A video capturing American political historian Allan Lichtman, who is often referred to as the “Nostradamus” of elections or “polling Nostradamus,” has gone viral. It shows the moment when he realised, during a live-streaming episode with his son, that he was wrong about Kamala Harris’ win in the 2024 US Elections.
The 77-year-old professor and his son Sam were doing live coverage of the election results where he seemed at a loss for words, repeating, “I don’t get it” after it became evident that Donald Trump would win in a landslide victory.
Frustrated with the data, the historian says, “Good thing I have nothing to do tomorrow. And I’m not doing any interviews.”
He is the co-creator of the “Keys to the White House” metric, a system he uses to predict the outcome of elections. For the recently concluded one, he predicted that Kamala Harris had the edge in eight of those metrics, while Donald Trump fulfilled three.
Lichtman has successfully predicted the outcome of US elections since 1984, except two times. He was once wrong in 2000 and in the recent 2024 election.
Towards the end of the live streaming, Lichtman and his son grow visibly frustrated, as the historian says that there is no “positive” data for Harris.
“Oh, the democracy’s gone,” he says. “Once democracy’s gone, it’s almost impossible to recover. The way to recover is by the dictators losing wars,” the professor adds.
As the conversation between the father and the son continues, Sam says that once Trump serves his term, “We never have to deal with him again.”
Lichtman replies, “I’ve said it a hundred times,” adding, “Democracy is precious, but like all precious things, it can be destroyed. And typically destroyed from within. And throughout the 21st century, democracy has been in decline everywhere around the world, and America has now fallen in step. But never give up hope.”
