This is hidden brain.
I'm Shankar Vedantam.
Democrats were not the only ones chagrined after the us presidential vote.
Donald Trump's election has sent shockwaves through the world of pollsters and political analysts.
Pundits on both the left and right had predicted Hillary Clinton would walk away with the race.
Today we're talking to one expert who got it right.
There are several surprising things about him.
For one thing, Alan Lichtman is a historian, not a data scientist.
For another, this wasnt a fluke.
This is the 9th time in a row hes called the election correctly.
Finally, and this is the craziest part, Allen often calls the winner months and sometimes years before an election.
He sometimes called elections before he knows which candidates are running.
Alan says his secret is sitting in plain sight.
But most of us are too consumed with the drama of campaigns and candidates to see it.
Alan Lichtman, welcome to hidden brain.
Thank you so much.
Alan, you're in the Middle east right now in a hotel room in Qatar.
I want to take you back more.
Than a quarter century.
You were at Cal Tech and you sat down to dinner next to another academic.