‘Nostradamus’ reveals if ‘October surprise’ will change his pick of Harris or Trump winning

The ‘Nostradamus’ who correctly called almost every US presidential election over four decades recently revealed if Kamala Harris or Donald Trump will win the 2024 contest.

Historian and American University professor Allan Lichtman, 77, last month predicted that Harris will triumph over Trump, based on his 13 keys to the White House.

Weeks later on Friday, Lichtman was asked if an ‘October surprise’ – which is an unexpected development or scandal a month before the election – would sway his pick.

‘One of the greatest myths of American politics is the October surprise,’ Lichtman told CNN’s Michael Smerconish on SiriusXM.

‘I have never changed my prediction in response to an October surprise because the keys gauged the big picture of incumbent governance in strength and don’t sway by the events of the campaign.’

Lichtman’s keys are based on 120 years worth of presidential election results and determined through simple true or false answers to the performance of the party in the White House at the time. They are not based on polling.

The keys are: Midterm gains, incumbency, primary contest, third party, short-term economy, long-term economy, policy change, social unrest, White House scandal, incumbent charisma, challenger charisma, foreign policy failure and foreign policy success.

Six false keys would indicate that Harris will lose.

In early September, Lichtman had Harris losing three keys – midterm gains, incumbency and incumbent charisma. He did not call the foreign policy failure and foreign policy success keys, but said that if Harris lost both, she would only have five false keys.

‘Even if both foreign policy keys flipped false, that would mean that there were only five negative keys, which would not be enough for Donald Trump to regain the White House,’ Lichtman told The New York Times at the time.

Lichtman, who has correctly predicted nine out of 10 recent elections, has faced criticism on his latest pick including from prognosticator and FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver.

After exchanging verbal shots at each other, Lichtman in a video titled ‘Burying the Hatchet with Nate Silver’ on September 30 said: ‘Once I make my final prediction, I don’t actually change that prediction.

‘So we can each do our own thing and respect one another for doing it.’

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