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Top polling guru Nate Silver unveils the definitive 2024 election forecast model – and it doesn’t get any closer

Vaseline November 5, 2024

Polling guru Nate Silver has unveiled his latest prediction model for the 2024 presidential election – concluding that the race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is “literally closer than a coin.”

In Silver’s model, Harris won the Electoral College in 50.015 percent of 80,000 simulations, giving her a razor-thin lead.

“The race is literally closer than a tail: empirically, heads win 50.5 percent of the time, more than Harris’ 50.015 percent,” Silver wrote on his Substack page Tuesday morning.

“When I say the odds in this year’s presidential race are as close to 50/50 as possible, I am not exaggerating,” he said.

Silver added that Harris did not come out on top in 39,988 simulations (49.985 percent) and of those, 39,718 were outright wins for Trump.

The remaining 270 simulations resulted in an Electoral College tie, Silver said, adding that he would normally run only 40,000 simulations.

Nate Silver has shared his latest voting model for the election (Silver Bulletin/substack)

“This is my fifth presidential election — and my ninth general election overall, counting the midterms — and nothing like this has ever happened before,” Silver said.

Silver said his model is a “direct descendant” of the FiveThirtyEight election prediction.

On Sunday, the election guru said any momentum Trump had in October was “gone by November.”

“We will most likely start Tuesday night with a race that is truly a toss-up race, not leaning or tilting toward Trump,” he added.

Silver's models show that the race between Harris and Trump is closer than a coin — Silver’s models show that the race between Harris and Trump is closer than a coin (AFP via Getty Images)

The forecast model comes days after a shocking new poll from the Des Moines Register and Mediacom in Iowa found Harris leading Trump in the state, 47 percent to 44 percent.

Trump won Iowa in both 2016 and 2020 and the state – which has six electoral college votes – was considered a likely Republican victory.

In response to that poll, Trump lashed out at a rally on Sunday, calling it “oppression.” “They are oppressing, and it should actually be illegal,” he emphasized.

Polls from Emerson College told a very different story, giving Trump a ten-point lead over Harris in Iowa.