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Historian Allan Lichtman clashed with "left-wing" commentator Cenk Uygur over his failed 2024 election prediction, accusing the Young Turks politics show founder of "blasphemy," after he was called "deluded." The two pundits, both of whom had made big calls on who would win the 2024 election, argued while discussing the election aftermath on Piers Morgan's TV show Uncensored, Tuesday night . Uygur, who had correctly predicted President-elect Donald Trump 's victory, said Lichtman, known as Nostradamus, was "preposterously and stupidly wrong," and that his prediction model, the 13 Keys to the White House, was "absurd.
" At one point during the debate, Uygur, who is often described as "progressive" and "left-wing," told Lichtman "you're so deluded ...
you don't know anything," while the other three panel members watched the argument silently. Uygur had predicted a Trump victory, while saying he would vote for Kamala Harris , and he was a prominent supporter of Bernie Sanders in the 2016 and 2020 Democratic primaries. Newsweek contacted Cenk Uygur, Allan Lichtman, and Piers Morgan for additional comment on this story via email, outside of normal office hours.
In the run-up to Election Day, Lichtman had repeatedly said that his keys, which are a series of long-term fundamental factors that indicate whether or not the incumbent party wins reelection, forecast that Vice President Kamala Harris would win. Speaking directly to Lichtman , Uygur said: "I debated Professor Lichtman before, and I told him his theories about the keys were absurd. I was right, he was wrong.
I said he'd lose his keys." Lichtman responded: "No, you were not right, and I was not wrong, and that's a cheap shot, I won't stand for it." The conversation quickly became heated, and Uygur told the historian: "You live in a total world of denials.
You got it wrong! You were preposterously and stupidly wrong! You deserve a tall glass of shut up juice." At one point in the conversation, Lichtman said that he would not stand for "blasphemy" against his reputation, saying: "I admitted I was wrong. I don't need you to call me stupid.
I will not sit here and settle for personal attacks or blasphemy against me." Uygur replied: "Blasphemy against you? Who the hell are you, are you Jesus Christ?" Despite failing to correctly predict Trump's victory, Lichtman defended his model, which earned him the nickname Nostradamus after he correctly predicted 9 out of 10 of the presidential elections before this one. The keys were based on historical trends, particularly significant events could buck the system, he said.
"I was far from the only forecaster to be wrong. Most other models got it wrong," Lichtman said. "It wasn't just a singular failure of the keys.
It was much broader than that." This is not the first time Lichtman has had to defend his methodology from other political commentators. In the run-up to the election, he received criticism from polling guru Nate Silver , who ran a forecast model based on polling data rather than historical fundamentals.
Silver said in late September that Lichtman's keys predicted a Trump victory, to which Lichtman responded that Silver didn't "have the faintest idea how to turn the keys." Do you have a story we should be covering? Do you have any questions about this story? Contact [email protected].
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