GP
The historian and political scientist Allan Lichtman has blamed “misogyny, racism and xenophobia” for getting his prediction about who would win the White House so catastrophically wrong.
Lichtman, who is best known for devising electoral prediction system known as ‘The Five Keys to the White House,’ said in an interview with CNN that the American people were simply not “pragmatic” enough to be able to predict the election correctly.
He explained:
The Keys to the White House depend upon a rational, pragmatic electorate deciding it based on guidance rather than depending upon if the party should get four more years.
And we’ve seen the explosion of some trends that have existed before, but not to this extent. Disinformation. You know, Elon Musk, I don’t know how many hundreds of billions he has, has been the director of misinformation. Two billion views of his spreading of disinformation.
Not just about the economy, but about immigrants, about minorities. We were never seeing this disinformation at this scale.
Next, we have never seen to this scale the agitation of three trends that have been very deeply embedded in American history. Misogyny, racism, and xenophobia. The first anti-immigrant law was 1798, and Donald Trump wanted to revive it.
Hilariously wrong @AllanLichtman
Says it's Elons fault his prediction was wrong.He's too entrenched in his cult to realize he lives in a paranoid delusional state
pic.twitter.com/4nTRtZrGMr— Tim Pool (@Timcast) November 10, 2024
Among Lichtman’s “keys” for the White House include the strength of the economy, the comparative number of seats held in the House of Representatives, foreign policy successes and failures, the charisma of the candidates, political scandals and the prevalence of social unrest.
In a video for The New York Times back in September, Lichtman predicted that Harris would ultimately prevail in the race to the White House, a prediction that was likely driven by his own irrational optimism than any genuine consideration of how Americans were feeling.
“The Democrats will hold on to the White House, and Kamala Harris will be the next president of the United States,” Lichtman said in a video for The New York Times back in September. “At least, that’s my prediction for this race.”
“The keys absolutely will work. They are the constant northern star of political prediction,” he continued. “The outcome is up to you. So get out and vote.”
