“The Simpsons” doesn’t always get it right.
The animated sitcom’s prediction that Kamala Harris would become the next US president didn’t come to fruition, after Donald Trump won the 2024 election on Wednesday.
The show, which has infamously predicted many future events over the past 35 years, signaled that Harris, 60, could become president way back in 2000.
In the episode “Bart to the Future,” Lisa Simpson becomes the first female president of the United States. She sports the exact same purple ensemble that Harris rocked during the 2021 inauguration, including the pearl necklace and earrings, after Joe Biden and Harris beat Donald Trump in the 2020 election.
Adding to the irony, President Lisa remarks, “We’ve inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump.”
The back-to-back visuals of Lisa and Harris in their purple outfits went viral three years after the inauguration, once Harris replaced Biden, 81, as the Democratic 2024 presidential nominee in July.
Harris chose Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate, but they lost the election to Trump, 78, and his new Vice President, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance.
Trump won the all-important swing states of North Carolina, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania to clinch the 270 electoral votes. Trump is also leading in the popular vote as the country continues counting ballots.
Fans took to X (formerly Twitter) to react to mistaken prediction about Harris.
“For the first time ever, The Simpsons got it wrong,” one person tweeted.
“So does this mean The Simpsons episode ‘predictions’ gonna come to an end since Kamala didn’t win,” someone else asked.
“The Simpsons” previously predicted that Trump would become president before his first election victory in 2016.
Matt Groening, who created the show, addressed the Trump presidency prophecy in a 2016 interview with the Guardian.
“We predicted that he would be president back in 2000 — but [Trump] was, of course, the most absurd placeholder joke name that we could think of at the time, and that’s still true. It’s beyond satire,” he said.
The show has also correctly predicted the Capitol riot, the “Game of Thrones” finale, the coronavirus pandemic, Lady Gaga’s Super Bowl halftime show, Disney’s purchase of 20th Century Fox, and more.
Last month, showrunner and executive producer Matt Selman explained how the show has nailed foreshadowing the future.
“Well, the sourpuss answer I always give that no one likes is that if you study history and math, it would be literally impossible for us not to predict things,” Selman told People.
“If you say enough things, some of them are going to overlap with reality, and then that’s the math element,” he continued. “And then, the history element is if you make a show that is based on studying the past foolishness of humanity, you are surely going to anticipate the future foolishness of humanity as it sinks further into foolishness fair. So we don’t really think about it.”
Selman also said the only thing “The Simpsons” writers “hate” is when viewers “put obviously fake images online and say we predicted things that we didn’t.”
“The Simpsons,” now in its 36th season, airs Sundays on Fox at 8 p.m. ET.
