By this time next month we may know who won. Just kidding, sort of. Earlier, I predicted that if Trump wins, endless legal disputes would ensue, along with violence in the streets. However, I also said Trump’s margin of victory would be big enough to allay Wall Street’s anxieties about not having a clear winner.  I still see it that way, although given the heavy tilt of the polls toward Biden, I’d want at least 8-to-1 odds to bet on a big Trump win.

A smart guy who thinks otherwise is Allan Lichtman, an American University historian with a supposedly perfect record picking presidential winners since Reagan. He has gotten every race right, we are told, including Trump’s shocking victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016. It would seem that he also predicted the impeachment. Lichtman favors Biden this time, based on 14 ‘keys’ he uses to determine which way notoriously fickle voters will veer. Incumbency is an important ‘key’ for Trump, Lichtman concedes, but the President loses out on too many others. He cites as negatives the Covid-depressed economy and the supposed Russian scandal. In my estimation, the professor has gotten these two ‘keys’ so badly wrong that his credibility should have taken a hit. Instead, he has become a big hit himself, a celebrity on Trump-fearing news shows.

Voters Haven’t Forgotten

Concerning the two crucial negative keys that favor Biden over Trump, except for those afflicted with Trump Derangement System, most voters do not blame Trump for the spread of the virus, nor for its depressing effects on the economy. Moreover, it beggars belief to suggest that Biden could have done better or could do better in the future. Under Obama/Biden, the economy languished in the weakest recovery of the post-War period. But then Trump, with one hand tied behind his back by a House controlled by the Democrats, raised the economy to record heights, creating enough new jobs to bring unemployment down to record lows, including for blacks and Latinos. Now Lichtman would have us believe voters have forgotten about all this? Yeah, sure.

Lichtman has also neglected to take into account a fact unique to this election, to wit: Virtually no one — including even die-hard Democrats — is enthused about Biden. So the question becomes: Is hatred of Trump so extreme and widespread that it will swing the election to an unredeemable schmuck?  Biden is far worse than that, actually, if you consider recent revelations concerning the lucrative business deals he made happen for his not-too-bright son, Hunter. The chip-off-the-old-block’s financial stake in just one Chinese-backed company alone is worth an estimated $50 million. Were you aware there is a Russian partner in this deal as well?  Only if you watch Fox news.

News Blackout Will Backfire

Another crucial bullet point not on Lichtman’s list of ‘keys’ is the public’s extreme revulsion toward the news media. Of course, we’ve long hated the left-tilting scumbags who invent the news each day. But the Trump years have ratcheted down our respect to abysmal new depths that no one could have imagined before Trump. The prospect of having to listen to the likes of Rachel Maddow gloat for the next five or ten years, or at least until the Republic collapses under three-branch rule by the Democrats, is going to be worth millions of votes to Trump.  Millions more will come from the news media’s recent, brazenly dishonest attempt to black out the Hunter Biden scandal. The fix was in, for sure, but it will not sit well with an American public that demands fair play, even for ‘bad’ guys like the Orange Man.

In the meantime, Rick’s Picks has been looking for the stock market to signal a winner before the votes are tallied. So far, there has been little clarity, although it’s obvious that investors have not yet bought into a Biden win. With a wishy-washy, mentally decrepit political weakling like Biden in the White House, that would be tantamount to acknowledging that his running mate’s Marxist tendencies, along with those of the Democratic party, are about to have their day in America, literally with a vengeance.  Despite the polls, I still think Trump will prevail. This is apt to trigger a powerful rally on Wall Street, although I no longer expect it to last very long. Sometime between the election and Trump’s second inauguration the nation will need to confront a Fed-engineered recovery that has been a mile wide but only an inch deep. If the rally comes, we should enjoy it while it lasts, since it could be the last gasp of the extraordinary era of peace and prosperity that Trump helped bring about. _______ UPDATE (Nov 2, 10:17): Election day at last! The huge crowds Trump has been drawing everywhere he speaks contrast sharply with Biden’s funereal whistle stops and the pathetic turnout for Obummer events. We’ll know soon whether Trump’s unprecedented, final-week blitz has helped deliver not just a win, but a BIG win.