Historian Who Accurately Predicted Nearly Every Election Winner Since 1984 Reveals His Pick For 2024

Historian Allan Lichtman has developed a pretty accurate formula for predicting the result of presidential elections.

It’s become known as the ‘Keys to the White House’, and Lichtman has used the formula to correctly predict the election winner in every single election since 1984 — with the exception of 2000, where he predicted Al Gore would defeat George W. Bush.

Now, Lichtman has just revealed who he thinks is most likely to win in 2024…

And it’s Joe Biden.

Historian who correctly predicted almost every election winner since 1984 reveals who is likely to win in 2024 https://t.co/AXbXOCKhMM pic.twitter.com/isH9CEUMme

— New York Post (@nypost) February 7, 2024

Now before you call this a load of hogwash, let’s take a look at how Lichtman’s system works…

The historian’s ‘Keys to the White House’ are made up of a series of 13 true or false questions, which Lichtman says are a significant indicator of whether a presidential nominee will end up taking the election.

These true/false questions are asked about each candidate in the race, and every time the answer is ‘true’, a nominee gets a ‘key.’ If the answer is ‘false’, his opponent gets a ‘key.’

As it stands right now, Joe Biden has 5 keys, and Donald Trump has 3, with 5 keys still up for grabs.

While Biden has more ‘keys’ currently, Lichtman says there is still time for Trump to take the lead over Biden between now and November.

Historian who nailed every presidential election since 1984 has a surprising read on this one

Allan Lichtman, a professor of history at American University in Washington, D.C., has correctly predicted every presidential election since 1984, and he currently believes President… pic.twitter.com/4i1diZvPzb

— BPR (@BIZPACReview) February 7, 2024

Here’s a more in-depth explanation of Lichtman’s system for predicting the election, from Fox News:

The “Keys to the White House” are being handed out, predicting President Biden currently holds a slight lead in a hypothetical 2024 matchup against former President Donald Trump.

Allan Lichtman, an election prognosticator who has correctly predicted nearly every presidential race since 1984, developed a formula that is used to make predictions about an upcoming presidential election – and in many cases, it proves to be accurate.

Lichtman’s “Keys to the White House” consists of 13 true or false questions that he believes establish a strong indication of who will be named the victor on the fall ballot. Each question is asked about the two dueling nominees; if “true” they are given a “key,” and if “false,” their competitor receives the point.

Thus far, Biden holds five of the “keys,” while Trump was able to capture about three, Lichtman revealed to MarketWatch. That leaves five keys still up for grabs, and enough room for the former president to secure a lead before November.

MarketWatch broke it down further:

Recent polling news has been very promising for Donald Trump. But with nine months still to go in the presidential race, American University professor Allan Lichtman says Joe Biden holds an edge according to the historical “keys” to victory.

ADVERTISEMENT

For now, anyway.

Five of the 13 historical predictors of victory favor Biden, while three favor Trump, and the rest are still up for grabs, Lichtman told MarketWatch in an interview.

That leaves the Democrats praying that foreign policy and the economy will go the president’s way in the months ahead — and that there isn’t a strong third-party campaign.

Lichtman, now 77, coined the “Keys to the White House” phrase in a popular book first published in the early 1980s. These “keys” consist of 13 indicators that supposedly determine the outcomes of presidential elections. Lichtman argues they have held good since at least 1860.

At one notable moment in recent history, the “keys” predicted Donald Trump’s victory in November 2016 — against all the conventional wisdom and most polling.

This time around, Lichtman says, President Biden is an incumbent running for re-election (Key No. 3), has not faced a serious challenge for his party’s nomination (Key No. 2) and has made major policy changes (Key No. 7).

(The keys make no judgment about whether the policy changes undertaken are for the better.)

And the long-term economic trend is running Biden’s way: “Real” — or after-inflation — per capita economic growth over the past four years has equaled or exceeded the average growth rate during the previous two presidential terms (Key No. 6).

ADVERTISEMENT

It has, too. I ran the numbers. Based on International Monetary Fund data, the U.S. economy is on track to post average real growth of 2.5% per person during the 2021–25 presidential term. The average from 2012 to 2020? Just under 1%.

No contest. (And, once again, for this exercise it doesn’t matter why.)

More contentious is Key No. 13: “The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.” Clearly, to some (even many), Trump is just that. Lichtman, to be fair, is no fan of Trump and is a Democrat. But he argues that this 13th key refers only to broadly bipartisan or national heroes à la, say, Eisenhower.

On the other hand, Lichtman notes, two or three of these indicators clearly favor Trump. After the 2022 midterm elections, the Democrats hold fewer seats in Congress than they did after the previous midterms, in 2018 (Key No. 1). And Biden, per Lichtman, is neither charismatic nor a national hero (No. 12).

It would be hard to point to any “major foreign policy or military success” under this administration (No. 11).

Foreign and military success or failure appears twice on Lichtman’s list of keys: The incumbent party scores a point for a big success, and it can also lose a point for the absence of one.