Polling expert Nate Silver stated that Vice President Kamala Harris is slightly favored to win the presidential election if it were held today, but he cautioned against placing too much faith in polls, citing their history of inaccuracies regarding former President Trump.
Silver noted that Harris has shown momentum in key swing states, yet emphasized the unpredictability of polling outcomes. He recently updated his election prediction to a “toss-up” after initially favoring Trump, explaining that both candidates have viable paths to victory.
“If you have the election tomorrow… I think Harris would be a slight favorite,” Silver said. “She has been ahead in most recent polling in the ‘blue wall’ states, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, Nevada all polling in the margin of error range.”
“People should remember, though, two things,” he added. “One, we have three more months to go. There will be more surprises. And two, the polls have been wrong before. In both the last two general elections they underestimated Trump.”
“The race is still in what we’d consider the toss-up range, but Harris’s momentum has been steady and upward,” he wrote.
“Needless to say, stranger things have happened than a candidate who was behind in the polls winning,” he added. “And in America’s polarized political climate, most elections are close, and a candidate is rarely out of the running.”
Silver also mentioned that while current polling shows Harris trailing Trump by one point nationally, enthusiasm among voters for both candidates remains high, with the economy emerging as the top electoral issue.
“So our view is that the polling bias is unpredictable and can go in either direction. If Pennsylvania is Harris plus 2 on Election Day, it could be Trump wins by 2 or Harris wins by 6, et cetera,” Silver said.
“They were under-prepared for a change in the Democratic candidate,” Silver added. “They have been, in my view, making some tactical mistakes, focusing on things like her race, for example, instead of things like immigration or the economy.”
“But September is a whole new month….you have a debate, at least one, maybe multiple debates. And she [Harris] will have higher expectations than she has right now,” he added.
His insights suggest that the upcoming Democratic National Convention and debates could significantly impact Harris’s campaign trajectory.
