Harris takes razor-thin lead in final Nate Silver forecast
Vice President Harris took a razor-thin lead against former President Trump in Nate Silver’s final forecast of the 2024 election, with the veteran pollster saying the race is “literally closer than a coin flip.”
According to the forecast, Harris won the Electoral College in 50.015 percent of the 80,000 simulations run, which Silver noted is twice as many simulations as he typically runs.
Silver wrote that “the race is literally closer than a coin flip,” adding that heads empirically wins 50.5 percent of the time — greater than Harris’s 50.015 percent.
“When I say the odds in this year’s presidential race are about as close as you can possibly get to 50/50, I’m not exaggerating,” Silver added.
Silver added that the model’s polling average is within 1.2 percentage points in six of the seven crucial battleground states, with Arizona being the only swing state “with something resembling a clear lead” for Trump.
Silver also wrote that if he was offered a bet on the election, he wouldn’t put money on either of the candidates, because Harris’s lead is so narrow.
Nearly two weeks ago, Silver had said his “gut” told him Trump would win, but he cautioned against putting faith in anyone’s gut feeling.
“My gut says Donald Trump. And my guess is that it is true for many anxious Democrats,” Silver wrote in an Oct. 23 New York Times op-ed. “But I don’t think you should put any value whatsoever on anyone’s gut — including mine.”
“Instead, you should resign yourself to the fact that a 50-50 forecast really does mean 50-50,” he continued. “And you should be open to the possibility that those forecasts are wrong, and that could be the case equally in the direction of Mr. Trump or Ms. Harris.”
The latest polling aggregate from The Hill/Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ) shows Harris and Trump tied at 48.4 percent support each.
Updated at 9:39 a.m. EST
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