now my next guest has been making predictions about the US president for decades using his keys to the White House method since 1984 he has correctly forecast almost every single election except for one we want to bring in presidential historian Alan lickman now Allan good morning to you great to see you always good to see you Marcia okay so you say forget the polls the debate crowd size you've made your prediction as to who will in the white house so tell us who how and why yes the big headline is America will have a new pathbreaking president kamla Harris according to my prediction will become the first woman president of the United States at least putting a big crack if not entirely shattering the glass ceiling she will also become the first president of mixed African and East Asian descent kind of foreshadowing an America that is rapidly becoming a majority minority now this is based on the 13 keys to the White House which ignores the pundits who have no scientific basis for their opinion doesn't look at polls which are snapshots but abused by compilers like Nate silver as if they were predictors the 13 Keys tap in of how American presidential elections really work as votes up or down on the strength and performance of The White House party and the way it works if six or more of the keys turn against the White House Party they are predicted losers fewer than six negative keys they are predictive winners and I've been doing this since I predicted Ronald Reagan's reelection in April ail 1982 during what was then the worst recession since the Great Depression when his approval ratings were down in the dumps and of course in 2016 I defied the pundits the posters and most other modelers by calling the winner as Donald Trump which did not make me very popular in 90% plus Democratic Washington DC where I teach at American University but I did get a letter of congratul ations from none other than Donald Trump himself I hope you saved that uh so given all of that Allan and all of the attention and pressure on these two candidates tonight does this debate matter what are you watching for I mean you have been wrong once before could this throw off your prediction could this be the variable that impacts your prediction the answer is no and I would dispute that I was ever wrong you're you were talking about 2000 uh when I called it foror and I proved in my report to the United States Commission on civil rights still up on their website that Florida messed up that election that based on the intent of the voters that Al Gore should have won that election in Florida going away and the presidency and that was independently verified in a later study by Professor Walter meban of Cornell University his article in a referee Journal was entitled the wrong man is President exclamation point he backed up my findings showing that Al Gore should have won by tens of thousands of votes but I'm not here to relitigate 2,000 okay I stand corrected so tell us then about the debate yes uh debates do not predict election results any more than any event of the campaign the ads the fundraising the speeches the dirty tricks Hillary Clinton won all the debates and still lost in 2016 John ker won the debates against a very bad debater George W bush but still lost the election doesn't mean you shouldn't watch the debates but don't watch the debates presuming it's going to predict the election I deliberately issued my prediction before the debate to show that it's not dependent on campaign events but certainly watch the debates they're interesting they can give you Insight in into the candidates they can be informative although they've kind of devolved in recent years since the great Kennedy Nixon debates of 1960 but don't uh get fooled by the pundits and the posters who would tell you this is going to determine the outcome I've already predicted the outcome because my message and it's a positive one is that it's governance not campaigning that counts Alan lickman is a presidential historian and if you read the New York Times you also know he's a marathon runner and we'll leave it there for today I thoroughly enjoyed that piece on you Allan uh good to see you this morning Alan lickman say one more thing yeah sure you want to follow my further analysis check out my live show with my son every Tuesday and Thursday at 900 pm. Eastern at Allen lickman YouTube we have a lot of fun with it I bet you do all right Alan you take care and