Former President Donald Trump has defeated Vice President Kamala Harris, becoming only the second president in American history to win two nonconsecutive terms.
Concession is a vital part of any election, because when one candidate refuses to concede, it undermines the peaceful transfer of power. While I find it difficult to say, Trump did win the 2024 presidential election, and despite the polls, it wasn’t even close. How did he do it?
Prior to the election, the polls predicted it would be a close race. Yet, come election day, Trump carried in all seven swing states, including six of the seven states Biden won in 2020.
This marks the second time Trump has broken through the Blue Wall, winning Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania as he did in 2016. In fact, the 2024 election map looks almost identical to the 2016 election map, with the exception of Nevada, which Trump picked up in 2024.
In addition to those three states, Trump also flipped Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. He not only outperformed himself in 2016, but he also outperformed polls and expectations prior to election night.
A series of over 80,000 simulations run by statistician Nate Silver had Harris winning 50.015% of the time. Trump, on the other hand, won 49.985% of the time, with a percentage of that including tied races that went to the House.
Meanwhile, a surprising poll by the Des Moines Register in Iowa, which hasn’t voted blue since 2012, had Harris leading Trump by 3%. Yet, Trump easily won Iowa with 55.9%.
Then there’s Allan Lichtman, a presidential historian and professor. Prior to 2024, he had accurately predicted nine of the last ten presidential elections with the exception of 2000, which he maintains he was actually right about given that Al Gore won the popular vote.
Leading up to the 2024 presidential election, Lichtman predicted Harris would win. She didn’t.
We can’t even attribute Lichtman’s error to the voodoo magic of Donald Trump, because unlike most people in 2016, Lichtman was one of the few people who accurately predicted Trump would win in 2016. Lichtman appears to be immune to Trump’s wizardry, so how was he so wrong?
Lichtman’s predictions are based on a model consisting of what he calls the 13 Keys to the White House, according to American University. Simply put, the Democratic Party did not lock down all 13 keys, and even if they did, Lichtman’s predictions are just that: predictions.
