Beware false prophets, it seems, after one of the United States’ most lauded election forecasters pulled the wrong card out of the deck ahead of Tuesday’s historic vote.
Allan Lichtman, a professor of history at the American University who has otherwise correctly predicted nine of the past ten elections, completely failed to anticipate Donald Trump’s shock comeback in what early figures have put down as a thumping victory for the Republican president-elect.
“Right now after a very long night I am taking some time off to assess why I was wrong and what the future holds for America,” Lichtman said in an interview with USA Today on Wednesday morning.
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Based on his system, which he calls ‘The Keys to the White House’, Lichtman had predicted that Kamala Harris would pip Donald Trump in the polls by a narrow margin.
Polling results as of 11 a.m. Eastern Time, Wednesday Nov. 6 indicate that Trump has now won the election with 277 electoral college votes to Harris’ 224, and a 71.5 million share of the popular vote against Harris’ 66.7 million.
In a post to X, formerly Twitter on Wednesday afternoon, Lichtman further thanked “all the loyal members, subscribers and viewers” of a live show hosted by his son, Samuel, adding the pair would be streaming a discussion “of what happened and what the future holds for America” on Thursday.
It followed after they had hosted a six-hour livestream on the night of the election, during which Lichtman maintained, as the results began to tilt toward Trump, that if Harris “can pull off Pennsylvania she still has a good shot.”
A crucial battleground state that for a good portion of the evening the election’s results appeared to hinge upon, Pennsylvania was called for Trump soon afterwards.
“At a certain point the math just doesn’t math anymore,” Samuel said as the pair wrapped up their broadcast. “This show has just been nuts… I think we are both a little surprised.”
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