A shocking new projection from liberal pollster Nate Silver has Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump winning every swing state en route to an election landslide over Vice President Kamala Harris, Mediaite reported Monday.
Silver’s update came after Sunday’s New York Times/Siena College poll gave Trump a lead nationally over Harris — 1 point head to head and 2 points with third-party candidates — blunting any post-Democratic National Convention bump.
“This is one of our highest-rated pollsters, so it has a fair amount of influence on the numbers, reducing Harris’ lead in our national polling average to 2.5 points, which would put her in dangerous territory in the Electoral College,” Silver teased on his Silver Bulletin blog before Monday’s update.
“And our model is more bearish on Harris still because of its convention bounce adjustment and its assessment of economic ‘fundamentals.'”
Silver’s statistical modeling to project the Electoral College winner is more complex than a number comparison, as it uses data points outside mere polling.
“You’re welcome to debate the mechanics of the adjustment, but recent polls confirm its basic hypothesis that there’s been a shift in momentum against Harris,” Silver continued.
Tuesday’s debate will potentially reshape — if not define — the race next, Silver wrote in his contemporaneous analysis.
“The good news for Harris is that there’s a debate on Tuesday, and if she turns in a strong performance, nobody is going to care so much about the Times poll,” Silver wrote.
Other data modelers show a more competitive race than Silver projects.
With 270 needed to win, RealClearPolitics has Harris ahead with 273 electoral votes, and Project 538 gives Harris 281 electoral votes to 257 for Trump.
Silver does forecast a slim edge in the popular vote for Harris, giving her a 56% chance to win more American votes versus Trump’s 44%, but the Electoral College tally that boils the race down to the seven battleground states picks the next president.
Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are widely considered the seven swing states in this presidential election cycle.
Regardless of Silver’s landslide projection, the Tuesday debate and the following two months of campaigning leave a wide-open race between Trump and Harris.
“Needless to say, stranger things have happened than a candidate who was behind in the polls winning,” Silver concluded. “And in America’s polarized political climate, most elections are close and a candidate is rarely out of the running.”