Donald Trump‘s 34 felony convictions are likely not to impact the 2024 election, according to a historian who correctly predicted nine of the last 10 presidential election outcomes.
American University’s Dr. Allan Lichtman said despite speculation the historic New York City trial against the former president will impact his chances in November one way or the other, he isn’t so convinced.
A lot would have to go wrong for President Joe Biden to lose to Trump as it currently stands, Lichtman claims, – but he isn’t making any final projections quite yet.
‘We don’t know how this might affect moderate and swing independent voters,’ Lichtman told Fox News Digital. ‘So really, we have got to look over time and not rely on instant, unreliable punditry.’
Trump is facing three other criminal trials, as well. And Biden is plagued by his son Hunter’s legal woes after he was found guilty of three felonies related to a 2018 firearms purchase.
American University historian Dr. Alan Lichtman isn’t making predictions for 2024 yet – but says a lot would need to go wrong for President Joe Biden in the next few months for him to lose reelection in November
Lichtman said that the outcome of Trump’s trial and how it will impact the election won’t be fully known until later this summer.
‘We’re not going to know much until the sentencing hearing on July 11, right before the Republican convention,’ he said.
The jury in the Manhattan hush money trial handed down a verdict on May 30 finding Trump guilty of 34 felony charges related to falsification of business records to keep porn star Stormy Daniels quiet ahead of the 2016 election about their affair a decade prior.
The former president completed virtually his pre-sentencing interview this week and sentencing is set for July 11 – just days before the Republican National Convention where the GOP will nominate Trump as their nominee.
Lichtman has not yet made a final projection for the 2024 election, claiming the state of the race is still in flux.
The historian relies on a formula he developed with mathematician Vladimir Keilis-Borok by analyzing elections dating back to 1860. He has used it to correctly predict the outcome of nine presidential elections since 1984.
Using 13 tquestions called ‘keys,’ Lichtman keeps his personal preferences out of his predictions and was one of the few able to correctly predict Trump would prevail in 2016 when polls and political commentators all favored Democrat Hillary Clinton.
He also was correct in predicting President Barack Obama would win reelection when Republican Mitt Romeny was favored and he called the 2020 election for Biden.
‘We reconceptualize presidential elections not as Carter versus Reagan, Republican versus Democrat, liberal versus conservative, but in geophysical terms,’ Lichtman explained. ‘Stability: The White House party keeps power. Earthquake: The White House party is turned out.’
Speculating, the historian said it doesn’t seem that Trump’s guilty verdict has affected his base.
Donald Trump was found guilty of 34 felony charges in his New York hush money trial last month – but Lichtman says it so far doesn’t seem to impact his base heading into the 2024 election
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden’s son Hunter was found guilty on Tuesday of three felony charges related to a 2018 firearms purchase
Lichtman’s keys are based on simple true or false questions related to party mandate, contest, incumbency, third party, short-term economy, long-term economy, policy change, social unrest, scandal, foreign/military failure, foreign/military success, incumbent charisma and challenger charisma.
‘The keys are an alternative to the polls, which are not predictors,’ he went on. ‘They’re snapshots, they’re abused, not used as predictors’
‘And the pundits, you know, who are a lot of fun, but they’re sports talk radio. They have no scientific basis for any of their predictions,’ Lichtman argued.
He says that Biden has lost two of his ‘keys’ so far – the mandate key based on midterm election after Democrats lost two seats in 20222 and the so-called charisma key.
‘He loses the charisma key because he’s no Franklin Roosevelt or John F. Kennedy,’ Lichtman said of Biden.
If a candidate loses six of Lichtman’s keys, it’s likely they will lose the presidential election, according to the algorithm.
