“White House Keys” currently predicts that Vice President Kamala Harris would defeat former President Trump in a hypothetical 2024 showdown, but has no final predictions for the 2024 race yet.
Election forecaster Alan Lichtman, who has accurately predicted nearly every presidential election since 1984, developed a formula that is used to predict the next presidential election, and in most cases, that formula has proven to be correct.
Lichtman's “Keys to the White House” consists of 13 true/false questions that strongly suggest who will win this fall's election. Each question is about two opposing candidates, and if correct, a “key” is awarded; if incorrect, the candidate is given points. If a party's candidate receives six or more keys, that candidate is predicted to be the winner.
At the beginning of the election cycle, Democrats were automatically handed one “key” to incumbent President Biden, but the voting results have since changed dramatically.
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Former President Trump arrives at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 16, 2024. (Mike Seeger/Reuters)
The “keys” are:
– Mission of political parties
– Contest
– Current position
– third party
– Short-term economics
– Long-term economics
– Policy changes,
– Social anxiety
– Scandal
– Diplomatic/Military Failure
– Overseas/Military Success
– The charisma of the incumbent
– Charisma of the challenger
Lichtman predicts that a Democratic party with Harris as the front-runner currently holds six of the 13 key factors: primary elections, short-term economics, long-term economics, policy change, lack of scandals and lack of a charismatic challenger.
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Republicans have three keys to success: winning a majority in the House in the 2022 midterm elections, the incumbent not seeking reelection, and the incumbent lacking charisma.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the presidential campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, July 22, 2024. (Erin Schaff/Reuters)
There are four keys yet to be distributed.
The key that remains is the third-party element, which Lichtman said is worth noting given that independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has entered the race.
The “absence of social unrest” and “foreign military failures” and “foreign military successes” are also still up in the air.
According to the election forecaster's formula, if the Democrats lose three more keys, they are predicted to be “losers.”
History professor Alan Lichtman lectures on “13 Keys to the White House” at American University in Washington, D.C., on October 28, 2008. (Nicholas Kamm/Getty Images)
While no final predictions have been made yet about the 2024 election, Lichtman told News Nation he thinks “a lot of bad things would have to happen for Harris to lose.”
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Lichtman correctly predicted a Trump victory in 2016 and a Biden victory in 2020. The historian plans to release his final predictions for this election cycle after Democrats choose their nominee at the Democratic National Convention in August.
Aubrey Spady is a writer for Fox News Digital.