Allan Lichtman, a historian at American University who has correctly predicted the outcomes of nine of the last ten presidential elections, believes that Kamala Harris will emerge victorious in the 2024 presidential race.
According to Lichtman, the Democratic Party “finally got smart” by uniting behind Harris as their candidate, which he sees as a key factor in her potential win this November.
Lichtman’s “Keys to the White House” model, developed in 1981 with mathematician Vladimir Keilis-Borok, has accurately predicted nearly every presidential election since 1984. This system consists of 13 true or false questions based on parameters that, if true, favor the party currently in power.
“The way it works is real simple. If six or more keys—any six—go against the White House party, they are predicted losers. Otherwise, they’re predicted winners,” Lichtman told Fox News Digital. “And by the way, this also led to a prediction of Donald Trump’s win, which made me virtually alone in making that prediction in 2016.”
Lichtman explained that the Democrats, represented by Harris, could lose five keys “at most,” leading him to predict a “precedent-breaking election” where “Kamala Harris will become the first woman President of the United States.”
The historian noted the unique situation of President Biden withdrawing from the race just before the convention. “We’ve had an unprecedented situation of a sitting president dropping out on the eve of the convention, and it has affected my keys,” Lichtman said. “Now, with Biden dropping out, the Democrats lost one key—the incumbency key. I thought perhaps the way things were looking, if Biden dropped out, the [Democrats] would have a big party brawl and that would cost them a second key, which could lose them the election. But the Democrats finally got smart and united behind Harris and that preserved the contest key. That means the shift only cost them one key.”
Lichtman highlighted the importance of the “contest key,” which reflects the absence of a serious challenge for the incumbent-party nomination. The other keys include factors like party mandate, third-party involvement, economic indicators, policy changes, social unrest, scandals, foreign policy outcomes, and the charisma of both the incumbent and challenger.
“I think having Harris front and center rather than Joe Biden, the policymaker, has dampened enthusiasm for protests which helped salvage a second key, the social unrest key,” Lichtman added. “The keys show that Kamala Harris is a predicted winner.”
