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Famed polling expert Nate Silver makes Trump heavy favorite to beat Biden in November: ‘Not a toss-up’
Posted By Ryan King
There’s a clear front-runner in the 2024 presidential race, according to renowned election analyst and statistical guru Nate Silver.
The data maven unveiled his quadrennial model Wednesday and started off by giving former President Donald Trump a 65.7% chance of victory over President Biden on Nov. 5.
Silver’s current prediction, based on 40,000 simulations run through the model, predicts that Biden, 81, is likely to edge out Trump, 78, in the national popular vote by one-tenth of a percentage point (47.2% to 47.1%)
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However, in the all-important Electoral College, Silver’s model has Trump receiving 287 electoral votes — just above the 270 needed to win the White House.
Nate Silver's forecast
Nate Silver explained that his model is similar to the one used to predict the 2020 outcome. Natesilver.net
“The candidate who I honest-to-God think has a better chance (Trump) isn’t the candidate I’d rather have win (Biden),” Silver conceded in a blog post outlining his findings — headlined: “The presidential election isn’t a toss-up.”
“If the Electoral College/popular vote gap looks anything like it did in 2016 or 2020, you’d expect Biden to be in deep trouble if the popular vote is roughly tied,” he added.
The last Republican presidential candidate to win the popular vote was George W. Bush when he secured re-election in 2004.
The biggest problem facing the incumbent, according to Silver, is that Biden needs to run the table in the same battleground states he swept four years ago.
“[I]f Biden loses Georgia, Arizona and Nevada — and he trails badly in each — he’ll need to win all three of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania,” he wrote.
“In our simulations, Biden wins at least one of these states 54[%] of the time. But he wins all three of them in only 32[%] of simulations. This is the sort of precision that a model can provide that your intuition really can’t.”
Silver’s prediction pits him at odds with FiveThirtyEight, the company he founded and departed from last year, which currently gives Biden a 51% chance of emerging victorious.
FiveThirtyEight3
FiveThirtyEight predicts President Biden will win reelection. fivethirtyeight.com
Silver vaulted to national prominence during the 2012 campaign, when he correctly predicted Barack Obama would be re-elected despite claims from conservatives that his analysis was biased against Republican nominee Mitt Romney.
On Wednesday, he wrote that the 2024 race “looks a lot like 2012 in reverse, when national polls were often close but the swing state polls consistently favored Obama and gave him the far more robust map.”
Earlier this month, Silver issued a stark warning about Biden’s prospects, even musing about whether he should drop out of the race.
Also Wednesday, Trump surged ahead in a new Quinnipiac University poll of registered voters to take a four-percentage point lead over Biden, 49% to 45%.
In the same outlet’s poll last month, Biden led the 45th president by a single point, 48% to 47%.
Donald Trump, Joe Biden3
In a six-way matchup, Trump’s lead widened to six points, 43% to 37%. Independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. notched 11%, Green Party hopeful Jill Stein and independent Cornel West each nabbed 2%, and Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver got 1%.
Quinnipiac’s poll also showed that 55% of voters felt Trump shouldn’t be thrown in prison due to his guilty verdict in the Manhattan hush-money case, while 40% wanted him put behind bars.
The former president’s sentencing is slated for July 11.
When it came to first son Hunter Biden, 51% said he should be sentenced to prison on federal weapons charges, while 38% felt he shouldn’t.
Trump and Biden are set to square off in the first debate of the general election season Thursday in Atlanta.
Nearly three-quarters (73%) of voters claimed they would tune in, but few expressed willingness to be persuaded.
Just 13% of those supporting Biden, 12% of those behind Trump, and 32% of those backing Kennedy said they were open to changing their voting preference due to the debate.
The poll was conducted June 20-24 among 1,405 registered voters, with a margin of error of plus-or-minus 2.6 percentage points.
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The Debate and World War 111
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Thanks to social media, which has a way of randomizing and de-hierarchizing the information flow, here’s betting more than a few watchers of Thursday’s presidential debate will have read online essays by Philip Zelikow and Leopold Aschenbrenner. Mr. Zelikow, a U.S. diplomat, cites historical precedent to show persuasively that the emerging alliance of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea may not have staying power but can propagate a great deal of international chaos in a short period. Mr. Aschenbrenner, a recently fired researcher from OpenAI, explains his own powerful intuition. A national-security panic of the first order will emerge in the next two or three years as China and the U.S. race for superintelligence capabilities. Trillion-dollar chip clusters will become decisive national assets, to be protected how? With the threat of nuclear retaliation? The moment isn’t ideal for choosing between two candidates who might be unable to govern, one due to age and infirmity, the other because he would be pummeled into impotence by insider and institutional “resistance” to his election. In a moment that Foreign Policy magazine, the bible of Washington’s policy blob, likens in almost every issue to 1939 or 1914, Mr. Biden may be our next president because, on Thursday night, he succeeds in hanging around Mr. Trump’s neck the “felon” label finally supplied by the diligent efforts of multiple Democratic prosecutors. Mr. Trump might get the job because he avoids looking as old as Mr. Biden, and because he refrains from trying to justify Jan. 6 or venting about his legal travails, save for suggesting, dismissively, calmly and without anger, that Democratic prosecutors read the polls. Many viewers might be pleasantly surprised by now if either man is coherent in a way that suggests judgment and acuity intact. If the accelerating international crisis gets any substantive and illuminating treatment at all, political scientists will have to rewrite their texts since it will upend everything we know about televised presidential debates. Yet the world might get lucky. Mr. Trump at least can be counted on to claim Ukraine and Palestine wouldn’t be afire if he were president. A smart CNN would make this the theme of the evening. If Mr. Biden can be dissuaded from his anti-Trump talking points long enough to explain how he hopes to assure the peace with a shrinking defense budget, and what the plan for Ukraine actually is, CNN may have a genuine news-making event on its hands. “Double haters” are a bumper crop in 2024, one Biden achievement he won’t be bragging about. In 2016 and 2020, these nose-holders broke decisively for Mr. Trump; in 2016 there just happened to be more of them. Now they’ve doubled in four years. Moreover, says Yanna Krupnikov of the University of Michigan, typically low-engagement, low-information voters are increasingly joined by others best described as “anti-establishment.” In my own experience, many are especially alert to the international situation. They see two unsuitable commanders in chief. If anything, they lean toward Mr. Trump as their worries deepen. America needs a president who at least can understand what’s said to him and make choices. They also see more clearly than most the least bad outcome might be a winner who doesn’t serve long. In President Kamala Harris, America would have the mandateless successor to a mandateless president, whose pitch to voters for two elections in a row amounted to “Trump is worse.” She might have no practical path except to consult widely with the opposition to ready America for rough seas ahead. But here we must draw the ever more luminous lesson of history. What a gift Mr. Biden might have given America by deciding not to run. Two candidates in their 40s or 50s might be vying now, untrammeled by Trump-Biden corruption baggage (in Mr. Biden’s case, Democrats still resolutely lie to themselves about something half the country sees). Each candidate could reasonably hope to have eight years to restore order to the world in which they and their children will have to live. Voters could leave the booth confident whoever wins has stamina for the job. But instead President Obama is being rolled out now to endanger his own reputation by trying to save the Biden presidency. In news reports, Democrats are mobilizing the ex-president in an anachronistic attempt to reach young progressive double haters in the swing states. Yet these voters may already be a lost cause. Unsuccessfully pandering to them at this point may only alienate moderates. The Biden disillusionment of young voters has been snowballing since Gaza. In their social-media haunts, these voters now recognize that the Democratic green agenda has devolved into a corporate-welfare agenda. I’m guessing what Mr. Obama thinks is still going to work won’t. These voters will say “meh” when handed a flyer saying Joe Biden is the climate president. They may be about to become a peace movement instead. After all, World War III would have climate effects too. ++++ The National Debt Crisis Is Coming Politicians need to recognize the urgency of cutting benefits or raising revenue. By William A. Galston During the Obama administration, many economists and political commentators became worried that the U.S. faced endless budget deficits that could cause higher interest rates, depress investment, and slow economic growth. Some elected officials pressed for a so-called grand bargain in 2011 between the parties that would both reduce spending and increase revenue, and a bipartisan commission was appointed to address the issue. Although the commission failed to reach an agreement, the negative consequences that budget hawks predicted didn’t come to pass. Instead of rising, inflation rates slowed after 2011 and remained low for years. The economy entered a period of growth until the pandemic disrupted everything. It seemed that our concerns had been discredited. Perhaps the U.S. could continue down this road indefinitely. We could cut taxes, as President Trump did, and increase spending, as both he and President Biden did, without paying a price. As former Vice President Dick Cheney reportedly told former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill in 2002, “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.” Or do they? A study by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget found that during his term, Mr. Trump approved policies requiring $8.4 trillion of new 10-year borrowing, while Mr. Biden has so far approved a $4.3 trillion increase. The Congressional Budget Office this month laid out the consequences in an economic-outlook report. The U.S. over the next decade will rack up a budget deficit totaling more than $22 trillion, raising the federal debt from 99% of gross domestic product in 2024 to 122% in 2034. Annual interest will nearly double, from $892 billion this year to more than $1.7 trillion a decade from now—more than projected spending on defense. It gets worse. The CBO is required to base its projections on current law, under which the tax cuts enacted in 2017 will expire at the end of 2025. Neither Mr. Biden nor Mr. Trump plans to end all the cuts, but both their proposals remain vague. The CBO and Joint Committee on Taxation estimate that extending the Trump-era tax cuts for another decade would increase the federal debt by an additional $4.6 trillion above the $22 trillion baseline. We’re backing ourselves into a fiscal corner. Annual outlays for Social Security will rise by about $1 trillion over the next decade, as will outlays for Medicare. But Mr. Trump has ruled out cuts to these programs, bringing his party into alignment with the Democrats’ longtime stance. Nor will Republicans accept tax increases. Meantime, projected defense spending falls far short of what will be necessary to protect the U.S. in an increasingly dangerous world. And there won’t be any room for additional domestic spending on young families with children. Taking the path of least resistance—increasing spending without increasing revenue—will make a bad fiscal situation worse. Add to this that the U.S. is a rapidly aging society. Americans 65 and older made up 9% of the population in 1960. Today, this figure is 18%, and it’s projected to rise to 23% over the next three decades. As older Americans’ share of the electorate increases, so will the cost of guaranteeing them basic income and medical security. I doubt many elderly voters will rally around a fiscal strategy that reduces their benefits. Continuing on our current fiscal course will mean a gradual loss of America’s financial independence followed by an abrupt economic decline. The U.S. will have to ask the rest of the world to finance its debt, and it’s reckless to assume that other nations will do so indefinitely. The risk is that countries the U.S. relies on will draw back gradually—and then suddenly, when some unforeseen shock crystallizes their mounting doubts. As the late economist Herb Stein quipped, “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” We have to recognize the consequences of these realities and start taking steps to secure America’s fiscal future. Leaders with vision should address these issues realistically and make the case to the public that they must either pay for the programs they want or agree to cut them. Faced with this choice, I suspect that voters would support the higher taxes that are needed to stabilize Social Security and Medicare for decades to come, help families with young children, and defend the country against mounting threats. The alternative is to adopt the attitude of the feckless Wilkins Micawber from Charles Dickens’s novel “David Copperfield,” who clung to the overly optimistic belief that “something will turn up.” It’s always easier to put off the day of reckoning—but it will come, whether we’re ready for it or not. We should prepare for future storms while there’s still time. ++++ Trump Is Now The Candidate Of Normalcy By Bill Hagerty Joe Biden never used the phrase “return to normalcy” in 2020 as Warren G. Harding did a century earlier, but that was the basis of his presidential candidacy. Four years later, the tables are turned. Donald Trump is the candidate of normalcy. Mr. Biden claimed in 2020 that Mr. Trump was “using the abuse of power and every element of the presidency to try to do something to smear me.” But Mr. Biden weaponized the government against Mr. Trump. The New York Times reported in 2022 that Mr. Biden told advisers he wanted to prosecute Mr. Trump, and Merrick Garland’s Justice Department did so. Never has a former president or major-party presidential candidate been charged criminally. Mr. Biden has called Mr. Trump an aspiring dictator. Yet when the Supreme Court struck down Mr. Biden’s attempt to cancel student loans at taxpayer expense, Mr. Biden issued a similar order and proclaimed: “the Supreme Court blocked it. But that didn’t stop me.” He also refuses to follow our immigration laws and tried to impose an unlawful Covid-19 vaccine mandate. Mr. Biden has also caused chaos through sheer incompetence. In 2019 he called Mr. Trump “dangerously incompetent and incapable . . . of world leadership and leadership at home.” Mr. Biden’s immediate dismantling of the Trump border policies, using 94 executive actions in his first 100 days, unleashed a record-shattering illegal-immigration crisis. Mr. Biden commanded a historically embarrassing withdrawal from Afghanistan. His blunders killed 13 American troops, left 9,000 Americans behind, and handed the country—and billions of dollars worth of American weapons—to the Taliban and ISIS. Has any part of the world gotten better under his watch? Vladimir Putin took Mr. Biden’s weakness into account as he calculated whether to invade Ukraine. And last year Mr. Biden sat on his hands watching as the Chinese Communist Party flew a spy balloon across the U.S. Mr. Biden ended Mr. Trump’s maximum-pressure campaign against Iran, handing the ayatollahs an oil windfall of more than $100 billion that they used to fund Hamas. Mr. Biden is literally funding both sides of the Israel-Hamas conflict. Under Mr. Trump, wars weren’t erupting in Europe and the Middle East. The Abraham Accords took hold, Mr. Putin was in check, and China was held to account. Don’t forget the economy. When Mr. Biden took office, inflation was 1.4%. After his multi-trillion-dollar partisan spending sprees, it surged to 9%—the highest in four decades. Under his watch, prices are up 20%—22% for food and 41% for energy—and real wages are down 4%. Mr. Biden has done an impressive job of imitating his four-year-old caricature of Mr. Trump. As we approach the first debate, Americans who actually want a return to normalcy should remember what we’ve learned the last four years as Mr. Biden tries to persuade Americans to give him four more. Mr. Hagerty, a Republican, is a U.S. senator from Tennessee. ++++ The Debate and His VP Pick Are Watersheds for Trump They’re opportunities to appeal to swing voters who have been moving back to Biden. By The Editorial Board The polls in the presidential race have tightened since Donald Trump’s conviction in New York, which raises the stakes for Mr. Trump in Thursday’s debate and for his choice of a running mate. Both will have to appeal to the swing voters who have been moving back to President Biden. Mr. Trump’s rallies are for his MAGA base, but those voters aren’t up for grabs. They’d turn out for him in a hurricane. The reason Mr. Trump lost in 2020, and the reason he isn’t leading by more now, is because many independents and suburban Republicans don’t want four more years of constant drama and political division. They like Mr. Trump’s policies but they don’t trust his character and they dislike his Fight Club persona. Most aren’t preoccupied with politics, but the debate and his VP choice will be moments of high voter attention. They’re opportunities to reassure those voters. *** One trap for Mr. Trump is grievance politics. Mr. Biden—probably aided by the CNN hosts—will try to goad Mr. Trump by focusing on the Jan. 6 riot, his felony conviction in New York, his claim that the election was stolen, and other low Trump moments. Mr. Biden wants the election to be about Mr. Trump rather than a referendum on his own dismal record. Mr. Trump may be tempted to take the bait. The former President likes to brawl and scrap, which is fine if he’s talking about inflation, chaos at the border, taxes, and the march of American adversaries on Mr. Biden’s watch. But Mr. Biden wants the debate to be about whether 2020 was stolen or if the rioters who fought with police are “hostages,” as Mr. Trump has said. CNN’s Jake Tapper is sure to roll the Jan. 6 riot tape and ask if Mr. Trump would pardon people who assaulted police. Mr. Trump will hurt himself if he justifies the riot. But he’ll help himself if he pivots to Mr. Biden’s record and the policies that caused inflation and how Mr. Trump would reduce it. Extended riffs on Hunter Biden aren’t likely to move swing voters, who want the election to be about their concerns, more than about the candidates. Mr. Trump’s vice presidential choice can also help with those swing voters. Running mates don’t always matter in campaigns, but this year they could. Vice President Kamala Harris is less popular even than Mr. Biden, and a strong contrast would reassure voters about Mr. Trump’s judgment. We’re on record as recommending Nikki Haley as the choice with the best chance of broadening Mr. Trump’s coalition. He seems to be sore that she stayed in the primary race too long, but many Presidents have looked past such primary opposition in the cause of party unity. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin would also be an excellent choice, given his executive experience and popularity in a swing state where the presidential polling this year is surprisingly close. Mr. Youngkin would signal to college-educated Republicans with doubts about Mr. Trump that he wants to expand the GOP. Many voters would think: That’s interesting. He chose someone who clearly could be a future President. The leaks coming from the Trump camp nonetheless suggest the VP finalists are North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and J.D. Vance of Ohio. If that’s the field, Mr. Burgum is the best man. The Governor has executive experience and was a highly successful tech CEO. At Microsoft, which bought his company, he managed to work well with Steve Ballmer, which isn’t easy. Mr. Burgum would be loyal to Mr. Trump, while also unafraid to offer hard advice or speak an unhappy truth when the moment demands it. His global business experience gives him an edge in world affairs, especially China. Messrs. Vance and Rubio bring much less to the ticket. Mr. Vance is a young man in a seeming hurry to be Don Jr., though that role is already taken. He won’t draw independents or doubting Republicans. On foreign policy, Mr. Vance was a political opportunist in opposing military aid to Ukraine with arguments that ignore the menacing axis of Russia, Iran and China. He opposes Nippon Steel’s offer for U.S. Steel in fealty to union leaders, though Japanese investment is a plus for American workers. The union label also applies to Mr. Rubio, who has remade himself from a tea party insurgent in 2010 into an advocate of industrial policy and redistributing income through the tax code. He voted against aid to Ukraine despite a career of hawkish foreign policy stances. Would either Senator tell Mr. Trump the truth in a crisis? *** The polls show Mr. Trump is about as personally unpopular as Mr. Biden, but his presidential opening is that voters recall fondly the results of Mr. Trump’s pre-Covid policies. If the campaign is about their dueling records, Mr. Trump can win. If the election is about Mr. Trump, he’ll defeat himself again. ++++ |
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