Donald Trump Again Favored to Beat Kamala Harris: Election Forecast

Former President Donald Trump is favored to beat Vice President Kamala Harris for the first time since August 3 in Nate Silver’s forecast of the 2024 presidential election.
Trump and Harris are locked in a tight race ahead of November, with most pollsters and forecasters viewing the election as a pure toss-up.
Before Harris emerged as the Democratic nominee—replacing President Joe Biden, who withdrew from the race in July—Trump held a consistent lead that quickly evaporated as Harris’ candidacy generated new enthusiasm among Democrats and record-breaking fundraising.
While Harris polled well following the Democratic National Convention last week, Silver’s election forecast delivered some good news to Trump on Thursday, showing him at a slight advantage to beat Harris in November.
“Although we wouldn’t advise worrying too much about the difference between a 52/48 race one way versus a 48/52 race the other way — it’s not a big difference — this wasn’t a good day for Kamala Harris in our model, as Donald Trump is the slight favorite for the first time since August 3,” Silver wrote in an update.
Silver wrote that there is “one big reason” for Trump being the favorite: Pennsylvania.
He said it has been “quite a while” since a poll has shown Harris leading Pennsylvania, which may be the tipping point state, including two polls released Thursday.
Newsweek reached out to the Trump and Harris campaigns for comment via email.
An Emerson College poll of swing states showed Harris and Trump each receiving support from 48 percent of respondents in Pennsylvania. The poll surveyed 950 likely voters from August 25 to August 28, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Meanwhile, a Pinpoint Policy Institute poll conducted among 400 likely voters from August 19 to 21 showed Trump leading Harris by a single point in Pennsylvania (47 percent to 46 percent) in a head-to-head race.
While several polls have shown Trump leading Pennsylvania, a few have shown Harris up. An ActiVote survey conducted from August 5 to August 22 among 400 likely voters showed Harris leading by two points (51 to 49 percent).
“The model is also applying a convention bounce adjustment to Harris’s recent numbers, who has made gains in national polls, and you could argue about whether that’s the right assumption. But the bottom line is that the model has the Electoral College/popular vote gap opening up again, a concern for Harris all along,” Silver wrote, noting the model gives Harris a 17 percent chance of winning the popular vote but not the Electoral College.
Elsewhere, FiveThirtyEight’s election model gave Harris an advantage on Thursday.
Its model showed Harris winning 59 out of 100 times, with Trump winning 40 out of 100. It predicted Harris would win 291 Electoral College votes while Trump would win 247 Electoral College votes.
Harris was forecast to carry the key swing states of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, while Trump was favored in Georgia and North Carolina, according to FiveThirtyEight’s forecast.