'He’ll be wrong again': Ultra-accurate 'keys' historian spars with prominent pollster
A historian who uses 13-so-called "keys" to accurately predict presidential elections slammed prominent statistician Nate Silver on Friday as the duo's rivalry spilled onto X for bemused onlookers to see.
Historian Allan Lichtman, a distinguished history professor at American University, uses 13 true-false questions to determine who will win the presidency. A candidate receives a "key" if a question is true.
In late July, he revealed that Democrats have the edge using his time-tested formula. This week, he doubled down and predicted that Kamala Harris will win in 2024.
And on Friday, Lichtman goaded his pollster rival on X, writing, "Nate Silver has finally seen the light!"
"Weeks after I predicted a Harris victory he has come down from a 2/3 probability of a Trump victory to a 58% probability of a Harris victory," boasted Lichtman.
The post made it to Silver's feed, however, and he hit back at the professor.
"The funny thing is if you actually apply his keys correctly based on how he's applied them in the past, they predict a Trump victory. More about this soon lol," retorted Silver.
Silver pushed back on Lichtman's accuracy and accused the professor of getting two out of his past three calls incorrect.
"In 2016, he predicted Trump would win the *popular* vote and said nothing about the Electoral College. And this year, he predicted Biden would win. Dude is 1 for his last 3, losing his fastball I guess," jabbed Silver.
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Not to be outdone, Lichtam fired back. Silver "claims to have applied my keys to predict a Trump victory," said Lichtman, as he launched into an attack on the famed pollster.
"He doesn’t have the faintest idea how to turn the keys. He’s not a historian or a political scientist. He has no academic credentials. He was wrong when he said I could not make an early prediction of Obama‘s re-election. He’ll be wrong again in trying to analyze the keys," wrote Lichtman.
Silver again pushed back on the professor's accuracy and said he still has "receipts" of how Lichtman applied his keys in the past.
"At least 7 of the keys, maybe 8, clearly favor Trump," said Silver. "Sorry brother, but that's what the keys say. Unless you're admitting they're totally arbitrary?"
He would later blast Allan for the "little tricks you've played" with the keys in the past, and said they "will come back to haunt you!"
"The Keys shall be respected: they will outlast this little rivalry of ours. And they clearly predict a Trump win!" goaded Silver.