US Polling ‘Nostradamus’ Says RFK Jr. Dropping Out Will Help Harris

Historian Allan Lichtman said that independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. exiting the 2024 presidential race would help Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign for the White House.
When it was put to him during a YouTube livestream on his channel that, according to his election prediction system, Kennedy dropping out and endorsing former President Donald Trump would help Harris, Lichtman replied: “Absolutely correct.”
“[Kennedy’s] endorsement of Trump has nothing to do with the keys – [it] doesn’t turn a key one way or the other.”
Lichtman also noted that he hasn’t definitively called [the “third party”] key, but said “it certainly doesn’t look like [Kennedy] is going to rebound.”
“I’m still reserving judgement,” he added.
Newsweek has contacted Lichtman for comment via email outside of standard working hours.
Lichtman rose to prominence for his prediction model, “The Keys to the White House.” His impressive accuracy forecasting the last 10 election outcomes using this system has earned him the nickname “Nostradamus” of U.S. elections, after the French reputed seer of the 1500s.
The 13 keys, as set out by Lichtman in a 2012 article for Social Education, are:
If six or more of these 13 true/false statements are false, the incumbent party is predicted to lose the election. Should five or less be false, it is expected to win.
The professor is yet to make a formal prediction, but told Newsweek this would come shortly after Labor day.
Though according to this system Kennedy exiting the race would strengthen the Democratic Party’s chances of reelection (key four) – other pundits believe it would boost Trump’s campaign.
News site FiveThirtyEight founder and writer Nate Silver, who has quarreled online with Lichtman in the past, recently said that Kennedy’s withdrawal posed “a little bit of a downside risk” to Harris, as the independent was taking more votes from Trump than Harris.
State and national polls indicate that, when third party candidates are included, Kennedy is indeed taking more votes from Trump than his Democratic rival.
“Trump has a real incentive to get Kennedy out of the race,” professor of political science at the University of Akron in Ohio David B. Cohen previously told Newsweek.
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