Kamala Harris Emerges as New Favorite in Leading Election Forecast"

 

Polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight has made a last-minute shift, naming Vice President Kamala Harris as its favorite to win the presidency on Election Day—a first since October 17. Throughout the campaign, the race between Harris and former President Donald Trump has remained exceptionally tight, with polling leads consistently narrow.

FiveThirtyEight had favored Trump for about two weeks, with the latest simulations giving him a slight edge, winning 53 out of 100 simulations compared to Harris's 47. However, on Election Day, an updated forecast flipped the lead to Harris, with her winning 50 out of 100 simulations, narrowly surpassing Trump’s 49. The last time Harris held the edge in this model—relying on polling, economic, and demographic data—was in mid-October when she was projected to win 52 times out of 100.

The polling aggregator also noted a slim chance, less than one in 100, of a scenario where neither candidate secures an Electoral College victory. Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight's founder, who now runs his own outlet, the Silver Bulletin, has also called Harris the slight favorite. In his model, built on 80,000 simulations, Harris wins 50.015 percent of the time, while Trump wins 49.65 percent. Silver’s model also showed 270 simulations ending in a 269-269 tie in the Electoral College.

In his Election Day newsletter, Silver emphasized just how close the race is: "When I say the odds in this year's presidential race are about as close as you can possibly get to 50/50, I’m not exaggerating. This is my fifth presidential election forecast, and I’ve never seen anything like this."

As the election approaches, Harris made her final campaign stop in Pennsylvania, a battleground state with 19 electoral votes at stake. Trump wrapped up his campaign with rallies in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, finishing with a final event in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Monday night.