The Man Who’s Sure That Harris Will Win

If you follow politics, you can hardly escape Allan Lichtman, the American University history professor known for correctly forecasting the victor of all but one presidential election since 1984. In a whimsical New York Times video published over the summer, the 77-year-old competes in a Senior Olympics qualifying race—and confidently declares that Kamala Harris will win the race (get it?) for the White House. You might also have recently seen Lichtman on cable news, heard him on the radio, or read an interview with him.

In an era of statistically complex, probabilistic election models, Lichtman is a throwback. He bases his predictions not on polls, but rather on the answers to a set of 13 true-or-false questions, which he calls “keys,” and which in 2016 signaled a Trump victory when the polls said otherwise. He has little patience for data crunchers who lack his academic credentials. “The issue with @NateSilver538 is he’s a compiler of polls, a clerk,” Lichtman posted on X in July, as part of a long-running spat with the prominent election modeler. “He has no fundamental basis in history and elections.”