[1andrew1]

A historian who has successfully predicted nine out of the last 10 elections in the US believes Kamala Harris will win the keys to the White House.

Polls have been suggesting it will be a neck-and-neck race between Republican nominee Donald Trump and his Democratic opponent.

But Professor Allan Lichtman's system, called "The Keys to the White House", involves disregarding the polls entirely.

Instead, 13 metrics on a checklist are used to try and figure out who the successful candidate will be.

"Why am I sure that Harris is going to win? Because it's only close on the polls, and my system ignores the polls," Professor Lichtman told CNN.

The professor, who correctly predicted Mr Trump's win against Hillary Clinton in 2016, described polls as "snapshots" and said: "People don't respond to pollsters, they lie, they change their minds, and they have to guess who the likely voters are."

His system, which he developed in the early 1980s with the Russian geophysicist Vladimir Keilis-Borok, analyses the political landscape through the lens of 13 true-false statements focused on the incumbent president's party.

If six or more of the statements are false, then the challenger — in this case, Mr Trump — is predicted to win.

As detailed below, his system currently concludes that eight of the 13 keys are in Ms Harris's favour - while three favour her Republican rival.

https://news.sky.com/story/us-electi...-live-13209921