Polling guru Nate Silver changes his prediction from Trump electoral
victory to 'toss-up'
Yael Halon
Fri, August 2, 2024 at 6:00 AM EDT�3 min read

Polling and data guru Nate Silver updated his prediction to "toss up" two
days after he said former President Trump was electorally favored to win
the White House in November.

Silver, a prominent elections analyst and statistician, released his first
election model since Vice President Kamala Harris became the presumptive
Democratic nominee on Tuesday. He predicted Harris would win the popular
vote, but called her "a modest underdog to Trump in the Electoral College."

Silver wrote on Substack that this posed a risk of a "repeat of the popular
vote-Electoral College split that cost Democrats the 2000 and 2016
elections." He said Harris is in a better position than President Biden was
when he was the incumbent challenger.

NATE SILVER RELEASES FIRST ELECTION MODEL SINCE HARRIS BECAME PRESUMPTIVE
DEM NOMINEE, TEASES POSSIBLE TREND
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris attends an infrastructure event
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris attends an infrastructure event
addressing high speed internet in the Eisenhower Executive Office
Building's South Court Auditorium at the White House in Washington, U.S.,
June 3, 2021.

But on Thursday, Silver changed his prediction. "The presidential election
is a toss-up," his headline on Substack read.

"When we launched the presidential model on June 26 � in the lifetime ago
when Joe Biden was the Democratic nominee � the headline in the post that
introduced the model was that the election wasn�t a toss-up. Instead, Biden
had persistently been behind in the states that were most likely to decide
the Electoral College, enough so that he was about a 2:1 underdog in the
election despite the uncertainties in the race. His situation wasn�t
unrecoverable, or at least it wasn�t until the debate. But you�d rather
have had Donald Trump�s hand to play every day of the week and twice on
Sundays. Silver wrote.

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"Now that the election is in Kamala_mode, however, it�s far from clear
whose position you�d rather be in, and I wouldn�t blame you if you wanted
to bet either on Harris or on Trump," he added.

"At FiveThirtyEight, we actually had a formal definition of a �toss-up�,
which is an election where each candidate had at least a 40 percent chance
of winning. We�re now quite comfortably into that territory."
Nate Silver in 2018
Nate Silver speaks at "On The Fault Lines: Decision 2018" Midterm Election
Panel on October 25, 2018 in New York City.

1 OF THESE 5 DEMOCRATS COULD BE HARRIS' RUNNING MATE

Silver said according to his model, Harris has a 54% chance of winning in
Michigan, 50% chance of winning Wisconsin, and 47% chance of winning
Pennsylvania, all states that would lock down the 270 electoral votes
necessary to win.

"As of this afternoon�s model run, Harris�s odds had improved to 44.6
percent, as compared to 54.9 percent for Trump and a 0.5 percent chance of
an Electoral College deadlock. It�s not exactly 50/50, but close enough
that a poker player would call it a "flip": Democrats have ace-king suited,
and Republicans have pocket jacks," Silver wrote.

But, he cautioned, "Democrats shouldn�t get too out over their skis about
this�there�s one thing I think we can say with some confidence: Democrats
are lucky that they�re getting a second chance in this election with Harris
instead of Biden."
Donald Trump speaking
Former President Trump speaks at a campaign event.

Silver is notable for successfully predicting 49 of 50 states in the 2008
presidential election. He also predicted President Obama�s 2012 victory.

With the election still 96 days away, Silver said polls, while "more stable
than they used to be," are still "likely to gyrate back and forth a number
of times between now and Nov. 5."

Ryan wrote:
> Polling guru Nate Silver

Can fuck off trying to jawbone the election his way.

All fake noose.