U.S. election “Nostradamus” thinks Kamala Harris will win: But the outcome is up to you, he says

09/11/2024 / By Belle Carter

A history professor and polling expert dubbed the “Nostradamus” of American politics has predicted that the Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris will win the 2024 presidential election, using his election model that reportedly has accurately predicted the winner for decades.

“Kamala Harris will be the next president of the United States, at least that’s my prediction for the outcome of this race,” Allan Lichtman, a presidential historian at American University, told the New York Times in a video interview that aired on Sept. 5.

He followed his statement with a disclaimer: “But the outcome is up to you. So get out and vote.”

Lichtman, best known for his “Keys to the White House” system, earned his title of “Nostradamus” because he was able to predict that former President Donald Trump would win the 2016 polls. Immediately after the first 2024 presidential debate between Trump and President Joe Biden, he was also quick to warn that Biden would drop out of the race which could be a “tragic mistake for Democrats.”

Lichtman’s simple, history-driven model, tunes out polls and pollsters and instead focuses on 13 true-or-false questions that he says hold the “keys” to the White House. According to him Harris currently holds eight keys.

The keys system evaluates candidates based on various factors, including party gains in the prior midterm election, the incumbency factor, whether the nominees faced a primary contest, if there is a strong third-party candidate present, the state of the short-term and long-term economy, and if there have been major national policy changes. Additional keys, he said, include whether there is recent social unrest, a major White House scandal, the charisma of the incumbent and challenger, and a major foreign policy failure or success.

However, he got one prediction wrong since he started giving forecasts in 1984. He failed in the 2000 election when he said that Al Gore would win instead of the eventual winner George W. Bush.

Also, critics do not agree with his system. Statistician and election modeler Nate Silver has frequently denounced the 13 keys, calling the system “p-hacked BS.” In a post on X, Silver challenged the history professor to a $250,000 bet over who could more accurately predict the 2024 election results.

Poll: Trump holds narrow lead over Harris nationally

Setting the prediction aside, national surveys reveal that Trump and Harris are still going neck-and-neck.

A recent New York Times/Siena College poll suggested that the former POTUS leads the vice president nationally by 48 to 47 percent, well within the margin of error. It suggested that Harris was narrowly ahead in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania and tied in four other swing states: Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona.

Meanwhile, a CBS News/YouGov poll put Harris ahead by one percentage point in Michigan and Wisconsin and tied in Pennsylvania. (Related: New poll: Donald Trump takes narrow lead over Kamala Harris in Michigan.)

“As vice-president Harris has said since day one, we are the underdogs in this race. We have a lot of work to do to make sure we win this November, and that will require us to continue aggressively raising money,” Jen O’Malley Dillon, Harris’ campaign chair, said in an email to supporters on Sept. 8.

“The electoral college benefits the Republican ticket. Even in 2020, when the Biden-Harris ticket won more votes than any ticket in history, the election came down to about 45,000 votes across the battleground states. This November, we anticipate margins to be similarly razor-thin. Every single vote will count.”

The latest numbers confirm that each candidate retains a remarkably stable base of loyalists, almost evenly splitting the country.

Head over to KamalaWatch.com for more stories about the vice president.

Watch the video below where American commentator Jesse Watters slams Kamala Harris for “just learning” her policies.

This video is from the NewsClips channel on Brighteon.com.