With less than a week to go until election day and early voting well underway, most polls suggest the 2024 presidential race is about as close as it gets.
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are currently separated by razor-thin margins in the vital swing states. National polls indicate that the race is very much a toss-up.
But some experts are more certain of the outcome than others. Here are five prominent election forecasters with their takes on who will win the 2024 presidential election.
(Left) Kamala Harris at the Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote Presidential Town Hall at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. (Right) Donald Trump at Christ Chapel. Several forecasters have issued predictions on who will win the 2024 election.
Drew Hallowell/Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Allan Lichtman
Historian Allan Lichtman uses a system of 13 true/false statements to determine who he believes will win the presidency.
Known as “The Keys to the White House,” this model evaluates the standing of the incumbent party based on a variety of factors, including the economy, domestic politics, and foreign policy.
If six or more are false, the incumbent party is predicted to lose the election. Should five or fewer be false, it is expected to win.
In September, Lichtman formally predicted that Harris would win the 2024 election.
Speaking to Newsweek, the American University professor said that foreign policy was the most difficult area to evaluate, due to the ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
“You’re dealing with two wars—two uncertain wars that are very fluid—which makes those two keys extremely difficult to call,” he said.
Nate Silver
Statistician, writer, and poker player Nate Silver wrote in an October 23 opinion piece for The New York Times that his “gut says Donald Trump” will win.
Silver stressed, however, that his official forecast model, which draws on polling data, suggests the race is essentially a toss-up.
“I don’t think you should put any value whatsoever on anyone’s gut—including mine. Instead, you should resign yourself to the fact that a 50-50 forecast really does mean 50-50,” wrote Silver, who founded and formerly edited the election analysis site FiveThirtyEight.
Christophe Barraud
French economist Christophe Barraud has been referred to as the most accurate economist in the world.
Chief economist and strategist at Market Securities Monaco, Bloomberg ranked him the top U.S. forecaster every year except once since 2012.
According to Barraud, his model, which draws mainly on economic and financial data, suggests the most likely outcome of the election is a Trump win with a Republican sweep. He expects the GOP to win the Senate, but the House could go either way.
Thomas Miller
Thomas Miller is a data scientist from Northwestern University who uses betting markets to make his predictions rather than traditional polls, which he says don’t accurately capture shifting voter sentiments.
“I don’t rely on polls. I rely on prediction markets,” Miller previously told Newsweek. “A political prediction market is a leading indicator of what will happen in an election. People are putting their money down, which means they believe something’s going to happen in the future.”
Miller, who accurately forecast the 2020 presidential election, also considers historical trends from previous elections to balance the data with what he calls “fundamentals,” a common practice for election modelers.
In September, his model pointed to a landslide victory for Harris but has more recently shifted in favor of Trump, projecting a possible 345 Electoral College votes for the Republican.
Larry Sabato
Larry Sabato is an American political scientist, analyst, and editor-in-chief of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a political site that forecasts and tracks numerous political races, including for the presidency.
The site’s ratings consider electoral history, polling, candidate quality, modeling, and reporting.
At the time this article was written, Sabato’s Crystal Ball’s 2024 Electoral College ratings did not point to a clear victor.
Its projections suggest 226 votes for Harris and 219 for Trump, with 93 votes considered toss-ups. 270 Electoral College votes are needed to secure the White House.
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