On Sept. 6, historian Allan Lichtman revealed his prediction for the 2024 presidential campaign. His model predicted that Kamala Harris will win the election.
Prediction markets haven’t been moved by this information. Harris’ victory on Polymarket held steady at 48 cents on Sept. 6 and 7. On PredictIt, her price of victory fell one cent the next day. She and Trump are still almost tied in the prediction markets.
Litchtman uses the 13 Keys to the White House model to predict elections. He used his model to predict every election except 2000’s close race between Al Gore and George W. Bush. The 13 Keys refer to 13 true or false statements about the incumbent and the candidates:
- Party Mandate
- No Primary Contest
- Incumbent Seeking Re-Election
- No Third Party
- Strong Short-Term Economy
- Strong Long-Term Economy
- Major Policy Change
- No Social Unrest
- No Scandal
- No Foreign or Military Failure
- Major Foreign or Military Success
- Charismatic Incumbent
- Uncharasmatic Challenger
If at least six of these conditions for the presidential incumbent are false, then the incumbent is predicted to lose. The same goes for the candidate running in the incumbent’s party.
Data Is More Than Numbers
Lichtman’s model gave Harris nine of the 13 keys in her favor. The keys in Trump’s favor include:
- Party Mandate
- Incumbent Seeking Re-Election
- Foreign or Military Failure
- Charismatic Incumbent
Party mandate is measured by electoral gains or losses in the midterms. The Democrats only flipped one Senate seat and two governorships in 2022. Republicans gained nine seats in the House. So, the Democrats don’t have a unique electoral mandate pushing them to victory.
Biden is not seeking re-election, so his party lacks the advantage of an incumbent candidate.
The picture of foreign and military success and failures is mixed. Trump benefits from Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and the War in Gaza, both of which were and remain humanitarian disasters.
However, Biden’s rallying of allies around Ukraine and Israel is a major policy victory. Ukraine has put up a better fight than analysts originally predicted. Additionally, a diverse range of Western and Middle Eastern countries defended Israel from Iran’s drone and missile attack in April 2024. Litchman split his foreign policy keys for both candidates
Finally, Trump is not a bipartisan charismatic hero in the model of Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan. However, he’s managed to take over the Republican Party and make it servile to him. Trump enjoys party support that Harris only recently received.
Litchtman predicted nine of the last 10 presidential elections correctly, so his model is tested and should be taken seriously by prediction market traders looking for credible information about electoral conditions.
