News Feed: There have been a number of fascinating articles on election forecasting published in 'Foresight', the magazine of the International Institute of Forecasters. Of these, perhaps one of the most accessible is that associated with the name of Professor Allan J. Lichtman. Lichtman's unique approach to political forecasting revolves around what he terms the 'The Thirteen Keys to the White House', a historically based model that is both simple and seemingly successful. The theory underpinning the "Keys" is that the result of a US Presidential election turns almost entirely on the performance of the party controlling the White House. There are 13 keys, each of which Lichtman assesses as either true or false. When five or fewer keys are false, the candidate of the incumbent party will win. When six or more are false, the candidate of the challenging party will win. Key 1 is 'Party mandate' ("After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the US House of Representatives than it did after the previous midterm elections"). In fact, the party of the incumbent President (the Republicans) lost seats in 2006, so this is FAL ...