What Nate Silver has said about Kamala Harris’ chances

November 3, 2024 / Kevin harson /

Pollster Nate Silver has become the person many Americans look to for an election prediction they can trust on the strength of his reliable track record.

With Election Day on Tuesday, many will be looking to Silver again, especially with the polls showing that the race remains extremely tight, with any leads enjoyed by Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump being by just a few percentage points, often within the margin of error.

Silver, who founded 538 but is no longer affiliated, has essentially said the same thing, writing that “50-50 is the only responsible forecast,” in an October 23 column for The New York Times.

Newsweek has rounded up what Silver has said about Harris, her chances of winning, how she could achieve a victory and what other election outcomes are possible for her. Newsweek has contacted the Harris campaign, via email, for comment.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event at Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre on October 31 in Phoenix. Newsweek has rounded up what pollster Nate Silver has said about Harris’ chances of winning the…

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Kamala Harris’ Latest Chances

Silver put Harris‘ winning odds at 46.2 percent on Thursday, calling it a “very close to a coin flip.”

Both Harris and Trump would have to “beat their polls” to win, he said, before explaining how polling, and different methods used, could be underestimating either candidate.

In his column, Silver wrote that Harris might be underestimated in the polls because “pollsters are terrified of missing low on Mr. Trump again” and “they may consciously or unconsciously make assumptions that favor him.”

Silver argued that Harris’ chances of winning will be higher if marginal voters do not vote, citing the Democrats‘ strong performance in the last two years, in special elections, ballot referendums and the 2022 midterms.

But it is the “most motivated voters who show up in these low-turnout elections,” Silver said, adding that he believes Trump wins most marginal voters.

“So Democrats may be rooting for lower turnout,” he said. “If those marginal voters don’t show up, Ms. Harris could overperform.”

What Silver’s Polling Aggregator Says

Silver, a self-described journalist and an applied statistician, shares his predictions through his Substack publication, the Silver Bulletin, which is a model he calls a “direct descendent of the FiveThirtyEight election forecast,” which is famous for correctly predicting the outcome in 49 of the 50 states in the 2008 U.S. presidential election and all 50 states in 2012.

In 2016, when 538 gave Donald Trump a 29 percent chance of victory, Silver was one of the few analysts to stress this pointed to a real chance he could win. In 2020, 538 correctly predicted that Joe Biden would win.

The Silver Bulletin, which weights reliable polls more heavily, had Harris in the lead with 48.5 percent to Trump’s 47.4 percent as of Thursday. But it also put Harris in the lead in just two—Michigan and Wisconsin—of seven swing states.

“If she loses Pennsylvania, Harris’s Plan B would have to involve a two-state parlay: either Georgia or North Carolina plus either Arizona or Nevada, or both Georgia and North Carolina,” Silver wrote.

With Trump having a 0.8 percentage-point lead in Pennsylvania, according to the Silver Bulletin‘s averages, Nate asked whether Harris should have picked Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as her running mate instead of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, which he made a case for in August, calling Shapiro an “extremely popular governor of what is by far the most important swing state.”