It is "very unlikely" that former president Donald Trump will be the Republican Party's 2024 nominee or make a bid to return to the White House as a candidate of a third opposition party, a political academic has said.
The claim comes from Allan Lichtman, a Distinguished Professor of History at American University known for his predictive model that has accurately forecast the winner of seven of the last eight U.S. presidential elections.
"He's got $400 million-plus in loans coming due. His brand is failing. His businesses are failing. He has a huge IRS audit. He doesn't hold office anymore. He's lost his Twitter. That's a lot of baggage for somebody to run for president," Lichtman told the Miami Herald newspaper columnist Andrés Oppenheimer, in reference to Trump.
Lichtman co-created a system called "The Keys to the White House" in 1981 alongside Russian geophysicist Vladimir Keilis-Borok. The only time it failed was in 2000, when the academics had falsely predicted Al Gore would become president.
Despite winning the popular vote, Gore lost the Electoral College and George W. Bush was elected. Lichtman said his model was made with the popular vote in mind.
The system was adapted from an earthquake prediction model and contains a list of 13 true or false statements about an election, including midterm gains, if there is sustained social unrest, existence of a major scandal, economic conditions and more. A loss is typically predicted if six of the 13 keys are against the incumbent.
In 2016, it accurately predicted Trump's win. In 2020, it accurately forecast Trump's loss. Lichtman previously said Trump had at least seven keys turned against him.
"Never in the history of the United States has the White House party suffered such a sudden and dramatic reversal of fortune in just a few months," the professor said in October 2020.
Trump was defeated by Democrat Joe Biden the following month, and the Republicans once-thriving presence on social media has remained dulled after his suspension from Twitter and Facebook in the wake of the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol Building.
Lichtman told Oppenheimer that Vice President Kamala Harris is a contender for the Democratic Party in 2024 and that a second Biden run was a possibility, despite his age.
"There's no precedent in American history for starting the presidency at age 78, either. But, as we know, precedents are made to be broken," he said.
Ultimately, Lichtman said it was still far too early to make a prediction, but claimed that Trump has "too many other challenges facing him" to be a viable 2024 candidate.
Trump gave his first major speech since leaving the White House in late February at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Trump criticized Biden, maintained that he won the November election and teased future political ambitions.
He told attendees at the time: "We began it together four years ago and it is far from being over. And you know what this is? The hardest working people, hard working American patriots, it's just getting started and in the end we will win. We will win."
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Jason Murdock is a staff reporter for Newsweek.
Based in London, Murdock previously covered cybersecurity for the International Business Times UK ... Read more
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