Nate Silver, political polling expert and founder of FiveThirtyEight, has released his long-awaited prediction model for the 2024 presidential election. According to Silver’s prediction, Republican front-runner Donald Trump is now likely to defeat President Joe Biden in a rematch of their 2020 showdown.
“When the model was finally completed on Sunday night, it showed that Trump had a slight advantage over what I had expected in the manifesto, but Biden still had a good chance of winning,” Silver said.
Trump and Biden are scheduled to face off on Thursday in their first debate of the 2024 presidential election.
Silver detailed the complexities of creating such models, highlighting the many choices that statistical modeling requires: even a seemingly simple decision like calculating a poll average involves many parameters, such as which polls to include and how to weight them.
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He elaborated on integrating fundamental factors such as current employment and economic status, and acknowledged the “infinite freedom of the researcher” in applying these factors.
Despite these challenges, Silver is clear about his model’s current favorite: “I can honestly say that the candidate I think has a higher chance of winning (Trump) is not the candidate I want to win (Biden),” he said.
Silver pointed out a key factor that pundits often overlook: “If the Electoral College and popular vote margins are similar to what they were in 2016 and 2020, Biden is going to be in serious trouble if the popular vote is roughly equal. So, frankly, pundits who obsess about whether Biden has a one-point lead in the national polls are kind of missing the point.”
Silver’s model, which ran 40,000 simulations, suggests that Trump has a 65.7% chance of winning the Electoral College votes, with an average margin of victory of 287.2 votes. It also projects that Biden has a slightly higher chance of winning the popular vote (51%), but by just 47.2% to 47.1%.
Interestingly, SilveSilver’s projection differs from FiveThirtyEight’s current projection that Biden will win the Electoral College slightly more than Trump (51%).
As the election approaches, Silver will undoubtedly be an important reference for political analysts and voters, providing a data-driven glimpse into a highly contentious race.
Jeremy Yurow is a Hawaii-based political reporter for the USA Today Network. He can be reached at JYurow@gannett.com or X (formerly Twitter @JeremyYurow).
