Allan Lichtman, a political historian at American University whose book "The Keys to the White House" has helped him correctly predict the last nine presidential elections, told Salon last week the coronavirus pandemic may spell defeat for President Trump in the 2020 election.

Lichtman's system is based on 13 "keys," a series of true-or-false statements that anticipate whether the incumbent party's presidential candidate will be elected in a given year. If six or more of the statements are false, the incumbent candidate will lose; if fewer than six are false, he or she will win. While Lichtman's system is somewhat complicated by elections where there is a split between the popular vote and the Electoral College results, it has otherwise successfully anticipated every presidential election since 1984. (You can see the full list of keys here.)

"There were four keys solidly locked in against the president" prior to the outbreak, Lichtman explained. "It takes six to predict defeat. But this was before [the pandemic]. Key 1: Party mandate. Key 9: Scandal. Key 11: Foreign/military success. Key 12: incumbent charisma. That's four false keys locked in."