One thing that is vitally important when talking about the 2020 election, or any election for that matter, is the national political environment at the time of the election, or how Democratic or Republican the country will be. Here, I will share with you some thoughts I have about this topic. These will be the basis for my initial 2020 race ratings.

The 13 Foolproof Keys

One of the best predictors of the national environment is a handy dandy tool called the “13 Keys to the White House”. This system, developed by American University professor Allan Lichtman, has predicted the popular vote winner of every election since 1980, and, in practice, has worked since 1860! I won’t plagiarise his work, but he outlines this system pretty well in his book “The Keys to the White House”. If you don’t have the time for a book, there’s a pretty good Wikipedia article on it as well, and some decent YouTube videos. The keys are a set of 13 true/false statements. If 6 or more are false, the incumbent party is voted out of office. Let’s look at the keys.

1. Incumbent party mandate (Net gain of house seats for the party between last two midterm elections) False

Democrats have gained 47 net house seats since the Republican’s resounding victory in the 2014 midterms. 6 in 2016, an impressive showing considering their devastating presidential loss that year, and 41 in 2018, which was even more impressive.

2. Nomination contest (Trump wins the RNC with more than ⅔ of the delegate votes on the first ballot) Unknown

We don’t know at this point what the convention will look like. That said, the GOP has become surprisingly unified around Trump, and I see this key becoming true.

3. Incumbency: True

Trump is the incumbent president, and is extremely likely to run again. Impeachment probably doesn’t have broad enough support to happen.

4. Third Party (a third party candidate getting 5% or more of the vote) Unknown

It’s impossible and unwise to attempt to accurately speculate the direction of this key at this point.

5. Short term economy (not in recession) Unknown

The stocks just took a short, but very sharp dip, followed by a resurgance. Whether this is just a brief occurance or the start of something worse, it’s too early to tell.

6. Long term economy (per-capita economic growth grows compared to last 8 years) True

It would be nearly impossible at this point, even with a recession, to erase the growth made in the first half of Trump’s term.

7. Policy change: True

Tax cuts, immigration, foreign policy, supporters and detractors alike agree Trump has seriously shaked things up.

8. No social unrest: False

The social unrest we’ve witnessed during and leading up to Trump’s term shows no signs of stopping.

9.No scandal: False

Even if the results of Mueller’s investigation are very favorable for Trump, he has some other scandals to deal with too, such as the Access Hollywood Tape and the events following it and his refusal to release his tax returns.

10. Foreign or military failure: Unknown

About halfway through Trump’s term, there have been no damning foreign or military failures. There have been missteps, such as pulling troops out of Syria, but nothing that fits Lichtman’s definition of a “major foreign or military failure”. I consider this key leaning towards turning true.

11. Foreign or military success: True

Since Trump has taken the presidency, ISIS has been largely defeated, he held a summit with Kim Jong Un, and he moved the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem. Any one of these could turn this key in the president’s favor.

12. Incumbent charisma: True

This is my most controversial classification. There’s no doubt Trump can fire up a crowd, and I think that fits the definition “charisma” quite well.

13. Lack of challenger charisma: Unknown

We don’t know who the Democrat nominee will be yet, so we can’t really turn this key yet. However, it will probably take charisma to win the nomination, so I think Democrats are in the driver’s seat to make this key false.

Democrats have 3 solid falses so far, they need 3 more to win the popular vote. Trump has 5 hard trues, however, limiting Democrats to 5 potential keys they could turn in their favor. They’d need to win 3/5 of the remaining keys. Additionally, chances are 2 additional keys will turn “true”, while one more will turn “false”, with 2 that could go either way. This is 4 falses, 2 unknowns, and 7 trues. So the Democrats need the other two keys to flip their way, or else snatch one that’s currently leaning “true” to reach the magic number of 6 falses. This may very well be what happens, especially since the keys are somewhat dependent on each other. If the economy goes south, a primary challenger will likely arise, because Trump would’ve lost his main accomplishment, and people would pay more attention to his unconventional ways, for example. It’s also possible that this election will be unlike any other in modern history, rendering the keys irrelevant. No matter how you slice it, this election will be very competitive.

The National Environment

So how does this all translate into numbers? I have a feeling if there’s going to be a landslide, it will be a blue one. It’s hard to imagine Trump winning by more than a few points, because of the high number of people vehemently opposed to him. However, I can see an outcome where the Democrat candidate for president wins by a high-single digit landslide, given 8.6% generic ballot margin last year, the highest in 32 years, and Trump getting only 46% of the popular vote in 2016. Additionally, if the short-term economy and/or scandal keys turn false, even his base could begin to slip away. At this point, it’s best to assume an environment that favors Democrats by a point or two. This probably won’t happen, but it’s my best estimate at this point. This is 0.6% more Republican than 2016, the last presidential election and when many governors races this year last had an election, 7.1% more Republican than 2018, the last House Election and 7.2% more Democratic than 2014, when the Senate class up this year last faced election.

Tl;dr: At this point, my operation assumption is that the national environment will be D+1.5

Coming next Saturday: 2020 Presidential Election Race Ratings