Who will win the US election? What the forecasters say

Less than a week until Election Day and early voting is in full swing. Most polls suggest the 2024 presidential race will be closer than ever.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are currently separated by a narrow margin in the important swing states. National polls suggest the race is a complete back-and-forth race.

But some experts are more certain of the outcome than others. Here are five prominent election forecasters with their take on who will win the 2024 presidential election.

Allan Lichtman

Historian Allan Lichtman uses a system of 13 true/false statements to determine who he thinks will win the presidency.

Known as “The Keys to the White House,” this model evaluates the incumbent party’s standing based on various factors, including the economy, domestic politics and foreign policy.

If six or more are incorrect, the incumbent party is likely to lose the election. If five or fewer are wrong, a win is expected.

In September, Lichtman officially predicted that Harris would win the 2024 election.

In conversation with NewsweekThe American university professor said that foreign policy was the most difficult area to assess 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 it extremely difficult to pinpoint those two keys,” he said.

Nate Silver

Statistician, author and poker player Nate Silver wrote an opinion piece for on October 23rd The New York Times that his “gut says Donald Trump” will win.

But Silver emphasized that his official forecast model, based on poll data, suggests the race is essentially a toss-up.

“I don’t think you should value anyone’s gut feeling, including mine. Instead, come to terms with the fact that a 50-50 prediction really means 50-50,” wrote Silver, founder and former editor of election analysis site FiveThirtyEight.

Christophe Barraud

French economist Christophe Barraud is considered the most accurate economist in the world.

Bloomberg, chief economist and strategist at Market Securities Monaco, has ranked him the top U.S. forecaster every year but once since 2012.

Barraud said his model, based primarily on economic and financial data, suggests the most likely outcome of the election is a Trump victory with a Republican lead. He expects the GOP to win the Senate, but the House could go either way.

Thomas Miller

Thomas Miller is a data scientist at Northwestern University who uses betting markets to make his predictions, rather than traditional polls, which he says don’t accurately capture the changing moods of voters.

“I don’t rely on surveys. I rely on prediction markets,” Miller previously said 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 will happen in the future.”

Miller, who is accurately predicting the 2020 presidential election, also considers historical trends from previous elections to match the data with what he calls “fundamentals,” a common practice for election modelers.

In September, his model suggested a landslide victory for Harris, but more recently has shifted in Trump’s favor, 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 website that predicts and tracks numerous political races, including for the presidency.

The site’s ratings take election history, polling, candidate quality, modeling and reporting into account.

At the time of writing, the 2024 Electoral College ratings from Sabato’s Crystal Ball did not indicate a clear winner.

His forecasts assume 226 votes for Harris and 219 for Trump, with 93 votes considered incorrect decisions. To secure entry into the White House, 270 Electoral College votes are needed.

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