Top election analyst Nate Silver has said that the race for the White House will be a “pure toss-up” in his final prediction before Election Day.
On his Substack page on Sunday, Silver wrote that former president Donald Trump has a 51.5 percent chance of winning while vice president Kamala Harris has a 48.1 percent chance.
The election analyst took to X to say: “It’s a pure toss-up.”
Silver made his prediction incorporating battleground state polls from Morning Consult and The New York Times.
The latest poll from the Times shows Harris in the lead in four out of the seven swing states, including Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. Harris is tied with Trump in Michigan and Pennsylvania, and only behind him in Arizona, the poll finds.
Meanwhile, Trump fares better in the Morning Consult poll, which shows him slightly ahead in three battleground states – Georgia, North Carolina, and Wisconsin – and tied in Arizona and Pennsylvania.
Iowa pollster Ann Selzer released a poll from her state over the weekend, showing Harris ahead by three points. The last time the state went for a Democrat was in 2012.
Silver noted that the Iowa poll “probably” won’t have an impact on who wins the Electoral College though he noted that “Harris voters are reasonable in rejoicing over the Selzer survey.”
“At the very least, it clinches the case that there will be plenty of numbers from high-quality pollsters in the final batch of polls that support a Harris victory — along with roughly as many that imply a Trump win,” he added.
“If Trump had ‘momentum’ in October, it has now petered out in November. And we will very likely go into Tuesday night with the race being truly a toss-up, not leaning or tilting toward Trump.”
Silver also shared a national polling average on Sunday morning showing Harris with a slight lead – 48.5 to 47.6 percent – though he noted that his model doesn’t give as much weight to national polls at this point in the race.
The election analyst’s polling average handed Trump small leads in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, while Harris was narrowly ahead in Michigan and Wisconsin.
In 2020, Silver said President Joe Biden had an 89 percent chance of winning in his last forecast before the election. He gave Trump a 30 percent chance of winning in 2016 – a better chance than many other forecasters gave Trump at the time, Mediaite noted.
