When election day dawned, almost all pollsters and pundits predicted that Hillary Clinton would have any easy ride into the White House.

But by the time the results came in, it soon became clear that all but one of the major polling institutions had been spectacularly wrong about Trump's chances.

Now one history professor, who correctly forecast nine presidential elections in a row, is calling for all election polls and pundits to be banned.

Allan Lichtman, from the American University in Washington DC, told the i paper: 'It just shows how useless the polls and the pundits are.

History professor Allan Lichtman (pictured), from the American University in Washington DC, has called for all election polls and pundits to be banned

'I hope we dispense with polls, and send all the pollsters in the next election out to a very nice island in the Pacific, [so they can] have a very nice vacation.'

He also took aim at pundits and analysts for trying to backtrack after realising they got the predictions wrong.

'It's all after the fact stuff, the pundits, it's meaningless, it's worthless,' he said.

Mr Lichtman has successfully predicted the last nine elections using his unique 'keys' system.

The system assesses the strengths and performance of the party in the White House to predict whether the incumbent party will stay in power or be defeated.

Of the 20 major polling institutions including national networks and newspapers that conducted more than 80 polls since mid-September, only one organization, the Los Angeles Times paired with USC Tracking, consistently gave Trump the edge.

Donald Trump's victory over Hillary Clinton has confounded the predictions of most pollsters

The ABC News/Washington Post poll showed Clinton with a four-point lead the day before America casts its ballots

Both the CBS and Bloomberg polls published Monday placed Clinton in the lead by a small margin

One the night before the election, The New York Times' polling desk projected that Clinton had an 85 per cent chance of winning the U.S. presidential election.

By 9.30pm on Tuesday Clinton's numbers started falling - until, within the hour, Trump was favored by the same publication to win by more than 77 per cent.

Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, which predicted Clinton would win, said: 'Almost all polls were wrong.

'This is worse than 'Dewey Defeats Truman,' said Sabato.

'There were only a few polls back then. At least 90 per cent of hundreds of surveys were wrong. Those of us who model from polls use their data; garbage in, garbage out.'

'We'll be studying this for many years to come. Your Brexit polls really weren't off by more than a few per cent.

'Our polls were dramatically off,' he added. 'And let me add, today's exit poll had Clinton winning almost everywhere at 5 pm. No doubt they've 'adjusted' it.'

HOW DOES LICHTMAN'S PREDICTION SYSTEM WORK? Professor Lichtman's system, based on his study of the presidential election cycles between 1860 and 1980, doesn't rely on polling data. It instead works by assessing 13 statements – called 'keys' – to see to what extent they support the re-election of the party currently in the White House. If six or more of these 'key' statements outlined in his Predicting the Next President book are true, the system favours the party in power. Party mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the US House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections. FALSE Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination. FALSE Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president. FALSE Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign. UNCLEAR Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign. Long-term economy: Real per-capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms. Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy. FALSE Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term. Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal. Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs. Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs. FALSE Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero. FALSE Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero. Advertisement

By 9.30pm on Tuesday Clinton's numbers started cratering quickly - until, within the hour, Donald J Trump was favored by The New York Times to win by more than 77 per cent

The Los Angeles Times/University of Southern California tracking poll consistently called Trump the winner in the final months of the campaign.

But among those who called it wrong immediately prior to the election were CBS and ABC News/Washington Post, as well as a CNN poll of polls, which all forecast a four-point lead for Clinton.

Bloomberg calculated a three-point lead for the Democrat, while Rasmussen estimated two.

The LA Times tracking poll, which has tended to show Trump at an advantage when other polls gave Clinton the lead, presently has the billionaire at 48 points to the Democrat's 43

Monmouth University and NBC News/Survey Monkey predicted even bigger leads of six points for the former secretary of state.

The only two major national surveys to call a Trump victory were the USC/LA Times and the IBD/TIPP tracking polls. The LA Times poll was also an outlier back in 2012, when it correctly called a win for Obama.

Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight - which has correctly called the previous two elections - forecast a 66 per cent likelihood that Clinton will take the White House.

Away from the popular vote, electoral college forecasts were also misplaced. Emerson College saw Clinton winning 323 electoral votes to Trump's 215, among other studies predicting a Democrat landslide.

But in several key states, Trump outperformed expectations.

In Wisconsin, the RealClearPolitics average of 4-way recent polls pegged Clinton at 46.8% and Trump at 40.3%.

The IBD/TIPP four-way tracking survey shows Trump ahead

By early Wednesday morning, however, with 90 per cent of the votes counted, Trump was winning by more than 4 percentage points.

Pollsters suggested to USA Today that there should be more polling in states like Wisconsin and Michigan.

Additionally, Sabato said he believed pollsters miscalculated by underestimating white turnout in rural areas and overestimating the number of black and millennial voters who would show up on Election Day.