Historian Allan Lichtman has admitted that, despite his weeks of backing Kamala Harris to win the presidency, the early voter returns were “very scary.”
During an online stream on Tuesday night, Lichtman and his son, Sam Lichtman, provided live updates as early counts showed gains for Donald Trump, admitting several times that initial numbers for the vice president were not ideal.
The American political historian is known as the “Nostradamus” of elections because he has successfully predicted the last nine out of 10 presidential races since 1984. He has consistently backed his original prediction that Harris would win in 2024.
However, as more results came in Lichtman admitted that the data was “very scary” later admitting “it doesn’t look good” as they examined the race for North Carolina.
“I’ve definitely lost hope she’s gonna win in a landslide, but I haven’t lost hope she’s going to win,” his son replied.
One of Lichtman’s strongest reactions came at around 10.30pm ET, after projections showed that Trump stood to win 51 percent of the hispanic vote in Pennsylvania.
“What? That’s not possible,” he exclaimed. “The world has turned upside down, that’s all I can say.” Some minutes later, after reviewing the state of the US Senate race, Lichtman added that there was “nothing positive for Harris yet” – massaging his temples.
His method for forecasting the race so accurately in previous election cycles is known as “The Keys to the White House,” a system he devised with the Russian academic Vladimir Keilis-Borok in 1981.
The academic has defended his method, which 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 to decide the victor, applying “true” or “false” designations to each category.
During Tuesday’s broadcast, the Lichtmans thanked a number of trolls for donating to their livestream while claiming that the “Keys were wrong.”
In a previous broadcast, Lichtman reassured viewers to “ignore the polls” and keep the faith in his method. “The Keys to the White House do not change,” he said.
However, the historian previously revealed that, in his belief, there had been “more election anxiety this year” than ever before and that he had received more “hate” during the 2024 cycle.
“A lot of people believe the future of the country is on the line here, and the democracy of America could be a thing of the past. I don’t think that’s an illegitimate fear,” he said.
“I’m so worried about the future of our election, you know, I think I’ve said this before – democracy is precious but like all precious things, it can be destroyed.”
