positive approval rating. The first poll of 1992 in January showed his job approval sinking below disapproval for the first time ever, and he wouldn't recover to a polling place above 50% until January 1993.

If he was still cheerily predicting Bush would win re-election in April 1992 with things clearly going very badly, I don't know what he was thinking. While it was reasonable to think Bush would be re-elected even in the fall of 1991, Bush was in serious trouble since the economy continued to struggle in 1991-1992 and unemployment continued to rise, and that should have been obvious by the spring of 1992.

https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/234971/george-bush-retrospective.aspx

[President Johnson]

Thanks for sharing. I always thought Lichterman is vastly overrated since presidential elections since 1984 were not that hard too to predict. Furthermore, many of the key are very vague so that almost everyone can interpret them his or her way. The biggest joke was Lichtman urging Democrats to impeach Trump that the "scandal key" is met. As if it wasn't before, lmao.

[Lechasseur]

The Perot vote would have gone 38% each to Bush and Clinton with the rest not voting according to exit polls, if he wasn't in the race. I guess Perot's candidacy proved there was deep dissatisfaction with Bush and the direction of the country. However, the whole "Bush would have won without Perot" idea is a myth.

The thing is those exit polls were taken towards the end of the race when Perot and Clinton had both bashed Bush pretty well and got a lot of Perot voters very turned against Bush.

Had Perot not been in the race to attack Bush from another side, the people who voted for him may well have mostly stayed in the Bush camp, if you see what I mean.

[Sumner 1868]

One thing nobody ever remembers is that Democrats who voted for Perot in 1992 generally didn't vote for the rest of the 1990s because they disliked Clinton. I've been convinced a while now the sharp uptick in voting during 2004 was partially Perot Democrats being driven back to the voting booth by anti-Bush feeling. Certainly Democrats did better in Perot Country during the Bush years than the 1990s.

[OSR stands with Israel]

One thing nobody ever remembers is that Democrats who voted for Perot in 1992 generally didn't vote for the rest of the 1990s because they disliked Clinton. I've been convinced a while now the sharp uptick in voting during 2004 was partially Perot Democrats being driven back to the voting booth by anti-Bush feeling. Certainly Democrats did better in Perot Country during the Bush years than the 1990s.

The Republican vote went up more than the Democratic one in 2004. Bush I think won 12 million more votes in 2004 than he did in 2000

[Sumner 1868]

One thing nobody ever remembers is that Democrats who voted for Perot in 1992 generally didn't vote for the rest of the 1990s because they disliked Clinton. I've been convinced a while now the sharp uptick in voting during 2004 was partially Perot Democrats being driven back to the voting booth by anti-Bush feeling. Certainly Democrats did better in Perot Country during the Bush years than the 1990s.

The Republican vote went up more than the Democratic one in 2004. Bush I think won 12 million more votes in 2004 than he did in 2000

Nationally yes. But look at the raw numbers of Democrats voting in Perot strongholds compared with 1996 and 2000. The change is dramatic.

[dw93]

The Perot vote would have gone 38% each to Bush and Clinton with the rest not voting according to exit polls, if he wasn't in the race. I guess Perot's candidacy proved there was deep dissatisfaction with Bush and the direction of the country. However, the whole "Bush would have won without Perot" idea is a myth.

The thing is those exit polls were taken towards the end of the race when Perot and Clinton had both bashed Bush pretty well and got a lot of Perot voters very turned against Bush.

Had Perot not been in the race to attack Bush from another side, the people who voted for him may well have mostly stayed in the Bush camp, if you see what I mean.

Even if that were the case, Bush still would've lost.

[OSR stands with Israel]

The Perot vote would have gone 38% each to Bush and Clinton with the rest not voting according to exit polls, if he wasn't in the race. I guess Perot's candidacy proved there was deep dissatisfaction with Bush and the direction of the country. However, the whole "Bush would have won without Perot" idea is a myth.

The thing is those exit polls were taken towards the end of the race when Perot and Clinton had both bashed Bush pretty well and got a lot of Perot voters very turned against Bush.

Had Perot not been in the race to attack Bush from another side, the people who voted for him may well have mostly stayed in the Bush camp, if you see what I mean.

Even if that were the case, Bush still would've lost.

Without Perot this is what I think the map would look like :

Clinton/Gore 294
Bush/Quayle 244

[chibul]

The Perot vote would have gone 38% each to Bush and Clinton with the rest not voting according to exit polls, if he wasn't in the race. I guess Perot's candidacy proved there was deep dissatisfaction with Bush and the direction of the country. However, the whole "Bush would have won without Perot" idea is a myth.

The thing is those exit polls were taken towards the end of the race when Perot and Clinton had both bashed Bush pretty well and got a lot of Perot voters very turned against Bush.

Had Perot not been in the race to attack Bush from another side, the people who voted for him may well have mostly stayed in the Bush camp, if you see what I mean.

Even if that were the case, Bush still would've lost.

Without Perot this is what I think the map would look like :

Clinton/Gore 294
Bush/Quayle 244

It would have been a much greater loss for Bush/Quayle. Bush's approval ratings were in the toilet, the economy sucked, and people were tired of Reagan/Bush and wanted change. It's very rare that the same party wins 3 presidential elections in a row.

1992 was a change election.

Ross Perot dropped out of the race in around the summer of 1992. When Perot dropped out making it a two man race, Clinton's numbers went up far more than Perot meaning that Perot was taking more from Clinton than from Bush.