Harris versus Trump 2024: Election ‘Nostradamus’ predicts presidential winner

The election forecaster who has accurately predicted the last nine of the 10 presidential elections has released his final prediction on who will win the 2024 presidential election.

Historian Allan Lichtman believes Vice President Kamala Harris will be the 47th president of the United States, he said on his YouTube channel on Tuesday. He previously predicted Harris would win in a video op-ed for the New York Times in September.

“Nothing has changed that could change my prediction that I made on September 5, despite the polls,” Lichtman said in the video.

Also called the ‘Nostradamus’ of the presidential elections by Newsweek, Lichtman has been predicting the results of the presidential elections for forty years. He was wrong in his 2000 election prediction: that former Vice President Al Gore would win against George W. Bush, who instead succeeded Bill Clinton as president.

The historian of the American university bases his research on thirteen true-or-false questions called ‘keys’. Based on these questions, eight real “keys” favored Harris and three false “keys” favored Trump.

Two “keys” aimed at foreign policy failure or success were a toss-up, he said.

Lichtman bases his system “on history,” he said. Although robust, he said, “You can’t know in advance that there would be something so catastrophic and so unprecedented that would break the pattern of history.”

Instead of getting butterflies in his stomach, Lichtman said this year he has a “swarm of crows in my stomach.”

Lichtman has been criticized in the past for his predictions. Pollster and FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver called the professor’s “keys” “completely arbitrary” in an X post. Lichtman pushed back, writing that Silver “claims to have applied my keys to predict a Trump victory.” He has no idea how to turn the keys,” said the voice on the platform.

“If you don’t know what they’re talking about, this whole exchange looks like two wizards bickering,” Capitol Forum reporter Paul McLeod wrote on X with a screenshot of the exchange.

Silver’s website shows Harris with a 1.2 point lead over Trump, with Harris at 47.9% versus Trump’s 46.7%.

Lichtman’s 13 keys are:

• Party mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party has more seats in the House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.
• Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party’s nomination.
• Incumbent Party: The incumbent party candidate is the incumbent president.
• Third Party: There is no significant third party campaign or independent candidate.
• Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
• Long-term economy: Real economic growth per capita over the term is equal to or greater than the average growth during the previous two terms.
• Policy change: The incumbent government has influence on major changes in national policy.
• Social unrest: No ongoing social unrest during the term.
• Scandal: The current government is not tainted by major scandals.
• Foreign/military failure: The current administration has no major failures in foreign or military affairs.
• Foreign/military success: The incumbent government has achieved great success in foreign or military affairs.
• Incumbent charisma: Incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
• Challenger charisma: Challenger party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.