August 5–11, 2024

Tim Walz, Democratic governor of Minnesota and VP candidate, described Donald Trump and J.D. Vance as “weird,” an adjective that has caught on in the media. Check out Walz’s recent interview on The Ezra Klein Show:

Most contemporary political analysts have been comparing the 2016, 2020, and 2024 elections in which Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, is the common denominator. But there are stark differences across these three elections. The Republican Party of 2024 bears little resemblance to the Republican Party of 2016, or even to the Republican Party prior to the insurrection of January 6, 2021.

A strong argument can be made that the presidential election of 2024 is more like the presidential election of 1964 than the elections of 2016 or 2020.

Theodore H. White, in The Making of the President 1964 (2010), gave a detailed account of the 1964 campaigns involving the Republican challenger Barry Goldwater and the Democratic incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson.

The 1964 Republican Party espoused radical, right-wing positions. Barry Goldwater, the Republican presidential candidate, stated “extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.” Democrats in 1964 used the slogan In Your Guts, You Know He’s Nuts, a slogan attacking Goldwater.

Today’s Republican Party is the Make America Great Again (MAGA) party. The slogan In Your Guts, You Know He’s Nuts could easily be applied to Trump or Vance.

The 2024 MAGA Republican Party is also radical. It espouses undemocratic, autocratic positions in Project 2025.

At a recent campaign rally in Atlanta, Trump insulted the Republican governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp. Trump accosts many life-long Republicans as “Republicans in name only” (RINOs). Republicans for Harris joins The Lincoln Project in organizing Republicans to oppose Trump’s reelection.

Today’s MAGA Republican party and its standard bearers are arguably misogynistic. Trump is responsible for Supreme Court appointments leading to the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, overturning Row v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose. VP nominee Vance insults single women as “childless cat ladies.” Republican candidate attacks on Harris, an African-American and Asian-American woman, do more harm than good with attracting women voters.

Today’s MAGA Republican Party and its standard bearers are out of touch with the American electorate both in style and substance. They are viewed as dangerous and extreme, just as Goldwater Republicans were viewed as dangerous and extreme in 1964.

The historian Allan Lichtman (2024) has identified thirteen factors that predict the outcome of US presidential elections. He calls these the “Keys to the White House.” Many of the Keys for 1964 and 2024 have the same Democratic incumbent (blue) and Republican challenger (red) values, as shown here:

We fit a machine learning model to data from twenty-six presidential elections (1860 through 1960). Then we used 1964 Keys-to-the-White-House data to predict how the Democratic incumbent Johnson would fare against the Republican challenger Goldwater: In 1964, the Democratic Party had a 95.6% chance of winning in the Electoral College.

In 1964, the Democratic Party won decisively with 61.1 percent of the popular vote and 486 Electoral College votes. Goldwater, the right-wing Republican senator from Arizona, won his home state along with Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina, for a total of only 52 Electoral College votes.

Using a comparable machine learning approach, we fit a model to data from forty-one presidential elections (1860 through 2020). We used 2024 Keys-to-the-White-House data to predict how the Democratic Harris-Walz ticket will fare against the Republican Trump-Vance ticket: In 2024, the Democratic Party has a 75.8% chance of winning in the Electoral College.

Will predictions from Keys-to-the-White-House data, bolstered by machine learning, prove correct? Time will tell.

Note the recent election forecast from Allan Lichtman: Harris vs Trump! Prediction Professor Explains Which Way the Election is Leaning with Kamala Harris. Lichtman’s conclusion: A lot would have to go wrong for the Democrats to lose this election.

In 1964, Lyndon Johnson selected Minnesota’s Hubert Humphrey as his running mate. In 2024, Kamala Harris has selected Minnesota’s Tim Walz as her running mate.

Indeed, 2024 is looking more and more like 1964.

Large, joyous rallies in Philadelphia, Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Detroit, Michigan, and Glendale, Arizona stand in sharp contrast to the limited activity and angry words from Republican candidates. This week will end with the Democratic candidates for president and vice president having visited five swing states and Trump having visited one Republican-leaning state, Montana, attracting a relatively small crowd.

Note Tim Walz’s apropos quip at the Arizona rally: “It’s not as if anyone cares about crowd sizes or anything.” See the YouTube Short Clip.

Political History #

• Lichtman, Allan J. 2024. Predicting the Next President: The Keys to the White House (2024 Edition). Lanham, Maryland: Rowland & Littlefield. [ISBN-13: 978-8881800710] Publisher Link.

• White, Theodore H. 2010. The Making of the President 1964 (Reissue Edition). New York: Harper Perennial/HarperCollins. (ISBN-13: 978-0061900617) Publisher Link. Initial edition published in 1965.

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