Trump or Harris? Nickelodeon, ‘WWHL’ and election ‘Nostradamus’ make 2024 election predictions
Since 1988, American kids have correctly predicted the next president 7 out of 9 times in Nickelodeon’s poll.
With just days to go until the 2024 presidential election, major national polls show the race for the White House between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump is as close as ever.
As a lot of Americans are reportedly feeling “anxious and frustrated” ahead of Nov. 5, there have been more lighthearted ways to predict the outcome of the election, including cookie polls in Minnesota to an election-predicting squirrel named “Gnocchi Jr.” in South Carolina (move over Punxsutawney Phil).
Here are some more unofficial polls that have made headlines this week.
???? Nickelodeon’s ‘Kids Pick the President’ poll
The kids in America have spoken — and they pick Harris. Results from Nickelodeon’s 2024 Kids Pick the President poll are officially in, and Harris was declared the winner with 52% of the poll votes, while Trump received 48% of the votes. (There was no signature green sliming involved.)
More than 32,000 ballots were submitted to Nickelodeon from Oct. 3 through Oct. 23, when kids had the chance to cast their votes online.
The results were revealed on Oct. 28 during Nickelodeon’s Kids Pick the President special, where American kids also talked about issues important to them, including school safety, AI, the economy and health care.
Nickelodeon has hosted the poll for 36 years. Out of nine election cycles, kids have wrongly predicted the next president only twice. In 2004, 57% of kids picked John Kerry, while 43% chose George W. Bush, who went on to become president. In 2016, kids picked Hillary Clinton with 53% of the vote, while 36% chose Trump, who also went on to win the White House.
??? ‘Watch What Happens Live’ audience poll
Andy Cohen, host of Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live, polled viewers on Wednesday night’s show asking them which candidate they were supporting for president: Trump or Harris?
Cohen claims that back in 2016, WWHL was the “only show at the time to predict the winner of that election, so we are going to do it again.” In 2016, Trump received 65% of the audience’s vote, while Clinton received 25% of the vote.
“I want to see where our audience stands in 2024,” Cohen said. The final results showed 73% of viewers voting for Harris, while 27% voted for Trump.
“I thought that was going to go the other way,” Cohen said.
?? The election 'Nostradamus' stands by prediction
Dubbed the election “Nostradamus,” Allan Lichtman is a history professor at American University and near spot-on election forecaster. Out of the last 10 presidential elections, Lichtman has correctly predicted all of them, except in 2000 when George W. Bush defeated Al Gore.
Lichtman doesn’t use polling data. Instead, he uses a system he calls “the 13 keys to the White House.”
“They look at things like midterm elections, incumbency, contests for the incumbent party nomination, third parties, short and long-term economy, policy change, social unrest, scandal, foreign/military failures and successes,” Lichtman told USA Today.
In early September, Lichtman released his prediction Harris would be elected the next president of the United States.
On Tuesday night, Lichtman said on his YouTube channel that he stands by his prediction, despite polls showing Harris and Trump are neck and neck.