Polling 'Nostradamus' With 40 Years of Predicting Election Winner Drops a Major Hint for 2024
As a tight race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump ensues, a historian's polling that has been dubbed as 'Nostradamus'— for previously making 9 out of 10 accurate predictions of the election winner— dropped a major hint during a YouTube livestream. On Thursday, August 29, Allan Lichtman, shared his final analysis of who'd take over the White House in 2025. The American University professor, alongside his son, Sam, said, "You don't have to be patient for a whole lot longer. Enjoy your Labor Day weekend... and within days after that, the prediction should be out. And this will be a final prediction."
Although he was coy about giving away the name, he slammed his rival pollster, Nate Silver, for favoring Trump, as per the Daily Mail. "I just saw today the most absurd prediction," Lichtman said referring to Silver. "Just a few days ago, he said the probability is that Kamala Harris is going to win the election. Now, just a few days later he switched... ,If you flipped a coin a million times, it would converge on 50 percent heads and 50 percent tails. But you can't play the election a million times, you can only play the election once and in fact, you haven't even played it at all since no one has voted. So, he just fabricated this probability from the polls."
Citing Silver's 2016 theory of Hillary Clinton's lead over Trump, Lichtman refused to buy Silver's prediction of Trump winning. "The predictions mean nothing because he disavows them if he's wrong and trumpets them if he's right." Additionally, he addressed the number that Silver asserted as Trump's probability of victory—52.4%. He rhetorically asked his son, "Is it possible to measure the probability of a Trump victory down to the tenths of a percent? It makes it look [like], 'My God this guy is very precise.' It makes it look scientific." With all this in mind, it seemed as though Lichtman left little to the imagination; his live stream hinted towards Harris' dominance at the ballot.
On the contrary, Silver's election forecast favored the Republican nominee, with a slight advantage. "Although we wouldn't advise worrying too much about the difference between a 52/48 race one way versus a 48/52 race the other way — it's not a big difference — this wasn't a good day for Kamala Harris in our model, as Donald Trump is the slight favorite for the first time since August 3," Silver wrote in the Silver Bulletin, as per Newsweek.
Harris is up ~3.5 points right now. In 2016/2020, the GOP Electoral College edge was about 3.5 points. The model thinks it's likely smaller this year. OTOH it thinks her numbers will fall a bit between the convention bounce adjustment and reversion to its prior. Hence, toss-up.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 30, 2024
Several polls also reveal Harris' narrow lead over Trump including in swing states. In a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Thursday, the incumbent Vice President received 45% support, and the ex-president 41%, showing that Harris has sparked a new wave of enthusiasm in Blacks, youth, women, and Americans in general.
In response to the Reuters poll lead, Matt Wolking, a Republican campaign strategist who worked on Trump's 2020 campaign, opined, "It's obvious that running against Harris is more challenging for Trump given the shift in these numbers, but it's certainly not insurmountable." In addition, he advised Trump to be more mindful of his campaign 'so he's not scaring' away the voters who have been leaning towards him ahead of the 2024 elections.
