Highlighting the tight competition in the 2024 US presidential election, pollster Nate Silver said that while his gut says Republican candidate Donald Trump will win, no one should be trusted because all the data suggests the election could go either way
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Highlighting how close the 2024 US presidential election is, top US pollster Nate Silver said that while gut feelings say Republican candidate Donald Trump will win, you shouldn’t trust anyone’s gut feeling.
In an article for The New York Times, Silver noted that the election could go either way because the margin between the two candidates in the seven battleground states, the states that will actually decide the election, is 1-2 percent, which is approx. is within the margin of error.
“I don’t think you should give any weight to anyone’s intuition – including mine. Instead, you should come to terms with the fact that a 50-50 forecast really means 50-50. And you should be open to the possibility that these projections will be wrong, and that could be the case for Mr. Trump as much as for Ms. Harris,” said Silver, founder of the polling and election analysis platform FiveThirtyEight.
Silver maintained that both former President Trump and Vice President Harris actually have an equal chance of winning the election.
The comments come at a time when some leading forecasts and polls, such as HQ-Hill’s Decision Desk forecast, Economist forecast and Fox News poll, put Trump ahead of Harris with less than two weeks until Election Day on November 5.
Silver then pointed out several problems with polling and the interpretation and analysis of polling data that can lead to skewed perceptions of the election.
Silver said Trump’s favorable polling may also be due to “recency bias.”
When asked who will win, most people say Trump due to recent bias, as he won in 2016 when it was not expected and then almost won in 2020 despite significantly lagging in the polls, Silver noted .
Silver noted, however, that people may not remember 2012, when former President Barack Obama not only won but also beat pollsters’ predictions.
Silver also sought to downplay the popular theory that Trump voters are less likely to publicly say they will vote for him because of the stigma associated with him and the Republican Party. The theory goes that many voters say publicly that they would vote for the Democratic Party, but in fact they would vote for Trump because they are secret Trump supporters.
“But there is not much evidence for the shy voter theory, nor has there been any consistent trend in elections around the world for right-wing parties to perform better in the polls. (Example: Marine Le Pen’s National Rally Party underperformed in polls during the summer legislative elections in France.) There is even a certain snobbery in this theory. “Many people proudly say they support Mr. Trump, and most importantly, voting for him has less stigma than ever,” Silver noted.
The real problem, Silver noted, may be “nonresponse bias,” referring to the tendency of pollsters in 2016 and 2020 not to reach enough people who might have voted for Trump in polls, resulting in polls being artificially skewed against Trump.
It’s just that Trump may be underestimated in the polls, and it’s also possible that pollsters overestimate him and underestimate Harris, Silver noted.
Highlighting that Democrats have performed well in special elections, ballot referendums and the 2022 midterm elections for two years in a row, Democrats shouldn’t give up hope just yet.
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