Forget the polls? Historian knows who will win the 2024 US election

Forget the polls, ditch the data and stop sending journalists to swing-state diners to interview undecided voters: historian Allan Lichtman already knows who is going to win the US presidential election.

“Harris will win,” Lichtman confidently announced to Agence France-Presse.

He was speaking at his home in the leafy Washington suburb of Bethesda shortly after unveiling his much-discussed, once-every-four-years White House prediction, based on what he calls the “13 keys” method.

It can be easy to dismiss Lichtman’s signature methodology as just another gimmick in the endless, drawn-out “horse race” style coverage of US elections – where journalists, pollsters and pundits are constantly trying to see who is up and who is down.