U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House, Washington, U.S., July 22, 2024 and former U.S. President Donald Trump in Bedminster, New Jersey, U.S., August 15, 2024 in a combination of file photographs.
Nathan Howard | Jeenah Moon | Reuters
The results are in, and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris will defeat Republican rival Donald Trump in the Nov. 5 election — at least according to the historian dubbed the “Nostradamus” of presidential election predictions.
It’s the latest election prophecy from Allan Lichtman, an American University distinguished professor who boasts of having successfully predicted the results of every U.S. presidential race since 1984.
Lichtman revealed his decision Thursday morning in an op-ed video for The New York Times.
“The Democrats will hold on to 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 an historical index model he dubs the “Keys to the White House.”
The unique system, which he developed in the early 1980s with the Russian geophysicist Vladimir Keilis-Borok, analyzes the political landscape through the lens of 13 true-false statements focused on the incumbent president’s party.
If six or more of the statements are false, then the challenger — Trump — is predicted to win.
Here are the keys, and Lichtman’s determinations for each:
- Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than it did after the previous midterm elections. FALSE
- Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent-party nomination. TRUE
- Incumbency: The incumbent-party candidate is the sitting president. FALSE
- Third party: There is no significant third-party or independent campaign. TRUE
- Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign. TRUE
- Long-term economy: Real per-capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms. TRUE
- Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy. TRUE
- Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term. TRUE
- Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal. TRUE
- Incumbent charisma: The incumbent-party candidate is charismatic or a national hero. FALSE
- Challenger charisma: The challenging-party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero. TRUE
- Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
- Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.
On the final two keys, Lichtman said, “Foreign policy is tricky, and these keys could flip.”
He noted that the Biden administration is deeply involved in Israel’s war in Gaza, which he called a “humanitarian disaster with no end in sight.”
“But even if both foreign policy keys flipped false, that would mean that there were only five negative keys, which would not be enough for Donald Trump to regain the White House,” Lichtman told the Times.
Lichtman’s analysis largely eschews poll results, campaign strategies, soundbites, policy plans and other factors that most political commentators and analysts tend to lean on.
But his system has yielded results.
Lichtman was one of the few political analysts to accurately predict ahead of the 2016 election that Trump would defeat then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. However, Lichtman’s model indicated that Trump would win the popular vote, which he lost despite securing the Electoral College.
Lichtman accurately predicted that President Joe Biden would beat Trump in the 2020 race.
Despite the unprecedented circumstances of the 2024 race — including Harris replacing Biden as the nominee in the final months of the race — Lichtman expressed confidence that his keys would yield an accurate prediction.
“The keys absolutely will work. They are the constant northern star of political prediction,” he said in Thursday’s video.
“The outcome is up to you,” he added. “So get out and vote.”