The Man Who Has Been Called The Nostradamus Of U.S. Presidential Elections

Every time a United States presidential cycle rolls around it all but consumes the airwaves — or webwaves, whatever — with an endless, suffocating, crushingly repetitive cavalcade of accusations, speculations, and click-craving article titles. But from within the grueling grind of finger-pointing and froth-lipped ravings rises one man with one very specific skill based on one solution that solves it all: Allan Lichtman. A historian at American University and the "Nostradamus" of presidential elections, he has correctly predicted the winners of the last nine out of 10 presidential campaigns. His title presumes that Nostradamus correctly predicted a single thing, but ... Well, we can sidestep such details.

Yes, Lichtman has indeed correctly predicted the last nine out of 10 presidential winners ever since Ronald Reagan won his second term in 1984. The only time he was wrong was when Al Gore ran against George W. Bush in 2000 and he predicted that Gore would win. Although as Lichtman explains on The Guardian, Gore did win the popular vote, so Lichtman counts himself 10 out of 10. And now, folks are turning to him to do some hocus-pocus and prognosticate the winner of the upcoming 2024 U.S. presidential election. Hint: It's not Donald Trump.

As American University writes, it's all a matter of meeting certain criteria. Meet eight out of the 13 and presto: You win. Lichtman and mathematician Vladimir Keilis-Borok analyzed presidential elections going back to 1860 to develop his criteria — or keys — which, if recent history is any indication, prove his predictive powers.

To Allan Lichtman, Nostradamus of the ballot box, if a candidate meets eight of his 13 criteria, it's game over for the competition. Speaking to The Guardian, he claimed his criteria have stood the test of time precisely because they aren't mathematical or statistical, but rather look at human behavior to produce holistic judgements and subjective evaluations. Take key number 8: "There is no sustained social unrest during the term." If we're being honest and not inclined toward partisanship or contrarianism, most of us would probably come to the same common-sense "true/false" assessment. This is a very different approach from polls, which Lichtman told USA Today have "zero predictive value" and merely provide temporary, short-term snapshots of swaying public moods.

As far as the other criteria, they do make sound common sense. It works in a candidate's favor to be the sitting president, have no strong third-party opposition, and see incumbent party gains in the House of Representatives after midterm elections that eclipse those in the previous. Additionally, short-term and long-term economic growth work to secure a presidential win, same as if an incumbent produced substantial policy changes. "Foreign/military success" is important inasmuch as an incumbent achieved some international political or military victory and didn't endure some international political or military defeat. Also, scandals are bad. Finally, we get to the aforementioned social unrest and the comparative charisma of each nominee.

Because everyone is wondering the same thing: At the time of this writing, Allan Lichtman predicts that likely Democratic nominee Kamala Harris will win the 2024 presidential election. As USA Today cites, she has cinched eight out of Lichtman's 13 criteria, which is the minimum number needed to win.  

Lichtman says that Harris has won keys two, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and 13. She's won keys two and four because there's no competition within the party for another Democratic candidate, and no substantial third-party candidate. Per keys five and six, there's been no short-term economic recession and long-term economic growth under the current presidential term superseded that of the previous two consecutive presidential terms. Besides this, Lichtman cites large policy changes under Biden, "no social unrest," no scandals, and calls Trump an "uncharismatic leader" who doesn't appeal to those outside of his party — all of which works in Harris' favor. That said, many people will undoubtedly disagree with Lichtman on the more subjective of these points.

No matter the reliability of Lichtman's methods, it bears noting that he previously said it would be a "huge mistake" for Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race, as USA Today quotes. Following Biden's disastrous debate performance on June 27, Lichtman said of Democrats who wanted Biden to drop out, "They don't know whether Biden is physically capable of carrying out a second term or not," and, "Debate performances can be overcome." Time will tell come November 5.