With the presidential election looking as tight as ever, many will be looking to the statistician Nate Silver, for his predictions.
Polls show that Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are neck and neck, with any lead determined by just a few percentage points.
Silver, who founded FiveThirtyEight but is no longer affiliated, has essentially said the same thing, writing that “50-50 is the only responsible forecast,” in his most recent column for The New York Times (NYT). But he also wrote that his “gut says Trump.”
Here is what Nate Silver has said about the former President, his chances of winning the November 5 election and how he could achieve that victory.
What Nate Silver Says About Donald Trump’s Chances of Winning
Silver put Trump’s winning odds at 53.4 percent, over Harris’ 46.2 percent, in his forecast on Thursday, revealed through his Substack The Silver Bulletin.
Both Trump and Harris would have to “beat their polls” to win, he said, before explaining how polling, and different methods used, could be underestimating either candidate.
Silver argued in his NYT column that the polls may be under-representing Trump supporters as a result of pollsters not reaching them in “nonresponse bias.”
He wrote: “Trump supporters often have lower civic engagement and social trust, so they can be less inclined to complete a survey from a news organization.”
Silver went on to present a case for why he thinks the fact that Trump’s opponent is a woman may work in his favor.
“The only other time a woman was her party’s nominee, undecided voters tilted heavily against her,” he said, referring to Hillary Clinton who ran against Trump in 2016.
What Nate Silver’s Polling Aggregator Says About Donald Trump
The Silver Bulletin is a “direct descendant of the FiveThirtyEight election forecast,” which is famous for correctly predicting the outcome in 49 of the 50 states in the 2008 U.S. presidential election and all 50 states in 2012.
In 2016, when FiveThirtyEight gave Donald Trump a 29 percent chance of victory, Silver was one of the few analysts to stress this pointed to a real chance he could win. In 2020, FiveThirtyEight correctly predicted that Joe Biden would win.
The Silver Bulletin, which weights reliable polls more heavily, had Harris in the lead with 48.5 percent, over Trump’s 47.4 percent, as of Thursday.
But it also put Trump in the lead in five of the seven swing states—Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
However, Silver wrote: “While Trump made meaningful gains in our forecast in mid-October, we don’t think there’s much sign that the race is continuing to drift toward him in the final week and the seven most important swing states remain incredibly close.”
Nate Silver’s Predictions For Different Election Outcomes Involving Donald Trump
Silver has calculated the odds for multiple different outcomes, the following include Trump:
- Trump wins the popular vote: 26.2 percent
- Trump wins the popular vote but loses the Electoral College: 0.5 percent
- Trump wins with a majority (at least 50 percent of the vote): 16.7 percent
- Trump wins with a landslide (double-digit popular vote margin): 0.1 percent
- Trump wins at least one state Biden won in 2020: 87.8 percent
Newsweek has contacted Trump’s team, via email, for comment.
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