Presidential election keys for 2000.

• Author: YOung, Michael L.

Deprived of impeachment fantasies and chastened by the President's relentlessly strong approval ratings, Republicans now seem ready to accept their fate: Bill Clinton will leave office, but not before Jan. 20, 2001. Accordingly, they are setting their sights on a more realistic objective--recapturing the White House in the 2000 presidential election. According to one widely used forecasting tool, they just might pull it off, although opposition Democrats will have to do most of the work. This early prediction and some others are derived from a model developed by political scientist Alan Lichtman.

It challenges much of the conventional wisdom concerning how presidential elections work, as well as many traditional assumptions about what factors determine electoral outcomes. Fundamentally, it views presidential elections simply as referendums on the incumbent administration's past four years in office. To voters, the electoral choice is not whether to vote Republican or Democrat, or even whether to vote for one candidate over another. The choice is far more basic: Shall the in-party stay in or shall the ins become the outs?

The electorate makes that judgment with reference to 13 factors Lichtman calls "keys." Each is measured simply as positive or negative for the incumbent party. If a key is negative, it is said to have "turned" against the incumbents. For a given election, any time six or more keys turn against the incumbent party, the incumbent loses. Otherwise, the incumbent wins. According to Lichtman, this model perfectly has predicted each of the 34 elections since 1856. Let's take a brief look at the keys and their history:

Party mandate. From midterm to midterm, does the incumbent party gain House seats? Historically, the incumbent party tends to lose House seats at midterm, often interpreted as a cost of governing. This key turned against the Democrats in 1980 and 1996, but against Republicans in 1972 and 1976.

Nomination fight. Is there a serious primary nomination struggle in the incumbent party? Primary battles fracture party unity and may weaken the eventual nominee. Jimmy Carter's 1980 fight with Ted Kennedy turned this key against his party. George Bush's 1992 struggle with Pat Buchanan turned it against the Republicans, as did Ronald Reagan's 1976 contest with Gerald Ford.

Incumbent president. Other things being equal, sitting presidents are hard to beat. Bush (1992), Carter (1980), and Ford (1976) are notable exceptions to...