Nate Silver Now Projects A Blowout Victory For Donald Trump
Nate Silver projects that Donald Trump will not only win the election, but win in blowout fashion.
The pollster's latest model has Trump winning each of the seven core swing states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — leading to an Electoral College victory of 312-226.
Here is a visual of Silver's projection:
Overall, Silver gives Trump a 63.8 percent chance of winning the Electoral College vote, compared to a 36 percent chance for Harris.
Nate Silver is the most respected mainstream pollster and admittedly prefers a Kamala Harris victory. His model is hardly programmed to generate Trump enthusiasm.
In fact, Silver favored Harris just three weeks ago.
On August 23, he gave Harris a 53.5 percent chance of winning. As Harris' piped-up momentum wanes, Silver has expressed concerns about how "The mistakes of 2019 could cost Harris the election."
Per his latest update on Substack:
There are a few moments from presidential debates that I’ll never forget. Joe Biden’s implosion in June. Marco Rubio’s implosion in 2016. And not to be overlooked, Michael Bloomberg’s implosion in 2020. But an underrated memorable moment came from the first major Democratic primary debates in 20192. Asked for a show of hands on whether their "health care plan would provide coverage for undocumented immigrants," every Democrat on stage (including Harris and — more sheepishly than the others, Biden) raised theirs.
Democrats won that election anyway, benefiting from picking the comparatively moderate Biden and Trump’s mismanagement of the pandemic. But Harris’s articulation of highly progressive positions on immigration and health care have become a talking point for the Trump campaign and one where the facts are mostly on their side. Harris has flip-flopped on some of these positions, like on Medicare for All and decriminalizing border crossings. Still, you’ll probably see clips like the one above in heavy rotation in Republican attack ads.
The flip-flopping may explain why Harris has been weirdly reluctant to do media hits or articulate policy specifics. This strategy may have worked well enough when she was riding high off the vibes of the Democrats’ candidate swap, but it’s causing her more problems now.
This morning’s NYT/Siena poll contained a pair of questions on whether voters think Harris is too liberal/progressive3 and whether Trump is too conservative. The numbers were lopsided in Trump’s favor. Only 32 percent of voters said Trump was too conservative, while 47 said Harris was too liberal. The demographics on this question are about what you might expect. Harris is faring poorly among white voters without college degrees, rural voters, and older voters: the types of voters who are plentiful in Blue Wall states like Pennsylvania.
Silver references the New York Times/Siena College poll on Sunday that put Trump ahead of Harris, 48 percent to 47 percent, well within the 3-point error margin.
The betting market agrees.
As of Monday morning, Trump is favored at -109 on OddsChecker. Harris' odds have fallen from around -110 last month to +118.
Polymarket also gives Trump a 52 percent chance of victory.
What does all of this mean?
Trump is probably the favorite. Whether he's a solid (as per Silver) or a marginal favorite (as per NYTSiena) is the question.
Ultimately, the debate on Tuesday could drastically change the outlook of the race in any which direction.
The last debate, in June, ended Joe Biden's political career. While we don't expect either candidate to implode to that degree (few ever have), polling suggests there is a decent number of undecided voters remaining.
The first and perhaps only presidential debate between Trump and Harris should go a long way toward giving undecided voters a preference.
Yes, Donald Trump has regained momentum. But it is still only September.
OutKick will provide live coverage of the Trump-Harris debate on Tuesday. I will also preview the debate tomorrow at noon ET on Fox News' The Will Cain Show.