With four days until Election Day, statistician Nate Silver said that his latest model provides a "good update" for Vice President Kamala Harris in the extraordinarily tight presidential election, even as former President Donald Trump remains the front-runner.
Silver, the forecaster who leads the Silver Bulletin, released the first model run of November on Friday, finding Harris with growing support in Michigan and Wisconsin, two crucial swing states.
Harris' clearest path to victory would be to hold the three "Blue Wall" battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Barring any shock results elsewhere, those 44 Electoral College votes would put the Democratic nominee exactly at 270, if she also secures the other 226 Electoral College votes she is predicted to win by The Cook Political Report and 270 to Win.
Trump has campaigned hard in the three states, knowing that he likely needs to win at least one of them to secure the election. Polls have been very tight in all three states, with FiveThirtyEight's poll tracker currently showing that Harris leads Michigan and Wisconsin by less than a point, while Trump leads Pennsylvania by 0.4 points—after Harris was previously leading him in the state.
Since the 1988 election, the three states have consistently gone to the same candidate rather than being split. The winner of these states often wins the presidency, with the exception of Democratic candidate Al Gore, who carried all three but lost the 2000 presidential election to President George W. Bush. Trump previously won all three states in 2016, with President Biden flipping them back in 2020.
Silver's latest model shows Harris gaining 0.4 points in Michigan from last week's model, putting her 1.2 percentage points ahead of Trump, 48.4 percent to Trump's 47.2 percent. In Wisconsin, the inclusion of the Marist poll shows Harris gaining 0.2 points from last week, with her up in the state 48.6 percent to Trump's 47.8 percent.
Trump remains ahead in Pennsylvania in the model, 48.4 percent to Harris' 47.8 percent. The Silver Bulletin forecast projects Pennsylvania will go Republican by 0.7 points.
The latest Silver Bulletin forecast shows Trump projected to win the election, 53.8 percent to Harris' 48.8 percent. FiveThirtyEight's forecast model puts Trump as 51 percent likely to win the election, compared to Harris' 48 percent.
Newsweek has reached out to Harris and Trump's campaign for comment via email on Friday.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Silver highlighted three new Marist polls conducted between October 27 and October 30, which show Harris leading Trump in the Blue Wall states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. The polls are not included in the latest model.
Reassuring polls for Harris in the sense that the race is likely to remain toss-up-ish. Unless the final NYT/Siena state polls all tilt in the same direction I guess. https://t.co/dje7hSLoAg
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 1, 2024In the post he wrote, "Reassuring polls for Harris in the sense that the race is likely to remain toss-up-ish."
The latest Marist polls show Harris ahead by 3 points in Michigan, and 2 points in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Her lead in all 3 states is within the surveys' margin of errors.
In Michigan, 1,356 registered voters were surveyed between October 27 and October 30, with a margin of error of plus or mins 3.3 percentage points. Similarly, the Wisconsin poll surveyed 1,444 registered voters between the same dates, sharing the same margin of error. The Pennsylvania poll surveyed 1,558 registered voters on the same dates, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.
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