In fact, when it comes to predicting election outcomes, it makes much more sense to focus on the big picture. In 1981, collaborating with the renowned mathematician Vladimir Keilis-Borok, I developed the Keys to the White House, a system for explaining and predicting presidential election results based on the study of American politics from 1860 to 1980. The Keys model demonstrates that presidential elections are primarily judgments on the performance of the party currently holding the White House, with speeches, ads, debates, campaign appearances and even tweets accounting for little or nothing in the final outcome. [...]
Since 1984, the Keys model has correctly forecast the outcomes of all subsequent US presidential elections, including in 2016. Using the model, I predicted a Trump victory in a Washington Post interview on September 23, 2016. I doubled down on that prediction in another interview on October 28, after the revelation of the Trump Access Hollywood tape and allegations of sexual assault, and before FBI director James Comey’s letter updating Congress about new Clinton email discoveries. [...]
All this suggests that both the media and politicians should rethink their strategies toward elections. Rather than focusing on polls and horserace coverage, the media should cover elections in terms of what they mean for governing. In this era of fake news they should be the gatekeepers of truth, mediating the clash between fact and fiction. Of course, all this flies in the face of the revenues that flow to the media from covering elections day-by-day with the drama of a sporting event.
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