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Allan Lichtman, the American political historian known as the “Nostradamus of presidential predictions”, has officially declared that Kamala Harris will win this year’s race for the White House.
“Kamala Harris will be the next president of the United States,” Lichtman said in a video for The New York Times on Thursday.
“At least, that’s my prediction for this race, but the outcome is up to you, so get out and vote.”
The professor, who has taught at the American University in Washington DC since 1973, has correctly called the winner of nine out of the last 10 US presidential races over the last 40 years – he did not foresee George W Bush narrowly beating Al Gore in 2000 and also wrongly believed Donald Trump would take the popular vote in 2016 but has otherwise been unerring.
Lichtman’s method for forecasting the race so accurately is known as “The Keys to the White House”, a system he devised with the Russian academic Vladimir Keilis-Borok in 1981.
Their method examines the state of the nation and the incumbent party in an election year in order to determine whether its candidate will come out on top once again in November or whether there is sufficient discontent among voters to allow a rival to pip them at the post.
Lichtman’s approach looks at 13 factors, from the president’s party’s standing in the House of Representatives to the health of the domestic economy, any record of scandal, social unrest or foreign policy disasters during their tenure and the comparative charisma of the two candidates, in order to decide the victor, applying “true” or “false” designations to each category.
If the administration in power achieves six or more “true” gradings, its candidate is expected to win – any fewer and their challenger is likely to come out on top.
In his explanatory video for the NYT, the professor said that eight of the 13 keys currently yield “true” answers, suggesting a Harris triumph and another four years in government for the Democrats.
Just three of the keys are definitively “false” but two more could flip that way, he said, although even if they did, five would still not be a sufficient total to deliver a win for the Republican ticket.
“Foreign policy is tricky, and these keys could flip,” Lichtman said.
“The Biden administration is deeply invested in the war in Gaza, which is 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.”
Speaking to Fox 5 Washington DC, Professor Lichtman further explained that Joe Biden’s decision to stand aside in the wake of his disastrous debate performance against Trump in late June has proven a pivotal moment for the 2024 race.
“Democrats finally got a spine and got smart and united around Harris,” he explained.
“That avoided the loss of the party contest key. They already lost one key, the incumbency key, obviously, but to lose both of them is a near-fatal combination. So that made a huge difference.
“The other thing: I think Harris has had a positive effect on a couple of other keys. I think she contributed to the fizzling of the Robert F Kennedy Jr campaign since voters no longer have to choose between two old white guys. I hate to say that being an old white guy myself!
“And, secondly, I think she contributed to the dampening of major protests because Biden, the policymaker, was no longer out front.”
Asked whether anything could yet alter Trump’s fortunes, the professor answered: “Not since the [American] Civil War has anything in the last 30 days changed a call… Does that mean it’s impossible? I’m not so arrogant to say, you know, nothing can change in history.”
According to the latest national polling, Harris is four percentage points ahead of Trump on 47 per cent of the vote to 43 per cent, although the candidates appear to be tied in three key battleground states: Pennsylvania, Nevada and Georgia.
The Democrat meanwhile has the lead in two more potentially crucial swing states, Michigan and Wisconsin, while the Republican former president has the advantage in Arizona.
