(NewsNation) — Presidential historian Allan Lichtman predicts that Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris will win the 2024 election.
Lichtman has correctly predicted nearly every presidential race since 1984. The New York Times was first to report Lichtman’s projection, which isn’t influenced by political polling. Instead, Lichtman uses a model centered on “13 true-or-false questions” that correspond to 13 “keys” to victory.
He recently told “NewsNation Live” that “cataclysmic events” have had a mixed but important effect on the keys assessing the White House party’s strength and performance. If six keys go against the White House party, his system predicts a loss, he explained.
When asked by NewsNation anchor Chris Cuomo if his key system had ever failed to determine the outcome of the election, Lichtman claimed that it hadn’t.
“It has never happened since I’ve been looking at this, and it goes all the way back to the election of Abraham Lincoln,” Lichtman said Thursday.
It’s worth noting that Lichtman has predicted Al Gore, and not George W. Bush, as the winner of the 2000 election; Lichtman, however, has claimed he correctly predicted the popular vote and that the election was “stolen” in Florida amid a recount in the state, he once said in an online interview.
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The 13 key indicators that Lichtman uses for his predictions are party mandate, party contest, incumbency, third party, short-term economy, long-term economy, policy change, social unrest, scandal, foreign/military policy failure, foreign/military policy success, incumbent charisma and challenger charisma.
Looking ahead to November, eight of the keys favor Harris, while three do not, Lichtman said. The final two keys — foreign policy success and failure — could go either way but won’t sway the final outcome, he added.
“‘Foreign policy is tricky and these keys could flip,” he told The New York Times. “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.”
Lichtman’s prediction Thursday is in line with comments he recently made on NewsNation, saying the outcome looks positive for Democrats.
“(Democrats) have united around Kamala Harris, preserving the ‘no primary contest’ key,” he told NewsNation in a July interview. “So, the bottom line is they only lost one key, plus it looks like Harris may have a positive effect for the Democrats on two other keys,” Lichtman said at the time.
Significant issues would have to arise for Democrats to lose in November, he said.
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