OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Renowned election guru Nate Silver says the race for the White House is a “pure toss-up,” but added that former President Donald Trump would beat Vice President Kamala Harris by a small margin.
The Electoral College is likely to go to Trump 51.5% of the time, while Harris has 48.1% of the time, according to a post on Substack on Sunday morning, the New York Post reported.
“[New York Times] swing state polls good for Harris but not great. Morning Consult swing state polls are good for Trump but not great. It’s a pure toss-up,” Silver tweeted.
The Times/Siena College swing state poll showed that there is still no clear winner between the two candidates in the seven battleground states across the country. Election Day is in two days.
The study shows that Trump has a bigger lead in Arizona than Harris does in states like Nevada, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. In Michigan and Pennsylvania, the two are pretty much tied.
A study from Morning Consult shows that Trump has very narrow leads in Georgia, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. In Arizona and Pennsylvania, the race is tied.
Silver’s polling average gives a small lead to Trump in swing states Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.
Silver’s model gives Harris a tiny lead in Michigan and Wisconsin.
Morning model update.
NYT swing state polls good for Harris but not great.
Morning Consult swing state polls good for Trump but not great.
It’s a pure toss-up. All the numbers at the link.https://t.co/vsGVG189Sa pic.twitter.com/N5Sc4RiBYN
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 3, 2024
Polling between Trump and Harris appears to show a neck-and-neck race, but a new report that relies more on “old school” analytics indicates that the race may not be nearly as close and much more heavily in Trump’s favor.
Trump currently leads Harris “by 0.3% in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls and by an average of 0.9% in the battleground states,” writes Elizabeth Stauffer for the Washington Examiner. “Both results are well within the margins of error of the individual polls included in the averages. Thus, it’s appropriate to describe the current presidential race as neck and neck. Right?”
“If polls are the only indicator you’re looking at, that might be a fair statement. However, there are other ways to gauge where the candidates stand with the electorate,” she noted.
Brit Hume, Fox News’ chief political analyst and veteran of presidential election coverage, reflected on how reporters used to evaluate a political candidate’s prospects in the “old days,” when polls were either “nonexistent” or outdated. In those times, they had to rely on other factors to make their assessments.
“You’d rely on how the candidate seemed,” he said. “You relied on their events, how the events seemed to go, how well-organized they seemed to be. You looked at the response of the audience at these events. … You watched for other signs to pick up a sense of the race. And you could pretty well do it. … There are upsets in every election cycle, but you could get a sense of it.”
“If I were covering it the same way we used to cover it, I would look at this and say, Trump appears to be in the ascendancy. His campaign seems to have momentum. His events seem to be more exciting. They seem to be going better,” Hume continued.
But the vice president, he continued, “seems to be struggling. She struggles to answer questions. She’s not doing well in interviews. And so on.”
However, the current polls “don’t reflect that,” he continued. “The polls say this is absolutely neck and neck. Judged the old-fashioned way, it wouldn’t appear to be. Judged the way we judge them now because we’re just surrounded by polls, that’s where we’re getting the idea that this race is tight.”
Hume is right, noted Stauffer. She further pointed out that Trump has gained significant momentum in this race, arriving at a crucial moment.
Trump is riding high after a series of public relations victories, she says. His brief appearance as a fry cook at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s was a clever move, and his three-hour interview with popular podcast host Joe Rogan attracted tens of millions of viewers, she continued.
He generated considerable outrage among liberals with his impressive performance at Madison Square Garden last Sunday and took aim at Presidents Biden and Harris with his garbage truck stunt, notes Stauffer.
And Trump was spot-on, she believes, when he said, “You can’t lead America if you don’t love Americans.”
In contrast, Harris has faced numerous setbacks.
