Can Democrats Win The White House After Joe Biden Dropped Out?: Presidential Historian Weighs In

3 months ago

Historian and Professor Allan Lichtman joins "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss his legendary "Keys to the White House," and why he says Vice President Kamala Harris is Democrats' best choice for keeping the White House

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Transcript

00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis with Forbes Breaking News. Joining me now is historian

00:07and professor at American University, Alan Lichtman. Alan, thank you so much for joining

00:11me once again. My great pleasure. We sit here 24 hours after a really historic, unprecedented

00:19move from President Biden. He dropped out of the 2024 presidential race yesterday. Today,

00:27there's many questions of what's going to happen next. You, between the debate and

00:32yesterday, have been calling for him to stay in the race. Democrats rally around him. So

00:36I am curious, what's your reaction to the news?

00:40Well, I have been calling for him to stay in the race because of the success of my prediction

00:47system, the 13 keys to the White House, which tap into the structure of how elections really

00:53work as votes up or down on the strength and performance of the White House party.

00:58And the way it works, if six or more keys fall against the incumbents, they're predicted

01:03losers, otherwise predicted winners. With Biden in the race, the Democrats ticked off

01:09two of my keys, incumbency and party contest. That meant six or more would have to fall

01:16to predict their defeat. But now we know they've lost the incumbency key. And so it

01:22is now critical for the Democrats that they don't lose the contest key. I am astounded

01:31at the foolishness of respected journalists and pundits like the editorial board of the

01:38Washington Post trying to push the Democrats into a big party brawl at the convention,

01:45which would cost them a second key, the contest key. That means of the remaining 11, only

01:51four, not six, would have to fall to predict their defeat. But if they avoid the contest,

01:58then although they lost incumbency, it would still be five, not four. And just look at

02:05the pattern of history. If you don't like the keys, since 1900, the White House party

02:10has never, I repeat, never won re-election when there's an open seat with no incumbent

02:17running and a major contest for the nomination. These foolish critics are pushing the Democrats,

02:26at least trying to, I don't think they'll succeed, I hope not, into recreating the same

02:32conditions of 2016 that led to the election of Donald Trump in the first place.

02:39Do you think it's the media pushing or do you think it's Democrats behind the scenes,

02:43like reportedly Nancy Pelosi, reportedly President Obama?

02:49I hope Pelosi and Obama grow a spine and grow a brain and get behind Harris. Otherwise,

02:57they are pushing the Democrats closer to defeat than they need to be. You know, Democrats

03:04do have a habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of a possible victory. And Pelosi and

03:13Obama need to understand, even if they don't want to deal with the keys, need to understand

03:18the clear verdict of history that unless you unite the party behind Harris, you are pushing

03:24the Democrats into a situation where the White House party has never been re-elected in over

03:31120 years. Why in the world would you do that? Moreover, this notion, oh, you know, if we leave

03:39it open, the Democrats will certainly, you know, select a quote-unquote electable candidate. Well,

03:46they've done that many times, selected so-called electable, experience-proven candidates like

03:52former Vice President Walter Mondale in 1984, the great Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis in

03:591988, the eminent Senator John Kerry in 2004, the former First Lady, U.S. Senator, Secretary

04:08of State Hillary Clinton in 2016. And you know where I'm going with this, right? Every one of

04:14those electable candidates lost. Yes, but you named, everyone that you named was a Democrat

04:21who did not win the presidency. So as we sit here right now, we are 24 hours out from that

04:28announcement. Vice President Kamala Harris is not the nominee. Some are endorsing her. Many

04:35Democrats are endorsing her. Others withholding that endorsement, like former President Obama.

04:40As we sit here right now where the chips have fallen, do Democrats have a chance at winning?

04:46Oh, absolutely. Of course. Let's presume Democrats suddenly grow a spine and a brain

04:54and unite behind Harris. Let's look at my key system. That would put the Democrats down

05:00three keys right now. The mandate key because of losses in the midterm elections in the U.S. House,

05:07the incumbent charisma key because Harris is not a FDR, and of course the incumbency key.

05:16That means three more keys would have to fall to predict their defeat. And right now I only see

05:24four shaky keys. Third party, social unrest, foreign slash military failure and success.

05:30Three of those keys would have to fall to predict the Democrats' defeat. Certainly possible,

05:36but not necessarily highly likely. But if the party foolishly plunges into a nomination fight,

05:44you then lose another key, the contest key. You're down four keys, and only two shaky keys

05:51would have to fall to predict their defeat. You also push the Democrats into a situation

05:56where the White House party has never won. Whereas, you know, when you have an open seat,

06:01it's not great for the White House party. But if you avoid a contest, you still have a decent

06:06chance of winning, as we saw with Herbert Hoover in 1928 and George H. W. Bush in 1988.

06:14I want to talk about the Republican nominee, and that is former President Donald Trump.

06:20Since you and I have last spoken, he did survive an assassination attempt. Before, you have said

06:26he is not considered a charismatic opponent. Do you think the events of the past few weeks

06:31have changed that? Absolutely not. He still appeals to a narrow base. I thought he had a

06:38chance to take advantage of the assassination attempt, to indeed become a broadly appealing

06:44candidate with his convention speech. And for the first 25 minutes or so, I thought maybe he was on

06:50his way to doing that. Then for the next hour plus, he blew it. This was now the old ranting

06:57and raving Trump, dark, sinister, divisive, inflammatory, a speech filled with at least 20

07:06lies, according to the fact checkers. So whatever chance he had, Donald Trump is Donald Trump and he

07:14really can't change who he is. I know that this isn't a key, but because this is a really historic

07:22moment, it's unprecedented. How much do you think VP pick matters? Let's say the nominee ends up

07:28being Vice President Kamala Harris, who she picks as a running mate. Does this sway voters' minds?

07:34Does this impact the keys at all? It does not impact the keys at all. The keys are the northern

07:40star of politics. They remain fixed. You know, every four years someone comes to me and says,

07:47this year is unprecedented. You have to change your keys. We have an African-American running.

07:53America is not ready to elect an African-American. We have a woman running. We have social media. We

07:59have the access Hollywood would take. But my answer is always, you can't change a model on the fly.

08:06That's a recipe for error. Moreover, the keys are extremely robust. Developmentally, they go all the

08:14way back to 1860, the election of Abraham Lincoln. When women couldn't vote, most African-Americans

08:20were enslaved. We had no polls, no automobiles, no jet planes, no radio, no television. So the keys

08:27have survived vastly greater changes in our economy, our society, our demography, and our

08:33politics than anything we see today. You know, we tend to look at things, unfortunately, in the lens

08:40of the immediate present. I think my role as an historian and predictor is to look at the broader

08:46picture. As your role as a historian is this moment, I know the word unprecedented has really

08:53been thrown around a lot in this election in the past, really, eight years. Does this time in

08:58history really remind you of any other time? Sure. There's never exact parallels in history,

09:07but there are certainly what we call family resemblance, just as, you know, children don't

09:12look exactly like their parents, but you can see the resemblance. One example is 1968 when the

09:20sitting president, who had previously won election in a landslide in 1964, Lyndon Johnson, withdrew

09:29during the primary process in March. And then you had this brutal conflict within the Democratic

09:37Party, including an assassination, not an attempt, but a successful assassination of Robert F.

09:45Kennedy, who was overwhelmingly likely to be the Democratic nominee. You had a big brawl for the

09:51Democratic nomination. You had, you know, chaos at the convention, and lo and behold, despite a booming

09:58economy, the economy of the 1960s, one of the best economies we've had, we got Richard Nixon, who

10:05prolonged the Vietnam War for five years and almost killed off our democracy. In fact, if the current

10:12Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity had been in effect in the 1970s, Nixon would have gotten

10:19away scot-free with Watergate and our democracy would have died 50 years ago, perhaps. So be very

10:27wary of, you know, having a divided party, having chaos. The lessons of 1968 are very clear.

10:37So how do you think the Democratic Party of 2024 then applies those lessons of 1968? Because within

10:45the past few weeks, really since that debate, there has been a sharp divide of Democrats who

10:50were calling for President Biden to step out, other Democrats who were calling for him to step

10:55in or stay in, both factions of the party calling the other ones spineless. I mean,

11:01how do they come together, especially with an election in less than four months?

11:06Yeah, I was appalled by the spectacle of the Democratic Party trashing their incumbent

11:11president right out in the open, and the nominee not by Jamie Raskin or Adam Schiff in Congress,

11:18but by the voters of the Democratic Party in the primaries. I have never seen anything like that,

11:24and I've studied politics from the founding to the present. Why do I think the Democrats

11:30may finally grow a spine and a brain and come together sheer political fear? You know,

11:36politics is like Wall Street. It runs on two things, greed and fear.

11:43And Alan, before I let you go, I am curious to hear your side of this argument. Some Republicans

11:49have said that for Democrats being called what they call themselves as the party of democracy,

11:55Joe Biden had the primary votes here, and they feel that they're replacing him

12:02with someone who voters did not select in the primary. What's your argument to that?

12:08Well, I think they have a point. I think this was not a grand exercise in democracy,

12:14but it pales in comparison to Donald Trump's threat to democracy. He organized an insurrection.

12:22He's a multiple convicted felon. He's a civilly convicted sexual assaulter,

12:28colloquially rapist. I can go on and on. And he promised to govern like his buddy

12:32Viktor Orban in Hungary, which means snuffing out the political opposition,

12:37and unfortunately to my friends like you in the media, snuffing out the free press. So yeah,

12:43but this is a bit, you know, much worse than the pot calling the kettle black. Come on.

12:49The party of authoritarianism has a point, but only to a small point.

12:55Alan, when I was lucky enough to speak with you a few weeks ago, you suggested a plan B if President

13:00Biden weren't going or were to step down, and that would be he resigned the presidency immediately

13:06and have Vice President Kamala Harris become the president. Do you think that that would happen? A,

13:11and B, do you still think that's the best plan forward?

13:15I always thought that was the best plan, at least so far. It's not going to happen,

13:20but I'm hoping for the Democrats' sake that they adopt the other half of my plan B,

13:28which was to form a consensus around the nomination of Harris. If they do that,

13:33they've at least listened to me 50 percent, and I consider that pretty good.

13:38And when you're looking between now and the convention come August,

13:43what are you looking out for the most in terms of these 13 keys?

13:48Yeah. As I said, there are four shaky keys, third party, social unrest, foreign slash military

13:55failure and success. So I'm looking to see whether there's an explosion of social unrest

14:01at the convention like we saw in 1968. I don't expect that, but I'm waiting to see. I'm waiting

14:07to see if RFK Jr., like George Wallace in 1968, stabilizes in the polls at 10 percent or more.

14:17And what I'm particularly looking at, which is something that Biden might be able to achieve

14:24and help his party against the obstructionism of PM Netanyahu in Israel, could he conceivably

14:32broker a ceasefire and a release of the hostages? That could turn one of my foreign policy slash

14:42military policy keys in favor of the Democrats. You know, I've been asked for months, what could

14:48Biden do to win re-election? And my answer is always govern well. That's the message of the

14:53keys. It's governance, not campaigning that counts. Professor Alan Lichtman, I appreciate

15:00your insights today. Thank you for the conversation. You're welcome back anytime.

15:05My pleasure. Thank you for a great interview.

Can Democrats Win The White House After Joe Biden Dropped Out?: Presidential Historian Weighs In

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