(Jesus Mesa’s article from the NEWS WEEK on 18 October 2024.)
Donald Trump Surges Ahead of Kamala Harris in Nate
Silver's Forecast: Former President Donald Trump received a boost from polling
guru Nate Silver, whose presidential model, which tracks polling data and
electoral trends, now favors the Republican to win the election.
The latest projections from the Silver Bulletin
model show Trump holding a slight edge in the Electoral College, with a 50.2
percent chance of winning compared to Vice President Kamala Harris' 49.5
percent, despite Harris leading significantly in the popular vote probability
at 75 percent. It is Trump's first lead in the model since September 19.
The slight edge in the Electoral College probability means that in more simulations, Trump is winning enough battleground states to secure a majority of electoral votes, even though Harris may win the popular vote or a narrow majority of electoral votes in other simulations.
A scenario in which no candidate reaches a majority
in the Electoral College is also a slim possibility, with a 0.3 percent chance.
The numbers are based on 40,000 simulations run by the model, reflecting a
highly competitive race.
The updated forecast shows momentum shifting in
Trump's favor after several strong polling weeks in swing states like
Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. These states, which were pivotal in
Trump's 2016 victory and his loss to Joe Biden in 2020, are once again proving
to be crucial in determining the outcome of the election.
Yet, Silver cautions that the lead will continue to
shift, likening it to a "110-109 basketball game in the final minutes of
the fourth quarter." Silver's model shows that Trump has gained 1.6
percentage points in Wisconsin, 0.9 points in Michigan and 0.4 points in
Pennsylvania over the past week. While these changes may seem modest, Silver's
analysis suggests they could be a positive sign for Trump as he seeks to close
the gap with Harris.
Also, states like Georgia, Arizona and North
Carolina remain highly competitive, according to Silver's model, with Trump
leading by slim margins. Georgia and Arizona are leaning slightly toward Trump,
while North Carolina is seen as a critical state that could swing in either
direction.
Silver, known for his work with the poll aggregator
FiveThirtyEight before launching the Silver Bulletin on Substack, called the
race between Harris and Trump a "toss-up" in August. This came just
weeks after he predicted in the same newsletter that Trump was certain to win
against then-presumptive Democratic nominee President Joe Biden.
Silver's popular vote forecast has shown Harris
leading Trump by 1-2.5 percentage points for most of their campaign until now.
In his presidential race model, Silver runs simulations using state-by-state
polling data, factoring in the inherent uncertainty and variability of the
polls.
Nate Silver: 'I'm pretty worried' about the state of polling
Statistics guru Nate Silver says he has serious
concerns about modern polling. Speaking on a media panel hosted by Columbia
University's student newspaper, the founder of the website FiveThirtyEight said
Sunday that he largely agreed with the premise of a lengthy recent New Yorker
article positing that modern polling is in a state of crisis. "I am pretty
worried about polling, actually," Silver said when asked about the piece,
which was written by Harvard history professor Jill Lepore.
Silver said several high-profile off-base election
forecasts in the US, the United Kingdom, and Israel over the past several years
could be the result of problems with survey methods. Some experts attribute
those troubles to ineffective online polling methods and a declining and
unrepresentative pool of those who respond to telephone surveys over landlines.
"We have had a number of cases in
industrialized democracies where polls basically failed," Silver said.
"And also it's quite challenging to conduct a poll now when most people
are not picking up a random stranger's telephone call answering a survey.
Online polls don't use probability, which means there's no way — unless you're
the NSA — of randomly picking someone online."
Though the New Yorker piece encouraged broad head-nodding within the polling community, not everyone agrees that the state of polling has entered into dire straits. University of Michigan polling expert Michael Traugott argued to Business Insider last week that pollsters were improving their methods and increasingly relying on statistical modeling.
Traugott said Lepore operated "from a common
assumption that survey research is a static, out-of-date field." "Quite
the opposite is true," he continued. "Like any scientific endeavor,
its methods are under constant review and revision." "The accuracy of
pre-election polling has actually improved, not worsened," he added.
The debate about the value of polls comes as many
political analysts are increasingly concerned that early election polls are
playing too important of a role not only in driving media coverage, but also in
dictating the terms of actual political contests.
Several Republican presidential candidates have
complained about the use of early primary polls to determine which candidates
have been included on debate stages. The process has relegated candidates like
former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey to
early, non-prime-time debates. And their respective poll standings have
recently pushed former Gov. Jim Gilmore of Virginia, Sen. Lindsey Graham of
South Carolina, and former Gov. George Pataki of New York from the stage
altogether.
