Every four years, the airwaves are saturated with pundits, pollsters, and political scientists trying to predict who will be America’s next president. Most of them fail as often as they succeed, lost in the endless swings of campaign drama, poll fluctuations, and media noise. And then there’s Allan Lichtman, a distinguished political scientist at American University. Known as the “Nostradamus” of presidential elections, Lichtman doesn’t rely on campaign gaffes, debate performances, or the polls that seem to oscillate every few days. Instead, he uses a unique system he created in the 1980s that has accurately predicted every* U.S. presidential election since Ronald Reagan. (*In 2000, Lichtman predicted an Al Gore win—a call that held until the Supreme Court intervened, handing George W. Bush the presidency.)
Lichtman’s system, known as the “13 Keys to the White House,” focuses on the long-term factors that have historically influenced presidential election outcomes. For Lichtman, the real factors determining who will occupy the White House are more profound than anything a pollster could capture. The keys are rooted in a predictive model based on historical patterns and the idea that elections are ultimately a referendum on the party in power rather than a direct comparison between two candidates. If more than six of the “keys” go against the party holding the White House, they lose. The keys are framed as a series of true-or-false statements that don’t involve opinions but are based on measurable, objective facts.
The 13 keys Lichtman considers are:
Party Mandate – After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the House than they did after the previous midterms.
Contest – There is no serious contest for the incumbent party’s nomination.
Incumbency – The incumbent party’s candidate is the sitting president.
Third Party – There is no significant third-party or independent campaign.
Short-term Economy – The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
Long-term Economy – Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.
Policy Change – The incumbent administration affects major changes in national policy.
Social Unrest – There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
Scandal – The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
Foreign or Military Failure – The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
Foreign or Military Success – The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.
Incumbent Charisma – The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
Challenger Charisma – The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.
With the 2024 election coming to a close, Lichtman’s keys are once again in the spotlight, and this time, he’s predicting a victory for Kamala Harris over Donald Trump (see the thorough explanation of his prediction in the video embedded below). While Lichtman’s system has held strong for decades, its simplicity is also its greatest strength. By ignoring polls and the 24-hour news cycle, he can look at the nation from a long view, focusing on factors that are historically predictive rather than trendy. He believes elections are reflections of the nation’s conditions and the governing party’s effectiveness. As Lichtman continues to follow his 13 keys, he reminds us that democracy is rarely predictable, but not entirely without patterns. His work shows us that while candidates change, many of the forces shaping their destinies remain stable, even if polls and campaign moments try to convince us otherwise.
Lichtman’s approach isn’t just unorthodox; it’s practically heretical in the world of political punditry and media. Every election cycle, polls grab the spotlight, portraying themselves as the ultimate election crystal ball. And every cycle, those polls prove less and less reliable. Lichtman’s keys, however, operate on a longer wavelength. They don’t care who had a great debate night or who dominated social media. Instead, they reflect a party’s overall standing and governance. In 2016, Lichtman’s keys signaled Trump would win when most polling missed it. In 2020, the keys flipped back to Biden, despite Trump’s base loyalty and high energy rallies. So while cable news jumps on every poll fluctuation, Lichtman stays calm and counts his keys.
While Lichtman doesn’t claim his method’s foolproof, his record speaks for itself. The 13 Keys aren’t immune to unprecedented events; after all, he can’t predict all the insidious, and possibly illegal actions that will undoubtedly be taken by Republican operatives and their ilk to upend the results. Lichtman’s forecast is grounded in history, not hype, and with that grounding, he offers a different, broader view. This time, the keys are whispering Kamala Harris’s name. While that may surprise those captivated by daily polling drama promulgated by media execs pushing the horse race narrative all the way to the finish, for Allan Lichtman, the answer’s been there all along — right in the quiet logic of those 13 keys.
