Former President Donald Trump has had a more favorable week compared to Vice President Kamala Harris, according to Nate Silver‘s most recent election model.
The latest edition of The Silver Bulletin shows Trump gaining a 1.4 percent better margin nationally over Harris in the past month.
“A couple of mediocre national polls for Harris,” Silver, the creator of FiveThirtyEight, said in a post to X, formerly known as Twitter, “but little change for her overall as with a lot of polling now, the model tends to care way more about the state data.
Today’s numbers. A couple of mediocre national polls for Harris, but little change for her overall as with a lot of polling now, the model tends to care way more about the state data.https://t.co/vsGVG18HHI
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) September 25, 2024
When looking at 19 contested states Trump has had a net positive margin over Harris.
Harris has gained a 1.1 percent margin over Trump in Florida. Trump’s margins have increased in the other contested states between .2 percent in Georgia to 2.9 percent in Minnesota.
That said, Harris still has the overall favorability currently in the contested states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Minnesota, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Viriginia, Washington and Maryland, according to Silver’s model.
This year’s election is likely to hinge on seven—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, and North Carolina.
A survey of 9,794 swing state voters published on Sept. 23 by Redfield & Wilton Strategies for The Telegraph found that Harris and Trump were tied for support in four of the states: Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Earlier, Silver said that the results this week are “pretty decent” for Harris.
“Much less drama than yesterday, pretty decent polling day for Harris,” Silver posted.
Silver called the race between Harris and Trump a “toss-up” in August. This came weeks after he had written in the same newsletter that Trump was certain to win against the then presumptive Democratic nominee, President Joe Biden.
In modeling the presidential race, Silver runs simulations using state-by-state polling data, accounting for the inherent uncertainty and variability in the polls. The result is a probabilistic forecast, such as predicting that a candidate has a 70 percent chance of winning if they come out ahead in 70 percent of those simulations.
On the other hand, Silver’s polling aggregator—different from his forecast—has shown Harris leading Trump since its launch at the end of July. Silver’s popular vote forecast shows Harris ahead as of Sept. 25 with 48.4 percent of the vote, compared to Trump’s 45.8 percent.
In his newsletter, Silver said that the polls still do not mean everything.
“Needless to say, stranger things have happened than a candidate who was behind in the polls winning,” Silver said. “And in America’s polarized political climate, most elections are close and a candidate is rarely out of the running.”
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