Nate Silver, founder of the website FiveThirtyEight and now a writer on his Silver Bulletin Substack, had some bad news for Kamala Harris Thursday: Donald Trump has pulled ahead in the presidential race, according to his analysis.
Matt Margolis at our sister site PJ Media had some choice commentary about the newest results:
Did you hear that scream? Liberals far and wide are no doubt freaking out right now because the election they thought they had in the bag after the Democratic Party crowned Kamala Harris as its nominee, which sent a jolt of enthusiasm in their party, is now slipping away.
Kamala’s honeymoon bounce is now on a downward trajectory, and a slew of battleground state polling is looking really good for Donald Trump. But perhaps even more devastating for the Democrats is that Nate Silver’s famous election projection model has Trump ahead for the first time in weeks.
As you can see, in Silver’s model, Trump is now favored to win the electoral vote and is ahead in many crucial swing states:
#Latest @NateSilver538 forecast (chance of winning)
August 14
🟦 Harris: 56.7%
🟥 Trump: 42.7%
.
August 29
🟥 Trump: 52.4%
🟦 Harris: 47.3%
——
Swing States: chance of winningPennsylvania – 🔴 Trump 52-48%
Nevada – 🔴 Trump 52-48%
Arizona – 🔴 Trump 60-40%
Georgia – 🔴 Trump… https://t.co/sYNPuTSk3q pic.twitter.com/RX8BHgcu0U— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) August 29, 2024
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As we all know, polls are just polls, and models are just models. Silver has a pretty good track record, however, especially when compared to some of his competitors:
Silver was named one of the world’s 100 most influential people by Time in 2009 after an election forecasting system he developed successfully predicted the outcomes in forty-nine of the fifty states in the 2008 U.S. presidential election.[4] His subsequent election forecasting systems predicted the outcome of the 2012 and 2020 presidential elections with a high degree of accuracy. His polls-only model gave Donald Trump, the ultimate winner, only a 28.6% chance of victory in the 2016 presidential election,[5] but this was higher than many other forecasting competitors.[6]
On his Substack, Silver explains that although Harris still edges the former president in the overall vote, it’s the electoral college that decides the day:
Harris is ahead by 3.8 points in our national poll tracker — up from 2.3 points the day before the Democratic Convention began — which does suggest some sort of convention bounce. However, she’s fallen to a 47.3 percent chance of winning the Electoral College versus 52.4 percent for Donald Trump. (The numbers don’t add to 100 because of the possibility of an Electoral College deadlock.)
He also points out that Kamala’s numbers in Pennsylvania—a crucial swing state—show signs of danger for the VP. Bet she’s reconsidering that choice not to pick Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running mate:
But she’s also got another problem: it’s been a while since we’ve seen a poll showing Harris leading in Pennsylvania.
A high-quality poll showing Harris ahead in PA would make a big difference right now. pic.twitter.com/Aqv8y7Zf4Q
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 29, 2024
There’s another, longer-term concern for Harris, though: it’s been a while since we’ve seen a poll showing her ahead in Pennsylvania, which is the tipping-point state more than a third of time in our model. Today, in fact, we added one post-DNC poll showing Pennsylvania as a tie, and another (conducted during the DNC) showing either a tie or Trump +1, depending on what version you prefer.
As of this writing, the RCP Polling average shows Harris up by a statistically insignificant .08 margin in the Keystone state—but four out of the eight polls cited give Trump the edge, while another shows a tie. That means that only three of the eight polls actually indicate Harris is ahead.
Polls are just polls, as we all know, and if you look around, you can find one somewhere that supports virtually any conclusion you’re hoping for. Some show Harris winning the race, others say Trump will win by a big margin. That being said, with the media going into 24-hour-a-day overdrive trying to sell us on the Harris/Walz team, it’s a hopeful sign that many Americans don’t appear to be buying what they’re selling.
