'Two wizards bickering': Nate Silver, Allan Lichtman trade barbs over 2024 election picks

The feud between historian Allan Lichtman and prognosticator Nate Silver is heating up on social media as Election Day approaches. 

Lichtman, an American University professor who has correctly predicted the outcome of nine out of the 10 most recent presidential elections, earlier this month forecasted that the Kamala Harris-Tim Walz ticket would win the White House. 

Since then, Silver, a political pollster and founder of FiveThirtyEight, released data showing vice president Harris ahead of former President Donald Trump in the national polling average by nearly three points – 48.9% to 46% – but Trump and vice presidential candidate JD Vance have a 56.2% chance of winning the Electoral College compared to Harris-Walz (43.5%).

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On Friday, Silver questioned Lichtman's abilities to read his own 13 keys used to make presidential election calls. "At least 7 of the keys, maybe 8, clearly favor Trump. Sorry brother, but that's what the keys say. Unless you're admitting they're totally arbitrary?" Silver posted on X, the social media site previously known as Twitter.

To that, Lichtman responded back on X that Silver "claims to have applied my keys to predict a Trump victory. He doesn’t have the faintest idea how to turn the keys." 

Lichtman continued: "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 (in 2010). He’ll be wrong again in trying to analyze the keys."

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Lichtman reiterated his questioning of Silver's ability to "turn the keys" in a video on TikTok Friday night.

The back and forth continued with Silver on Saturday posting on X that "Lichtman is comically overconfident and doesn't own up to the subjectivities in his method, but you'll legit learn a lot about presidential elections by reading his work, and he's at least putting himself out there making testable predictions."

Most of the online audience seemed to enjoy the squabble. 

"If you don't know what they're talking about this whole exchange looks like two wizards bickering," Capitol Forum reporter Paul McLeod commented. 

Back in July after President Joe Biden's first post-debate television interview, Silver suggested Biden should step back as a presidential candidate and let Vice President Kamala Harris run. "The most generous way to put it is that he doesn't seem in command," Silver posted on X.

Silver, who founded FiveThirtyEight in 2008, took his site to The New York Times in 2010, then to ESPN and ABC News in 2013. 

After ABC News acquired the company and Silver left in 2023 amid layoffs at The Walt Disney Company, he started the Silver Bulletin Substack newsletter and website.

In July 2024, Silver became an advisor at Polymarket, a prediction market where you can bet on elections and other world events. 

Lichtman, 77, is a distinguished professor of history at American University who lives in Bethesda, Maryland. 

More than two decades ago, he and the late seismologist and mathematical geophysicist Vladimir Keilis-Borok, devised a way to predict presidential elections using Keilis-Borok's work in earthquake pattern recognition.

"We re-conceptualized presidential elections in earthquake terms," Lichtman told USA TODAY in May 2024. If there's stability, "the party holding the White House keeps the White House," he said. If not, "the party is turned out."

Contributing: Rachel Barber, Elizabeth Beyer, Fernando Cervantes Jr., Sudiksha Kochi and Marina Pitofsky.

Follow Mike Snider on X and Threads: @mikesnider & mikegsnider.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Nate Silver, Allan Lichtman clash on 2024 presidential election picks