Statistician Nate Silver unveiled his first election model on Tuesday since Vice President Kamala Harris emerged as the presumptive Democratic nominee.
Silver stated in his Substack post that while Harris is likely to win the popular vote, she remains “a modest underdog to Trump in the Electoral College, risking a repeat of the popular vote-Electoral College split that cost Democrats the elections in 2000 and 2016.”
He also pointed out that Harris has a more favorable position compared to President Biden’s stance during his term as an incumbent challenger. Additionally, Silver mentioned that Biden had only a 27% chance of defeating Trump prior to withdrawing from the race.
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Nate Silver shared his first election model since Kamala Harris became the presumed Democratic nominee. (Left: Bill Pugliano/Getty Images, Right: Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Following Biden’s announcement on July 21 that he was ending his campaign for re-election against Trump and endorsing Harris, she rapidly garnered support from the Democratic Party within just two days.
“Harris will offer Democrats a strong chance,” Silver remarked.
He also noted the possibility that Democrats could continue their trend of winning the popular vote: “In fact, she’s slightly favored over Donald Trump in the popular vote, which the Democrats have secured in all but one election since 2000. If an election were to take place today, we would face considerable uncertainty regarding the results, due to the close polling in critical Blue Wall states (Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin) since Biden exited the race, in addition to the inherent uncertainty stemming from the recent news cycle.”
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Nate Silver indicated that Harris has an edge in the popular vote but is an underdog in the Electoral College. (Krista Kennell/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
Silver observed that Biden’s 2020 victory illustrated a significant “Electoral College-popular vote gap,” as he narrowly won several states despite emerging victorious in the popular vote.
“However, this remains a challenge for Democrats, as we forecast Harris having a slightly wider popular vote-Electoral College gap compared to Biden’s earlier forecast,” he said.
Silver gained recognition for accurately predicting 49 of 50 states in the 2008 presidential election and also predicted President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election.
With Harris now regarded as the presumptive nominee for her party, reports indicate she will select her running mate by Tuesday.
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Several politicians near the top of her potential list have been actively campaigning on her behalf in recent days, including Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.
Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
