The race for the White House is heating up, and a prominent political historian has made a bold prediction: Vice President Kamala Harris is set to win the 2024 US presidential election. Allan Lichtman, often dubbed the ‘Nostradamus’ of US presidential elections for his remarkable track record, has declared his belief in Harris’s victory.
Lichtman’s prediction is based on his unique ’13 Keys’ system, which he developed in 1981 with geophysicist Vladimir Keillis-Borok. This system analyzes various political and social factors to forecast election outcomes, ignoring traditional polling trends.
In a recent video for The New York Times, Lichtman explained how each of these 13 keys, which are essentially true/false propositions, can favor either the incumbent or challenger. He believes that Harris currently holds the advantage in eight of the thirteen categories, including the economy, policy changes, and social unrest.
For example, Lichtman points to the strong economy under President Biden’s administration, major policy changes like the CHIPS bill and rejoining the Paris Climate Accord, and the lack of significant social unrest as factors favoring Harris.
However, he acknowledges that Democrats lost the valuable ‘incumbency’ key due to President Biden’s decision not to seek re-election. This is a crucial factor as it often provides a significant advantage to the incumbent candidate.
Despite this loss, Lichtman believes that Harris’s strengths in other areas, including her successful handling of the Democratic primary, the absence of a strong third-party candidate, and her perceived charisma, outweigh the disadvantage of losing the incumbency key.
It is important to note that the final two keys, concerning foreign policy success and failure, remain unanswered. However, even without these answers, Lichtman’s analysis suggests that Harris has a strong chance of securing the presidency in 2024.
While Lichtman’s track record is impressive, with accurate predictions since 1984, including Trump’s 2016 victory, it remains to be seen if his prediction for Harris will come true. The 2024 election is shaping up to be a highly contested race, and only time will tell who ultimately emerges victorious.
