For the first time since 538 published our presidential election forecast for Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, Trump has taken the lead (if a very small one) over Harris. As of 3 p.m. Eastern on Oct. 18, our model gives Trump a 52-in-100 chance of winning the majority of Electoral College votes. The model gives Harris a 48-in-100 chance.
Thanks, it’s been a great discussion. I missed that on the VoteHub polls but I see it now, and you’re absolutely right - they’ve gone from Harris 270 when I first commented to the GOP having 297 now in the EC. Meanwhile, if my memory serves correct, Nate’s model is holding steady at a 54% chance of a GOP win, suggesting that VoteHub was just delayed in getting this shift factored in. Shoot.
(But apparently Harris had a good afternoon on the 29th, yesterday, if one ignores AtlasIntel.)
Something new though - it seems like the Harris campaign is feeling optimistic as of the day before yesterday -
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/28/us/politics/kamala-harris-donald-trump-2024-election.html / https://archive.is/EwIkC - I wonder if they have internal polling showing different results.
So I take solace in this quote:
So I think I have to concede my original point that the polling aggregators are being polluted - seems like they’re reflecting a real red shift after all. But in the end I can still hope that the red shift maybe wasn’t enough, as currently it’s still a toss-up (even Nate Silver says so).