Former First Lady Michelle Obama could have a better chance of winning the 2020 election than any of the Democratic candidates presently running, according to election expert Allan Lichtman.
“She comes out extraordinarily well with the Democratic rank and file,” Lichtman said in an interview with the Daily Caller. “She has the charismatic potential. She has the pizzazz the [current] candidates don’t have. [Independent Vermont Sen.] Bernie Sanders has pizzazz, but he’s like Trump. He appeals only to a narrow slice of the electorate. He’s not a Franklin Delano Roosevelt or a Ronald Reagan.”
Lichtman, a professor at American University in Washington, D.C., is known for developing 13 “keys” that successfully predict the outcome of most presidential elections, including Trump’s election in 2016. While former Vice President Joe Biden is the most likely candidate to emerge with enough delegates to win his party’s nomination, Lichtman said, Democratic voters may still be open to Michelle Obama — and she could be a much stronger candidate against Trump. (RELATED: Federal Debt Grows $1 Trillion Under Trump In 2019)
“There are rules that would prevent her from being nominated at the convention, but rules can be changed,” Lichtman said. “I think it’s a long shot, but I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility.”
Lichtman said the November election is “too close to call.” If Trump wins, he said, 2020 could be the last year where Democrats worry about “electability,” which he suggested was a misnomer.
“Democrats for decades thought they had solved the electability problem. Nominate a safe, experienced, proven, centrist candidate. Michael Dukakis in 1988, Al Gore in 2000, John Kerry in 2004, Clinton in 2016. Of course, what all those candidates had in common is they all lost. So traditional ideas of electability are not only meaningless, they’re misleading,” Lichtman opined.
Could Americans see California Rep. Adam Schiff, the Democratic House Intelligence Committee chairman at the helm of his chamber’s impeachment proceedings, seek to become President Schiff? Lichtman said it was possible. (RELATED: Dershowitz: Pelosi Doesn’t Have The Impeachment Power She Believes)
“I think you’ve seen the last of the old generation of Democrats. The Bidens, the Sanders, the [Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth] Warrens, people 70 years and older will not be in contention in 2024,” he said. “You’re going to see a new generation of Democrats coming up. Maybe Adam Schiff, I could see [Democratic California Sen.] Kamala Harris, [Democratic New Jersey Sen.] Cory Booker, [former Housing and Urban Development Secretary] Julian Castro. The next generation that didn’t make it this time, I could see rising in 2024.”