President Predictor Lichtman: Trump Could Win If Biden Is Replaced

Allan Lichtman, the historian who has predicted the results of 9 out of the past 10 presidential elections, Sunday said it will be a "disaster" for Democrats if their delegates choose a nominee to replace President Joe Biden if he refuses to leave the ticket, as that would mean no incumbent in the race.

And that fact alone could lead to a win for former President Donald Trump, Lichtman, a professor at American University, told "Fox News Sunday."

The reason for that, Lichtman explained, is because removing Biden, the incumbent, would lead to the "same situation that led to the election of Donald Trump" in 2016, when he defeated Hillary Clinton and there was no incumbent in the race, said Lichtman.

"You can go all the back to 1900, since at that time, under those conditions, the party holding the White House has won 10 times, whereas sitting presidents and no contest have won 175% of the time," he said.

And if delegates replace Biden, that would lead to a "brawl" at next month's Democratic National Convention, he said.

"What do all of these politicians, political operatives, and pundits have in common who are calling for Biden to leave the ticket?" he asked. "Zero track record in predicting elections."

Biden has thousands of delegates in his camp ahead of the Democratic National Convention next month, but calls are growing for him to drop out of the 2024 race after his struggles during his debate against Trump in June.

But Lichtman, who uses a series of 13 historical factors or "keys" to predict the outcomes of all the presidential races except for the race in 2000, said that debate performance is not one of his factors determining how a race will end up.

His system instead includes four factors that are based on politics, seven on performance, and two on a candidate's personality, and he says that an incumbent president would need to lose six of those keys to be voted out.

Sunday, Lichtman told Fox News that Biden has already checked off two of the keys, those for being an incumbent and because there was no party competition for his seat this year.

The calls for Biden to withdraw, he added, are "being field by historical ignorance and not a real knowledge of how elections work."