The so-called “Nostradamus” of U.S. elections has admitted he was wrong after predicting Kamala Harris would win the keys to the White House this year.
The so-called “Nostradamus” of U.S. elections has admitted he was wrong after former—and now future—president Donald Trump won the 2024 contest, contradicting his prediction that Vice President Kamala Harris would emerge victorious.
Historian Allan Lichtman’s model, “The Keys to the White House”, has correctly predicted the outcome of nine out of 10 of the presidential elections prior to this year, earning him the comparison to the 16th century French reputed seer. The model hinges on 13 keys, all true/false statements, that evaluate the standing on the incumbent party based on a variety of factors which include the economy, foreign policy, and domestic politics.
If six or more are false, the incumbent party is predicted to lose the election. If five or fewer are false, it is expected to win. In September, Lichtman officially forecast that Harris would win the election, based on the keys.
But Trump won by a comfortable margin.
In a livestream posted to his YouTube channel on Thursday, Lichtman admitted he was wrong.
“But I was far from the only forecaster to be wrong. Most other models got it wrong”, Lichtman said. “It wasn’t just a singular failure of the keys. It was much broader than that.”
Other forecast models rated the race as essentially a toss-up, but very slightly favored Harris.
On the eve of the 2024 election, polling aggregation site FiveThirtyEight’s model, owned by ABC News, gave Harris a 50 percent chance of winning the election and Trump a 49 percent chance.
The Economist’s election forecast, which used similar techniques to FiveThirtyEight, also showed a close race on the election’s final day, giving Harris a 56 percent chance of winning and Trump a 43 percent chance, with a one percent chance of a draw.
