Former President and Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump recorded a landslide victory with his win over Democratic Party candidate Kamala Harris. Thanking his supporters, Trump described it as a "magnificent victory for the American people". But this victory left Allan Lichtman, Nostradamus of US polls, at a loss of words as his prediction that Kamala Harris would win the presidential election turned wrong.
In a six-hour-long YouTube livestream with his son Sam, Allan Lichtman was seen saying “I don't get it” as Donald Trump inched closer to the victory. “This is the first moment of the night where I've lost hope a little bit,” Sam Lichtman said as US networks called battleground Pennsylvania for Trump.
Mr Lichtman was visibly tired, stressed and disappointed. “Good thing I have nothing to do tomorrow. And I'm not doing any interviews,” he said. Holding his head, he added, “The democracy is gone.”
“Once democracy is gone, it's almost impossible to recover. The way to recover is by the dictators losing wars.”
To this, Sam Lichtman hoped Trump would serve his term and “we never have to deal with him again. I just can't wrap my mind around how that many people can just ignore all the shit he did in 2020.”
Mr Lichtman called Trump “too lazy” to govern.
“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. Never stop striving. Never stop trying especially you young people,” Mr Lichtman said before signing off. Mr Lichtman, historian, author, and a rare political forecaster with a track record of poll predictions, had predicted Kamala Harris to be the first woman president of the US.
"Consign them (opinion polls) to the flames," Mr Lichtman told NDTV. "Yes, we are going to have Kamala Harris, a new path-breaking president, the first woman president and the first president of mixed African and Asian descent. It is kind of foreshadowing where America is going. We are rapidly becoming a majority-minority country old white guys like me, we are on the decline,” Mr Lichtman had said.
Mr Lichtman's prediction model focuses on historical patterns, dismissing the idea that polls, campaign strategies, or even election demographics alone can determine outcomes. In 1981, he developed the 13 "Keys to the White House" system, identifying that governance, not campaign tactics, decides the US elections. His model has correctly forecasted the winner of every election since 1984, including some when his conclusions contradicted popular sentiment.
