Top experts’ final election predictions as US fences up and braces for possible riots
Top experts have issued their final predictions with the US election just a day away, as fencing around the White House reflected tensions at a fever pitch.
Heavy-duty metal fencing standing 10 feet tall appeared along the perimeter of the official presidential home on Monday afternoon, USA Today reported. Fencing was also erected around the Naval Observatory, where Vice President and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris resides, and other crucial buildings in Washington, DC.
‘There will be no tolerance for violence in our city,’ Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith told reporters on the eve of the election.
‘We will not tolerate the destruction of property, and we will not tolerate threats to public safety as well as this election process.’
The preparations by the Secret Service brought eerie flashbacks to nearly four years ago on January 6, 2021, when then-President Donald Trump’s supporters breached the US Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying the election for President Joe Biden.
With Harris and Trump neck-and-neck and the polls and many experts considering the election a toss-up, tensions are the highest levels in recent memory.
‘I feel very sad that this the state of things, to be honest with you,’ Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said at the press conference on Monday.
‘But the way that I deal with anxiety is to work and to make sure that we are as prepared as we can be.’
Workers also boarded up some storefronts and buildings on Pennsylvania Avenue close to the White House.
In the days leading to the election, ballot boxes were set on fire and fights have erupted at polling stations between voters and workers.
Here are the latest predictions from three of the top experts tracking the election:
‘Nostradamus’ of presidential elections
Historian Allan Lichtman, who has been nicknamed ‘Nostradamus’ for correctly predicting nine of the last 10 US elections, stands firmly by the prediction he unveiled in early September.
The American University professor whose model is based not on polls and pundits but rather true-false questions making up 13 keys to the White House picked Harris as the victor.
Based on the political party in power, the Democratic Party, Lichtman determined that Harris had only three negative keys: Midterm gains, incumbency and incumbent charisma.
Lichtman has reiterated that his forecast remains unchanged and will not switch regardless of any ‘October surprise’ or other event leading up to the election.
On Saturday, Lichtman noted that FiveThirtyEight and Predictit had the election in dead heat, while the Economist had Harris leading at 52%.
‘After long predicting a Trump win, other models are belatedly starting to fall in line with The Keys to the White House,’ he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Lichtman will go live on his YouTube channel analyzing the election results as they come in starting at 7pm ET on Tuesday.
Polling guru
Top analyst and FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin presidential election forecast on Monday morning had Trump’s win probability at 50.4% versus Harris at 49.2%.
On Sunday morning, Silver had called the election ‘a pure toss-up’.
Roughly two weeks ago, Silver revealed that his gut told him Trump will win – but that Americans should not trust his gut or anyone else’s as the race has been virtually 50/50.
In a guest essay published in The New York Times on Monday, Silver added another grain of salt to that prediction.
‘Many people interpreted it differently, as though I was revealing my super-duper secret real prediction, And I expected that,’ he said.
‘But your gut feeling a week before the election will mostly be an emotional response or picking up on the vibes through osmosis – Republicans are invariably more confident so that seeps through – and I don’t think either of those things will help you make a better prediction.’
Silver said he would push through the final Silver Bulletin model run with any straggling polls at midnight before Election Day.
‘World’s top economist’
An economist who has been named the most accurate in the world, Christophe Barraud, a week ago predicted a Trump victory.
Early Monday, the chief economist and strategist at Market Securities Monaco noted that the ‘race is tightening’.
‘Over the past few days, #Trump’s edge against #Harris diminished,’ Barraud wrote on X (formerly Twitter) of the betting markets.
Specifically, he pointed out that Trump had a 54.3% chance of winning, down from 63.9% on October 30, according to RealClearPolitics.
Barraud, whom Bloomberg named the top US economy forecaster in 11 of the last dozen years, added that the latest polls showed Trump still slightly ahead nationally, but that the spread with Harris tightened from +0.3 on Oct. 30 to +0.1.
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