Vice President Kamala Harris, left, at the White House in Washington, July 22, 2024, and former President Donald Trump in Bedminster, New Jersey, August 15, 2024.
Nathan Howard | Jeenah Moon | Reuters
The results are in and the Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris will defeat his Republican rival Donald Trump in the November 5 election — at least according to the historian nicknamed the “Nostradamus” of presidential election predictions.
This is the latest election prophecy from Allan Lichtman, a distinguished professor at American University who boasts of having successfully predicted the results of every American presidential race since 1984.
Lichtman revealed his decision Thursday morning in an opinion video for The New York Times.
“The Democrats will keep the White House and Kamala Harris will be the next president of the United States,” Lichtman said in the video.
“At least, that’s my prediction for this race.”
His forecasts are based on a historical index model he dubs the “keys to the White House.”
The unique system, which he developed in the early 1980s with Russian geophysicist Vladimir Keilis-Borok, analyzes the political landscape through the prism of 13 true-false statements centered on the party of the incumbent president.
If six or more statements are false, then the challenger – in this case, Trump – is predicted to win.
Here are Lichtman’s keys and determinations for each of them:
- Party mandate: After the midterm elections, the ruling party holds more seats in the United States House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections. FAKE
- Competition: There is no serious competition for the nomination of the ruling party. TRUE
- Position Holder: The candidate of the ruling party is the incumbent president. FAKE
- Third party: There is no significant campaign by a third party or independent organization. TRUE
- Short term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign. TRUE
- Long term economy: Real economic growth per capita during the mandate is equal to or higher than the average growth of the two previous mandates. TRUE
- Policy change: The current administration is making major changes to national policy. TRUE
- Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the mandate. TRUE
- Scandal: The current administration is not tainted by any major scandal. TRUE
- Charisma of the holder: The candidate of the ruling party is charismatic or a national hero. FAKE
- Challenger Charisma: The opposing party’s candidate is neither charismatic nor a national hero. TRUE
- Foreign/Military Failure: The current administration suffers no major failures in foreign or military affairs.
- Foreign/Military Success: The current administration has achieved major success in foreign and military affairs.
Regarding the last two keys, Lichtman said: “Foreign policy is tricky, and these keys could flip.”
He stressed that the Biden administration is deeply implicated in Israel’s war in Gaza, which he called “a humanitarian disaster with no end in sight.”
“But even if the two foreign policy keys were wrong, that would mean there would only be five negative keys, which would not be enough for Donald Trump to retake the White House,” Lichtman told the Times.
Lichtman’s analysis largely avoids poll results, campaign strategies, slogans, policy plans and other factors that most political commentators and analysts tend to rely on.
But his system has produced results.
Lichtman was one of the few political analysts who accurately predicted, before the 2016 election, that Trump would defeat then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. However, Lichtman’s model predicted that Trump would win the popular vote, which he lost despite winning the Electoral College.
Lichtman accurately predicted that the president Joe Biden would be beat trump in the 2020 race.
Despite the unprecedented circumstances of the 2024 race — including Biden’s replacement by Harris as the nominee in its final months — Lichtman said he was confident his keys would allow him to make an accurate prediction.
“The keys will absolutely work. They are the constant North Star of political predictions,” he said in Thursday’s video.
“The outcome depends on you,” he added. “So go out and vote.”
