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Kamala Harris' chances of winning are overwhelming – Nate Silver


Kamala Harris' chances of winning are overwhelming – Nate Silver

According to pollster Nate Silver, Vice President Kamala Harris' chances of winning seven key swing states and securing a landslide victory are 12.6 percent – nearly half the 21.4 percent chance of former President Donald Trump would achieve the same result.

Silver's election prediction model describes all possible paths to victory for both candidates, taking into account any combination of the seven key tipping states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

If Harris were to win all seven battleground states and the other states she expects to win safely, she would secure 319 Electoral College votes, significantly more than the 270 needed to win the presidency.

Silver's model suggests that Trump's victory in all of these swing states is the most likely scenario and that a clear Harris victory is the second most likely outcome.

Newsweek emailed Harris and Trump's campaigns seeking comment.

Silver, a leading poll analyst and founder of poll aggregator 538, has built his own model for predicting election results on his Substack, the Silver Bulletin. This model is based on the election forecasting methodology 538.

Silver's model shows Harris slightly ahead of Trump in the national poll average, with the vice president at 48.5 percent and the former president at 47.8 percent.

While the model suggests Harris is much more likely to win the popular vote, 74.2 percent to 25.8 percent, it says Trump has a greater chance of winning the Electoral College, 52.6 percent to Harris' 47 percent .

Trump won the presidency in 2016 without winning the popular vote, becoming the fifth president in U.S. history to do so.

Kamala Harris
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on October 28. Pollster Nate Silver said Harris' chances of a landslide victory on Nov. 5 are slim.

Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Silver previously pointed out that Harris' most likely path to victory was to win Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, three “blue wall” states that Democrats won consistently from 1992 to 2012 before Trump flipped them in 2016.

Under Silver's model, Harris is the favorite to win Wisconsin and Michigan, while Trump is more likely to win Pennsylvania.

Of the other battleground states, Silver's model currently suggests Trump is likely to win Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Nevada.

These predictions are broadly consistent with 538 state polling averages reported.

Polls this election cycle have consistently shown a tight race, with candidates often ahead by razor-thin margins in key battleground states that are within the polls' margin of error.

That means anything can happen on Election Day, with a possible landslide for one of the candidates or a closely contested race.

There's no way to define a “landslide victory,” but political scientist Gerald Hill told the Associated Press that “it usually means exceeding expectations and being somewhat underwhelming.”

If Harris won all seven swing states, she would win the election by 100 Electoral College votes. If Trump wins all of these states, he would win by 86 votes in the Electoral College.

A presidential candidate has won at least 100 more Electoral College votes than his opponent seven times in the last 50 years.

Silver's model defines a landslide as a double-digit popular vote lead. By this definition, the model predicts Harris' chances of achieving this are 1.1 percent and Trump's are 0.1 percent.

The probability of each candidate winning the election has fluctuated in Silver's model since Harris became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee in July. Trump last overtook them on October 17th.

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