I'm sure some of you have heard of The Keys to the White House, a system developed by Allan Lichtman back in 1981 to predict the winners of presidential elections in the US. There are 13 items, called keys, to consider, each giving a true or false answer. With 5 or fewer false answers, the incumbent party's nominee is predicted to win. Six or more false answers and the challenging party's nominee is predicted to win. He has a pretty good track record since the system was developed, getting only one election wrong.

You can read all of the gory details at the wikipedia page here:
en.wikipedia.org - The Keys to the White House
Scroll down to just below the middle of the page where there is a big block of color. The current race is listed at the bottom of that block, with the prior races above that.

The bottom line is that with Biden as the nominee, his system predicts Biden as the winner. With someone other than Biden as the nominee, the system predicts that replacement will lose. As it stands now, four of the tests give false answers. With a replacement, two more tests turn false and Trump is the predicted winner.

I'm going to grant up front that there are multiple criticisms of this system - including some that would be familiar to those who have studied mechanical investing. But - to use mechanical investing terms - the post-discovery record is pretty good.

So here's yet another reason to stick with Biden. (Along with a bit of evidence that my half-eaten ham sandwich could beat Trump, but only if it were already the sitting president.)

--Peter