Allan Lichtman reaffirms 2024 election prediction, takes jab at forecaster Nate Silver

Historian Allan Lichtman reaffirmed his prediction that Vice President Kamala Harris will narrowly defeat former President Donald Trump, and called out fellow predictor Nate Silver, despite him sharing the same projected result.

Lichtman, who has accurately predicted nine of the last 10 presidential elections, shared a post on X on Monday saying, “Nate Silver’s compilation of polls is so unreliable that he now says that who will win the presidency is down to luck.”

The 77-year-old historian is responding to an X post shared by Silver on Monday explaining how his final election forecast could be decided by “luck.”

“It might literally wind up in the range where who’s ‘ahead’ in our final forecast is determined by luck, Silver’s post reads. “There’s still a little bit of variance introduced by running ‘only’ 40,000 simulations (we’ll run 80,000 tonight but still…).”

Live results: How to follow live election results in 2024 races for president, Senate, House and more

Who’s winning the election? Legendary predictor Allan Lichtman has ‘crows’ in his stomach

Silver’s bulletin forecast vs. Lichtman’s ’13 Keys to the White House’

Silver’s final 2024 presidential election forecast had Harris as the winner by a razor-thin margin after she won 40,012 of the total 80,000 simulations.

Lichtman on the other hand uses his “13 Keys to the White House” system to determine who will win the election. He voiced his confidence in his system in a separate X post on Monday writing, “Mark my words… The Keys will be right again!”

Utilizing his system, Lichtman has correctly predicted the outcome of every presidential election since 1984. His only blemish came in 2000 when Republican George W. Bush defeated Democrat Al Gore.

‘I have a flock of crows in my stomach’

This election year, in particular, Lichtman said he is quite nervous because of how fragile and relatively new democracy is.

“For the vast sweep of human history, there has been almost no democracy,” Lichtman said in a live video interview with his son, Sam, on his YouTube channel. “Peoples were governed by the divine right of kings, by right of birth, or by the sword and blood. Democracy is a very recent development.”

In addition to his democracy comments, Lichtman said, “I’ve been doing this for 42 years and every four years I have butterflies in my stomach. This year, I think I have a flock of crows in my stomach.”

What are Lichtman’s 13 keys?

Lichtman’s “13 Keys to the White House” include:

• Key 1 (Party Mandate): After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than it did after the previous midterm elections.

• Key 2 (Contest): There is no serious contest for the incumbent-party nomination.

• Key 3 (Incumbency): The incumbent-party candidate is the sitting president.

• Key 4 (Third party): There is no significant third-party or independent campaign.

• Key 5 (Short-term economy): The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.

• Key 6 (Long-term economy): Real per-capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.

• Key 7 (Policy change): The incumbent administration affects major changes in national policy.

• Key 8 (Social unrest): There is no sustained social unrest during the term.

• Key 9 (Scandal): The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.

• Key 10 (Foreign/military failure): The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.

• Key 11 (Foreign/military success): The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.

• Key 12 (Incumbent charisma): The incumbent-party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.

• Key 13 (Challenger charisma): The challenging-party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Allan Lichtman reaffirms prediction for 2024 presidential election