A noted election analyst recently said that calls to replace President Biden after last Thursday night’s debate performance are “reckless nonsense.”
Allan Lichtman, a historian who has successfully predicted the outcome of nine of the last 10 presidential elections, rejected calls to remove Biden from the polls, telling CNN’s Abby Phillips that it would be a “big mistake” to replace Biden in the vote.
“So this is all reckless nonsense. The same experts and researchers who led us down the primrose path in 2016 are giving horrible advice to Democrats. This proves what I’ve been saying for years,” he said Friday.
“Republicans are unprincipled. Democrats don’t have the courage. Republicans are sticking with a blatant liar who lied during every minute and 20 seconds of that debate. Donald Trump spread a lie,” he continued.
Some Democrats and several prominent media outlets have called for Biden to step down from the race after a lackluster debate showing.
The Biden campaign and the White House have been working to calm concerns about Biden’s debate in recent days, emphasizing that the president will not resign at the polls. The campaign released an ad Monday arguing that Biden can get the job done amid calls to drop out.
Lichtman suggested during the CNN appearance that Biden could surpass his debate performance.
“And by the way, lies last. Debate performances can be topped. And now the first sign of, you know, adversity, the cowardly Democrats want to throw their own sitting president under the bus. My God,” Lichtman said.
Lichtman also said that although he does not yet have a final prediction on who will win the race, the debates do not have any significant impact on the outcome. He added that Democrats need to put forward Biden to have a chance of winning the race, based on their 13-criteria model.
“Debates are not predictive of results. Hillary Clinton won all three debates, but still lost. John Kerry won every debate, but he still lost. Barack Obama was defeated 72% to 20% in the polls, worse than Biden, and won. That’s why we trust the 13 keys, which explore the framework of how elections really work,” he said.
“And they show that the Democrats’ only chance of winning, contrary to everything you’ve heard, is with Biden running. See the assignment key. Biden verifies this. The key to the contest, he scores. He was unchallenged,” he added. “It takes six keys to tell the party at the White House.”
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
