Back in February, historian Allan Lichtman predicted that Joe Biden would defeat Donald Trump in the 2024 election. His predictions are taken very seriously because his “Keys to the White House” model has had an almost flawless record since 1984.
His model assesses 13 true-or-false indicators, and at the time, Biden held an advantage with five keys to Trump’s three, leaving five undecided. By September, media outlets were buzzing over Lichtman’s latest update to his prediction model putting Trump against Kamala Harris, and Lichtman's model predicted that Kamala would win.
“The Democrats will hold on to the White House, and Kamala Harris will be the next president of the United States,” Lichtman said in an op-ed video for The New York Times. “At least, that’s my prediction for this race.”
Once again, the media was ecstatic. I'm sure many were ready to pop open some champagne and declare the race over. He was defending his prediction as recently as a week ago.
His prediction was, to say the least, interesting. His electoral map had Trump winning Nevada and Arizona and losing Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Michigan, with Pennsylvania as a tossup. That map had Harris winning 283 Electoral College votes to Trump 236, with Pennsylvania's 19 votes outstanding.
Allan Lichtman final 2024 election map prediction
— Mike Raymar (@MikeRaymar) November 1, 2024
Thinks Pennsylvania is a toss-up - since "too few ballots have been casted" pic.twitter.com/XHPvhDvg65
Of course, Lichtman turned out to be completely wrong. Trump ultimately won the election 312-226 in the Electoral College as well as winning a decisive victory in the popular vote.
"Look, my prediction for this presidential election was wrong," he admitted on Wednesday. "I own up to it."
The Keys Missed pic.twitter.com/FzsVbKcXFf
— Allan Lichtman (@AllanLichtman) November 6, 2024
But he didn't really. He ended up just making excuses for why he was wrong. It probably won't shock you to learn he blames the “incredible explosion of disinformation,” “xenophobia,” “misogyny” and “racism” for his failed election prediction.
Allan Lichtman largely blames “incredible explosion of disinformation” and Trump’s promotion of “xenophobia,” “misogyny” and “racism” for his failed election prediction.@DailyCaller pic.twitter.com/isjFNcKK7I
— Jason Cohen 🇺🇸 (@JasonJournoDC) November 8, 2024
He's wrong, of course. I’ve been pointing out the flaws in his prediction for months. I can tell you that Lichtman’s “Keys to the White House” model was not the problem. In fact, I believe it remains a strong predictive tool. The problem wasn't disinformation, xenophobia, misogyny or racism either.
The problem with his prediction is that many of its indicators rely on subjective judgment. As an ardent left-wing partisan, Lichtman’s intense anti-Trump bias skewed his evaluation, preventing him from assessing his keys objectively. This bias ultimately compromised his ability to predict the outcome accurately.
Here are the keys and which candidate benefited from Lichtman’s analysis:
- 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. TRUMP
- Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent-party nomination. HARRIS
- Incumbency: The incumbent-party candidate is the sitting president. TRUMP
- Third party: There is no significant third-party or independent campaign. HARRIS
- Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign. HARRIS
- Long-term economy: Real per-capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms. HARRIS
- Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy. HARRIS
- Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term. HARRIS
- Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal. HARRIS
- Incumbent charisma: The incumbent-party candidate is charismatic or a national hero. TRUMP
- Challenger charisma: The challenging-party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero. HARRIS
- Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs. NO KEY AWARDED
- Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs. NO KEY AWARDED
As you can see, he rated the economic conditions as favorable for Harris despite record inflation and a general sense among Americans that the economy was struggling, if not in recession. That’s precisely why Trump’s approval ratings on the economy were consistently higher than Biden’s and Harris’s.
Lichtman also downplayed major controversies associated with the Biden-Harris administration, like the Afghanistan withdrawal and the border crisis on the ninth key. His neglect to apply scores for foreign and military failures further weakened his analysis. The chaotic Afghanistan exit and the ongoing Israel-Hamas war were obvious foreign policy setbacks.
As for challenger charisma, polls have made it clear that Trump was increasing support from traditionally left-leaning demographics. If that's not a sign of charisma, I have no idea what is. And the Biden-Harris administration’s handling of the war in Ukraine is far from a success. So if he had awarded keys 5, 9, 11, 12, and 13 more accurately to Trump, the model would have predicted a Trump victory.
Lichtman's problem was that he didn't want to see it. He let his own personal bias destroy his own reputation as the election Nostradamus just like Ann Selzer did.
