Polling guru Nate Silver said during a podcast on Wednesday that he was planning to support Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in November.
“I’m trying to be nonpartisan to our audience, you know, I’m going to vote for Harris,” Silver said during his podcast, “Risky Business,” which he hosts with Maria Konnikova.
Silver, whose election model this week predicted former President Trump has a better chance of winning the Electoral College, has been criticized for his election forecast by Democrats. He also offered a post-debate update to his predictions.
“She, right now, is at 49 percent of the vote in polls,” Silver said on the podcast. “To win, she has to get to 51 percent, 51 because she has a disadvantage in all likelihood in the Electoral College.”
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According to his model, which was updated on Wednesday, Harris has just a 38% chance of winning the Electoral College, and overall, leads Trump by two points in Silver’s national polling average. However, according to Newsweek, he said the race was a 50-50 toss-up following Tuesday’s ABC News Presidential Debate.
“This forecast does not reflect any impact from the debate, as there hasn’t yet been any post-debate polling that meets Silver Bulletin standards. However, some polls conducted before the debate were released today. Kamala Harris got a strong poll in Wisconsin but some mediocre national polls — which basically wash out, so there’s little overall change in the numbers,” Silver’s Wednesday update read.
Silver also suggested Harris needed to do more interviews during the podcast, and questioned why she’s avoided it so far. Harris sat for her first interview since emerging as the Democratic nominee with CNN at the end of August and also did a pair of radio interviews last week.
“She needs to find 2 percent of the electorate somewhere, which seems easy, but there’s only about 6% that are undecided or voting third party,” he said. “Really reaching into the marginal constituencies, maybe not doing the mainstream media hits, but doing some of the weird podcasts.”
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In his Substack post published after the debate, Silver noted that while Harris won the debate, “the set of questions was pretty friendly” to her.
“Harris got the debate she wanted. If she isn’t able to move the needle in the polls at least a little bit, maybe that means the country just isn’t buying what she’s selling,” he added.
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