In the eyes of the “Nostradamus” of election predictors, American University Professor Allan Lichtman claims that the winner of the November election is already chosen.
Lichtman, 77, has accurately selected the winner of every presidential race for 40 years — including predicting that former presidential Donald Trump would win in 2016 and President Joe Biden would win in 2020.
By using a four decade-old method of his and geophysicist Vladimir Keilis-Borok’s creation, Lichtman made his decision for the 2024 election.
“The Democrats will hold on to the White House, and Kamala Harris will be the next president of the United States,” Lichtman claimed in video in a New York Times opinion piece.
His method of determining the next president is relatively simple: 13 true-or-false questions make up the test, and “If six or more of the statements are false, then the challenger — in this case, Trump — is predicted to win,” CNBC wrote.
There are presently two questions that remain unanswered, but even if they fall into Trump’s favor, Lichtman’s method still predicts Harris will win.
According to the NYT video, these are the following questions that Lichtman puts to the test every four years:
- “Midterm gains: The White House party gained House seats between midterm elections.”
- “Incumbency: The sitting president is running for re-election.”
- “Primary contest: The White House party avoided a primary contest”
- “Third party: There’s no third-party challenger.”
- “Short-term economy: The short-term economy is strong.”
- “Long-term economy: Long-term economic growth during this presidential term has been at least as good as the last two terms.”
- “Policy change: The White House has made major changes to national policy.”
- “Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.”
- “White House Scandal: The White House is untainted by scandal.”
- “Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic.”
- “Challenger charisma: The challenger is uncharismatic.”
The remaining two questions, called keys, that are still up in the air are the following, according to CNBC:
- “Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.”
- “Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.”
Lichtman is confident that his method is accurate, calling it “the constant northern star of political prediction.”
Nevertheless, he encouraged viewers to go out and vote come November.
