Staff Reports
A well-known statistician has thrown some cold water on the Kamala Harris campaign, pointing out a significant hurdle that could derail her presidential ambitions even before the race kicks into high gear. Nate Silver, of FiveThirtyEight fame, has taken a look at the numbers and basically said that Harris stands as a modest underdog to Donald Trump in the Electoral College race. The implications of his analysis suggest we might be gearing up for yet another popular vote-Electoral College split, reminiscent of the nail-biters that came in both 2000 and 2016.
In 2020, Joe Biden leveraged a thin margin that swung on fewer than 50,000 votes spread across key battleground states to secure his presidency. Silver’s computations indicate that Harris is staring down an even wider chasm between potential popular vote support and Electoral College count. Harris, unlike Biden, lacks the advantage that comes with incumbency. This setup seems inherently unfavorable, especially when one considers that simply swapping out an elected president for his vice president rarely wins over the crowd.
Nate Silver Warns That Kamala Harris Has One Big Problem https://t.co/aXHHR4T6HH PajamasMedia pic.twitter.com/yK4xzalHpY
— Jewish Community (@JComm_BlogFeeds) August 1, 2024
Silver’s forecasting model reflects that while Harris has a slight edge in the popular votes — approximately 0.6 percentage points ahead — it doesn’t translate into good news for her in the Electoral College. She’s sitting at a precarious 38 percent chance of victory against Trump’s commanding 61 percent. To put it bluntly, the odds don’t look great for the Vice President, particularly when bellwethers like the “Blue Wall” states—Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania—are on the proverbial chopping block. For the Democrats, it’s an all-or-nothing scenario where Harris must sweep all three of those states if she hopes to reclaim the presidency.
Despite Kamala’s recent polling surge that some claim was inevitable, the longer view suggests turning that enthusiasm into a sustainable lead will be quite the challenge. As clocks tick and economic data rolls in, those numbers will undoubtedly sway opinions in the electorate. It remains to be seen if Harris can hold her ground, or if voters will recalibrate back to their previous leanings.
Interestingly, Silver pointed out a sticky truth that’s often glossed over by Democrats: the Electoral College tends to favor Republicans when races get tight. The left may not like discussing it, yet it is a simple reality that when the chips are down, the ties tend to go to the GOP. So Harris’ team would do well to consider how to close that gap in the coming months, lest they find themselves with yet another case of what might have been.
