Donald Trump has a 21.4 percent chance of winning seven crucial swing states and achieving a landslide victory, nearly double Kamala Harris' 12.6 percent, as reported by prominent pollster Nate Silver.
Silver's election forecast model explores every possible route to victory for both candidates, focusing on the critical tipping-point states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Should Trump win all seven states, he would secure 312 Electoral College votes, significantly surpassing the 270 needed to win the presidency.
Among the potential scenarios, Silver's model suggests that a complete sweep by Trump in these swing states is the most likely outcome, with Harris winning all of them being the second most probable result. Silver, the founder of polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight, has developed his own election outcome prediction model available on his Substack, the Silver Bulletin, which builds upon the FiveThirtyEight forecasting methodology.
In terms of national polling averages, Silver's model indicates that Harris holds a slight lead over Trump, with the vice president at 48.5 percent and the former president at 47.8 percent. However, while Harris is more likely to win the popular vote, Trump has a greater chance of securing the Electoral College, with probabilities of 52.6 percent to her 47 percent. Notably, Trump won the presidency in 2016 despite losing the popular vote, becoming the fifth U.S. president to achieve this.
For the "blue wall" states critical to Harris' strategy, Silver's model suggests she is favored to win Wisconsin and Michigan, while Trump is expected to take Pennsylvania. Additionally, Trump is likely to prevail in the other battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and Nevada, according to the model, which aligns with polling averages from FiveThirtyEight.
The likely victor has shifted several times since Harris became the presumptive nominee in July, with Trump's chances surpassing hers on October 17. This election cycle has seen remarkably close polling, with candidates often leading by narrow margins that fall within the polls' margins of error, making Election Day outcomes unpredictable.
While the term "landslide" lacks a precise definition, political scientist Gerald Hill noted that it typically implies exceeding expectations with a substantial victory. Silver’s model defines a landslide as a double-digit popular vote margin, predicting Harris has just a 1.1 percent chance of achieving this, while Trump’s chances sit at 0.1 percent.
In an op-ed for The New York Times on October 23, Silver emphasized the tightly contested nature of the race, stating: "In an election where the seven battleground states are all polling within a percentage point or two, 50-50 is the only responsible forecast." Although he feels a gut instinct that Trump will be reelected, he cautioned against placing value on such intuition.
Comments
Post a Comment