Pollster Nate Silver detailed Thursday on his podcast how he believes Vice President Kamala Harris could lead in post-presidential debate polls, but warned recent “bad data” for the vice president could be to her detriment.
The first presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and Harris aired Tuesday evening on ABC News, with the moderators facing backlash over allegations of being biased against Trump as they fact-checked him multiple times while not pressing Harris on several claims. In an episode of “Risky Business,” Silver stated that with the “first traditional” post-debate polls coming out by the weekend, he believes Harris could gain “half a point or a point and a half” based on previous data. (RELATED: Kamala Harris Ducked And Dodged For 124 Seconds When Asked About Policy Flip-Flops)
“Now, if I had to guess, you look at that number in the CNN poll, typically, that does actually correlate with movement in the head-to-head polls. One of the biggest numbers ever, biggest gaps ever in the CNN poll was in the first debate in 2012 when Mitt Romney, you know, kind of cleaned Barack Obama’s clock,” Silver said. “And Romney gained about, temporarily, it faded, but gained about three points in polls as a result. After the first debate with Trump and Biden, Trump only gained three points or so, right?”
“As disastrous as the debate was for Biden, now maybe Trump is near his theoretical ceiling anyway, right? It’s hard for Trump to get much more than 50% of the electorate. He’s a pretty unpopular guy, so reasonable guess might be that Harris gets half a point or a point and a half,” Silver continued.
While Silver stated that if Harris were to gain the lead, she could become his polling model’s “slight favorite,” the pollster highlighted how a recent New York Times/Siena College national poll with Trump leading by one point could be a hindrance for the vice president.
“The question is kind of what the baseline is exactly? If you look at the Silver Bulletin polling average, she had been ahead by 2.2 points, I think, or something, so that gets her to three and a half or so. On top of that, our model assumes that we’re no longer this convention period, so it’s no longer penalizing Harris’ polling. If she were to get up to three and a half point lead, depending on what happens in the swing states, she would emerge out of that as, frankly, a slight favorite in the model,” Silver stated.
“Now, I don’t want to guarantee that, though, because there’s a little bit of ambiguity about where the race stood beforehand. In some of the very recent national polling, The New York Times has this very good poll to do with Siena College, very large sample size, very rigorous methodology,” Silver continued. “Trump had been ahead by a point in the popular vote, and if Trump’s ahead by a point nationally, he wins the electoral college, like for sure. So there has been some bad data for Harris recently. She can get back though, to the three and a half point range, three, four that would count as a big turn of events.”
A poll conducted by The New York Times/Siena College was released on Sept. 8, showing Trump pulling ahead of Harris by a slim margin, as the former president polled at 48%, with Harris behind by one point at 47% and 6% of voters still being undecided.
Prior to the episode’s release, Silver listed five major mistakes he believes the former president has made and could ultimately cost him the 2024 race. The pollster stated Trump’s pick of Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate, a “meandering convention speech,” not being “prepared” for Harris to step in as the presidential nominee, not being prepped for the debate and “accepting” the “early Biden debate,” could all potentially affect the former president come this November.
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