Influential American election analyst Nate Silver has put Republican candidate Donald Trump’s chances of defeating Vice President Kamala Harris in this November’s election higher than at any point since Harris announced her candidacy in July.
Despite polling consistently showing Harris with a slight lead over Trump, Silver claimed on Wednesday that the Democrat has underperformed in recent surveys, and that Trump now stands a 58.2% chance of winning the election, compared to Harris’ 41.6%. This time last week, Silver’s model gave Trump a 52.4% chance of winning, and put Harris’ chances at 47.3%.
Silver’s predictions are regularly cited by American media outlets, and are considered among the more influential election forecasts in the country. His methodology samples polling, economic data, likely turnout, and other factors – including the post-convention “bounce” that typically boosts a candidate for several weeks after the official nomination.
Democrats confirmed Harris as their party’s nominee at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago three weeks ago. However, Harris didn’t receive the “bounce” that most candidates normally do, Silver explained. CNN polls conducted after the convention showed Harris and Trump tied in three out of six battleground states and leading by around five points in three more, while a YouGov survey showed the Democrat leading by two points nationwide.
With these polls taken so soon after the convention, Harris should have held a wider lead, Silver argued.
Silver’s predictions are contradicted by other pollsters. FiveThirtyEight, an analytics organization founded by Silver, maintains that if the election were held today, Harris stands a 55% chance of winning, with Trump’s likelihood of victory standing at 44%. While FiveThirtyEight and Silver use the same methodology, FiveThirtyEight places more emphasis on polling as election day draws closer.
Individual polls can be misleading, however. A New York Times poll last month showed Harris beating Trump by 50% to 46% in the swing states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. However, the poll oversampled Democrats, and when adjusted showed Harris and Trump in a statistical dead heat in all three states.
For both Harris and Trump, winning either Pennsylvania and its 19 electoral votes, or Michigan and Wisconsin’s combined 25 votes, will be essential to winning the election.
Silver’s model shows Trump winning in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and North Carolina, with the two candidates tied in Michigan and Harris with a slight lead in Wisconsin.
“Needless to say, stranger things have happened than a candidate who was behind in the polls winning,” Silver cautioned. “And in America’s polarized political climate, most elections are close and a candidate is rarely out of the running.”
