"Never wrong pundit" Allan Lichtman predicts Clinton win.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Litchman's model doesn't really fit this election, he can easily swing it either way to fit his preferred narrative. In the end, once the election has occurred, he'll just adjust things to preserve his model's so-called infallibility.

Key 1: The incumbent party (in this case, Democrats) holds more seats in the U. S. House of Representatives after the midterm election than after the preceding midterm election.
FALSE

Key 2: There is no serious contest for the incumbent-party nomination.
AMBIGIOUS - Was Sanders serious? Depends on whether you prefer the narrative of "Hillary Clinton had a consistent pledged delegate lead starting with the third contest" or "Hillary was supposed to win in a yuge landslide, but when the actual elections happened, she came within striking distance of losing a majority of non-territorial contests (referring just to state winners, not delegates) and didn't clinch the nomination until June."

Key 3: The incumbent-party candidate is the current president.
FALSE

Key 4: There is no significant third-party or independent candidacy.
Lichtmann defines "significant" as earning 5%. Stein won't do it, but it honestly looks like Johnson will as of now. That may change after the debates though. UNKNOWN

Key 5: The economy is not in recession during the campaign. TRUE

Key 6: Real (constant-dollar) per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth for the preceding two terms. TRUE

Key 7: The incumbent administration has effected major policy changes during the term. FALSE

Key 8: There has been no major social unrest during the term.
AMBIGUOUS. The whole police brutality/BLM movement might qualify. This is really open for Litchman to do whatever he needs to do to preserve his model.

Key 9: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
TRUE. Hillary isn't part of the administration anymore, so emails don't count here.

Key 10: There has been no major military or foreign policy failure during the term.
Barring any major development, TRUE

Key 11: There has been a major military or foreign policy success during the term.
AMBIGIOUS. The opening of Cuba relations and Iran deal should qualify, but Litchman has said in the past that he doesn't think Americans see this as a major success. Again, he'll just assign this as needed to preserve his model.

Key 12: The incumbent-party candidate is charismatic or is a national hero.
FALSE.

Key 13: The challenger is not charismatic and is not a national hero.
AMBIGIOUS - Extremely open to interpretation. Does Charismatic mean your base is excited and turns out in big numbers for you, and you're a great orator, or does it mean you have high personal popularity? Completely up to the modeler.

4 FALSE
4 TRUE
1 Unknown
4 Ambiguous

Six "False" is required for the incumbent party to lose.

As you can see, there's plenty of room for Litchman to declare his model was correct no matter what occurs. If Trump wins, he'll just "deny deny deny" ever doing this interview and reallocate keys to get his model to predict a Trump win.
 

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

I used to have a great deal of respect for Lichtman and Keys, but not sure I do now. Is he rigging the nomination contest key for Hillary? The criteria is very clear in the book and it's 2/3's of the delegates...Hillary only got 3/5's.

As for the foreign/military success, sorry but it has to be seen as a "success" across the political spectrum. The killing of OBL in Obama's first term counted, but the Iran nuclear deal is only seen through partisan lenses.

He's obviously rigging one of these keys.

Yeah, there's no justifiable way to give Hillary credit for a big primary win.  Still, 7 to 6 is good for a win in his system, right?

No, 7 to 6 means the incumbent party loses. The incumbent party has to get to 8 keys.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

So basically he's fudging his model into the direction of what he expects to happen. Key 2 is actually true by his standard (Sanders won over a third of delegates) but he's finding excuses otherwise because he doesn't think Trump can win.

Yeah, I remember it being pointed out on here a few months ago that a Trump win was likely based on his model. Thing is that several of the 'keys' are vague.

If you try to assign the unclear keys with as little bias as possible, this is what you get.

Key 2: There is no serious contest for the incumbent-party nomination.
Based on what Litchman's standard was when he wrote his book, which is really what he should be using, FALSE


Key 4: There is no significant third-party or independent candidacy.
Based on current polling, we have to say FALSE (Johnson)

Key 8: There has been no major social unrest during the term.
Since BLM is (mostly) non-violent, we'll say TRUE here.

Key 11: There has been a major military or foreign policy success during the term.
It's a good point that Cuba/Iran are viewed through partisan lenses. The same applies to Climate Change. Litchman has been reluctant to declare any of these a clear success throughout the campaign. Going with FALSE.

Key 13: The challenger is not charismatic and is not a national hero.
Given what I did with the rest of the keys, this one doesn't matter, so I'll just be generous to Clinton and say TRUE

7 FALSE
6 TRUE
 

Trump is our next president, with one more key than he needed.
 

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

How the hell is he still claiming Democrats have Key 2? In the book, he clearly states the winner must have 2/3's of the delegates...HRC got 3/5's of the delegates. 3/5's is less than 2/3's. This is not rocket science.

He believes that since Clinton was never in serious danger of losing her lead after SC, and because Bernie was supportive at the convention, it doesn't count as a "serious" challenge.