The 2024 presidential race decoded

THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL RACE DECODED

Psephology has become a hazardous occupation in India; can Americans do better?

Roshini Raj

16.10.24

Current election forecasting insinuates the underlying challenges of election polling outcomes, yet it holds significant value. With social media sending out confusing and contradicting signals, pollsters have been found with eggs on their collective faces when results turn out to be opposite to their polls!Their perspective illuminates the enduring electoral patterns and instantaneous momentary shifts in public opinion that shape the outcome.

Political experts suggest that future elections will be fought at the intersection of technological advancements, unstable vote behaviours, widespread disinformation and misinformation campaigns, and extreme polarisation of the general public. As the 2016 U.S. election and the 2019 Indian general election revealed, even the methods used to conduct elections need significant change, from accurately predicting outcomes to failure to anticipate shifts in voter turnouts. The Brexit referendum in 2016 indicated that narrow polling margins can camouflage the underlying national sentiment.

With the rise of populist movements in Hungary, Poland and Brazil, traditional voter models have become redundant and obsolete. These impacts call for an accurate and adaptive forecasting model.

In an age where polling leans towards inaccuracy and results depict far from the ground realities, do American psephologists have something up their sleeve?With less than a month to go, the task remains anything but herculean.

Two names are well known in the American election prediction scene– Dr Allan Lichtman and Nate Silver. Both offer two distinct approaches that reflect the complexities of electoral forecasting.

Two Competing Models

Lichtman’s 13 Keys to the White House provides a historical and structural framework based on qualitative indicators, such as economic conditions, foreign policy success, and the incumbent’s charisma. “The keys are phrased to capture the big picture,” Lichtman explains, “not the day-to-day fluctuations in public opinion.” The model, developed in 1981 with Vladimir Keilis-Borok, has correctly predicted every election since 1984, including Trump’s 2016 victory—an outcome many pollsters failed to foresee.

Lichtman's model functions on 13 binary true/false statements, or "keys," which identify and analyse the political landscape influencing the incumbent party's prospects. If six or more keys are false, the incumbent is likely to lose; if five or fewer are false, the party is expected to win. He promises the general public a definitive prediction- win or lose but fails to deliver probabilistic nuance.

American pollster Nate Silver refutes the model, suggesting that it overlooks real-time shifts of the demographic sentiments. Distilling historic electoral patterns into an undefeated predictive key raises the question of modern complexities that might present themselves before the elections. He suggests that some keys might appear arbitrary or empirically unsupported in the developing election environment.

Nate Silver forecasts a quantitative, data-driven approach, merging multiple polls and assigning ratings to pollsters based on historical reliability. Silver's model captures the electoral fluidity of the public and presents numerical percentages rather than categorical outcomes for an election as volatileas the 2024 one. Unpredictable events like Trump’s attempted assassination and Biden’s drop-out can drastically affect electoral responses. Silver’s model is very molten and has the provision to change according to the mood of the nation in comparison to Dr Lichtman’s static model.

Dr Lichtman’s model is rooted in several layers of subjectivity. Determining a candidate’s charisma or social unrest can differ according to the evaluators’ professional interpretation. His models also rely on broad outcomes, which indicate the larger structural facets at play. Silver’s predictions are derived from statistical analysis and standardised questionnaires to avoid the subjective factor.

Lichtman’s model highlights social unrest and leadership charisma as critical indicators of an election’s outcome. Social instability has direct security implications, as it strains law enforcement, challenges governance, and opens opportunities for extremist movements. Charismatic leaders, however, can either restore public order or fuel polarisation, depending on how they engage with dissent. Nate Silver’s polling approach focuses on immediate public sentiment, capturing how citizens react to unrest but may miss the deeper structural causes of discontent. This divergence is essential for policymakers managing both short-term crises and long-term stability.

For instance, a charismatic leader may perform well in polls by promising swift solutions to security threats. Still, Lichtman’s model would scrutinise whether these promises align with the structural realities that the keys assess. In cases where social unrest is rooted in systemic issues, short-term polling boosts may mask underlying risks, making structural analyses indispensable. Thus, holistically evaluating leadership and social stability, the 13 Keys offer a robust tool for anticipating security outcomes beyond the campaign period.

Lichtman’s 13 Keys adopt a deterministic view of elections, suggesting that structural conditions—such as the economy and foreign policy—set the stage for electoral outcomes well before campaigns begin. In contrast, Nate Silver’s polling methods embrace electoral volatility, tracking voter sentiment as it shifts in response to debates, scandals, and media coverage. This difference reveals a fundamental political tension between stability and change. Lichtman’s model assumes that enduring political dynamics dictate election outcomes, while polling models reflect the fluidity of voter behaviour.

This distinction has political implications, particularly in today’s hyperconnected media environment, where events can rapidly change public opinion. While the 13 Keys predict outcomes based on long-term trends, they might overlook how short-term narratives—such as viral campaign moments—affect voter mobilisation. Conversely, polling methods risk overemphasising temporary shifts, leading to policy decisions driven by immediate public sentiment rather than strategic considerations. Politicians must navigate between these perspectives, balancing structural realities with dynamic campaign strategies to achieve electoral success.

The Predictions

Dr Lichtman has confidently forecasted that present Vice President Kamala Harris will win the 2024 U.S. elections. The paramount shift in the Democratic paradigm is President Joe Biden’s decision to step down from re-election. Harris’s nomination on the ticket mitigated any democratic party challenges, stabilising and narrowing focus on Donald Trump. As the current situation stands, eight of the 13 keys favour Harris’s victory. Her foreign policies towards the current international conflict are still very unclear to voters. Yet Harris retains enough keys to secure a comfortable position for herself along with Gov. Tim Walz as her Vice President.

Dr Lichtman’s insights offer the Democratic campaign a stable overview to ensure the changing media narrative does not rule their political campaign. Preventing political overreaction and unforeseen events that will not affect the campaign outcome might help maintain the Harris campaign’s strategic focus despite insignificant distractions.

"The White House party (Democrats) loses key 1, the Mandate key because they lost U.S. House seats in 2022. They lost key 3, the Incumbency Key, because the sitting President's not running. They lose key number 12, the Incumbent Charisma key, because what you may think of Harris, she's only been a candidate for a little while. She's not reached the status of a Franklin Roosevelt. And she loses key number 11, the Foreign Policy key, because the Middle East is a disaster, a humanitarian crisis with no good end in sight; that's four keys down, two keys short of what would be needed to predict Donald Trump returning to the White House and Harris losing. So the keys predict we are going to have a new pathbreaking president, our first woman president, and the first president of mixed Asian and African descent, kind of foreshadowing where America is going. We're rapidly becoming a majority-minority country. Old white guys like me are on the decline.

That means they're winning nine keys. The Contest Key because the Democrats united around Harris. The Third-party key is because the campaign of RFK Jr. has fizzled. The Short-Term Economic Keyis because there's no recession in the election year. The Long-Term Economic Key is because real per capita growth under the Biden term has vastly exceeded the average of the previous two terms. They win the Policy Change Keybecause policies under Biden are fundamentally different from those under Trump. They win the Social Unrest Key, because the earlier sporadic demonstrations have fizzled away. They win the Scandal Key. Republicans have been trying for four years to pit a scandal on Biden and have come up empty”.

Dr Allan Lichtman

On the other hand, Silver predicts Donald Trump's victory based on his reading and interpretation of the electoral landscape. His key factors include the swing-state dynamics of Arizona, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, as well as undecided voter populations, which might ultimately determine the election outcome.

“A forecaster should almost never ignore data, especially when studying rare events like recessions or presidential elections, about which there isn’t very much data to begin with. Ignoring data is often a tip-off that the forecaster is overconfident, or is overfitting her model—that she is interested in showing off rather than trying to be accurate.”

Nate Silver

Key Takeaways:

Election polling must adopt innovative techniques, like predictive analytics, social media sentiment analysis, and machine learning algorithms to capture fluid political dynamics. However, polling’s viability will depend on balancing technological sophistication with public trust, ensuring transparency in methodologies, and addressing concerns about data privacy and manipulation.

While polling’s real-time insights remain invaluable, the key to future electoral accuracy will be integrating new tools with structural frameworks that account for long-term trends

—bridging approaches like Nate Silver’s data-driven forecasting with models akin to Lichtman’s

13 Keys

A word of caution for Indian

psephologists,

Lichtman’s 13 keys would need to be substantially modified to be adapted in any other nation due to different political structures, varying electoral systems and challenging historical electoral trends. For an Indian or British electoral system consisting of parliamentary democracies and multi-party systems, this model certainly needs to have a more distinct set of indicators.

Lichtman’s 13 Keys

Keys 1, 2, 3– Stability and Continuity vs. Desire for Change: The common American voter prefers that the incumbent party maintain strong congressional support and no serious nomination contest. However, another population of voters value continuity and stability. The electorate is likely satisfied with the political status quo and sees no urgent need for change to maintain its image globally. American voters prefer consistent leadership when conditions are stable, believing that disruptions during governance may risk national stability.

Keys 2, 4– United American Leadership: The current voter demography does not prefer divided leadership or factionalism within the party. The voters prefer a coherent national vision rather than fragmented or polarising alternatives

Keys 5, 6– Foundation for Legitimacy: Both short-term economic conditions and long-term growth are essential for the re-election of the current Vice President and the former President. A recession, even if brief or declining long-term economic performance, undermines voter confidence. The American population expects their government to deliver immediate economic stability and sustainable growth over time. Economic prosperity is a priority and a measure of the government’s competence and legitimacy.

Key 7– Policy Responsiveness and Governance: Administrations able to achieve meaningful policy reform are rewarded, inferring that active governance and tangible is expected. This exposes a demand for responsiveness to national and international needs by the elected government. The "Business as Usual" attitude is seldom tolerated, and elected officials are expected to address pressing challenges while enacting significant political changes.

Keys 8,9,10– Social Stability and Peace: The American desire to maintain internal stability and the absence of governance scandals or failures abroad is paramount for today’s voters. Periods of prolonged unrest or military setbacks indicate a breakdown in leadership, triggering a desire for new leadership.

Key 11– Global Influence and Success: Americans place high importance on foreign policy victories. This reflects a national identity centred on being a global leader. Positive achievements abroad can reassure voters of the country’s strength and prestige.