Stat Guru Nate Silver's First 2024 Model Disputes 'Toss Up" Narrative, Confidently Predicts Trump Victory
The prevailing narrative heading into the first 2024 presidential debate is that the election is a "toss-up," in that neither candidate has distanced himself as the favorite.
Nate Silver, the election statistician who founded FiveThirtyEight, doesn't agree with the sentiment. He released his first 2024 model on Wednesday, which he announced on X:
"The model is ready. And here’s our headline: the presidential election isn’t a toss-up."
Silver guesstimated two weeks ago at a Manifest conference, before he completed his model, Trump had a "55 to 60 percent chance" of prevailing. But after crunching the numbers, he concluded that Trump should be favored by a "slightly larger degree" than he anticipated.
He admits he prefers Joe Biden to win in November, yet can't help but predict a victory for Donald Trump:
"The candidate who I honest-to-God think has a better chance (Trump) isn’t the candidate I’d rather have win (Biden)."
Based on 40,000 simulations run by his model, Silver's forecast gives Trump a 65.7 percent chance of winning the Electoral College by an average margin of 287.2 electoral votes to Biden’s 250.4.
Silver explains the difference between his forecast and the polls that show a tighter race, often favoring Biden:
"If the Electoral College/popular vote gap looks anything like it did in 2016 or 2020, you’d expect Biden to be in deep trouble if the popular vote is roughly tied," he explains.
"So if we’re being honest, pundits who obsess over whether Biden is 1 point ahead in national polls are kind of missing the point."
Silver's model generates a similar conclusion to the map projection I posted on X last week, showing Trump winning around 280 electoral votes:
Silver's forecast is also consistent with the betting odds, where Trump leads Biden -112 to +180.
Usually, we'd caution readers it's only June. While true, the 2024 candidates are unique in that they are the last two U.S. presidents. The usual excitement of projecting how one would fare in the White House doesn't apply to the 2024 race. Voters are aware of how both candidates run the country.
Thusly, we suspect most voters have their minds made up. Rarely do you find someone on the fence about their feelings regarding Donald Trump.
Could the forecasts and odds still shift in favor of Biden? Sure. However, if convicting Trump of multiple felonies didn't harm him quantitatively – in some projects, the verdict helped him – it's hard to imagine any October surprises or newfound witch-hunts changing his election prospects.
Simply put, if Trump is the favorite today – and he is, according to Silver and the market – he should enter the election as the favorite.
Clay Travis concurs. "My theory is most people have already made up their minds on this election and nothing is going to move things very much, barring Biden getting dropped," he said on X.
Silver recently wrote about the, albeit waning, possibility that Biden drops out of the race.
"Biden just hit a new all-time low in approval (37.4%) at 538 yesterday. Dropping out would be a big risk. But there's some threshold below which continuing to run is a bigger risk. Are we there yet? I don't know. But it's more than fair to ask," he said on June 10.
In reality, if the Democrats believed a more adequate candidate was available, they would have replaced Biden already.
Michelle Obama doesn't want to be president. She doesn't like America. Kamala Harris is wildly unpopular and would have no chance in a general election against Trump.
And passing over Harris for Gavin Newsom, a possible candidate in 2028, would shatter the party's entire diversity, equity, and inclusion mantra.
The Democrats seem stuck with Joe Biden.
Now, that doesn't mean Biden will undoubtedly lose in November. Polls and markets can be misleading. Several were in both 2016 and 2020. Granted, election polling has historically underestimated the support for Trump.
Biden's clearest path to victory might be the recently floated "270-268 scenario. In this scenario, Biden would take the Rust Belt swing states of MI, PA, and WAS along with Nebraska’s 2nd congressional district, while Trump takes states like AZ, NV, and GA.
Take a look:
The country, already fragile, wouldn't cope well with a "toss up" — particularly one where just two electoral votes, in either direction, deciding the future of the country.
For the sake of the economy, border, and national security – we hope Silver's latest model is correct.
Fill out your map projection now here, and send them to us at Robert.Burack@OutKick.com