Kamala Harris Suddenly Becomes Favorite To Win in Top Election Forecast
Polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight has suddenly named Vice President Kamala Harris its favorite to win the White House, on Election Day, for the first time since October 17.
The race has long been neck and neck with any polling leads enjoyed by either candidate held with razor-thin margins.
FiveThirtyEight has had former President Donald Trump as its favorite to win for around two weeks, right up until Monday, when it found that, of 100 simulations, Trump won 53 times and Harris won 47 times.
But, in an update on Election Day, Harris came out as the favorite, winning 50 times out of 100 over Trump winning 49 times out of 100.
The last time FiveThirtyEight had the vice president as the favorite to win based on this model, which uses polling, economic and demographic data, was on October 17, when Harris was found to win 52 times out of 100, over Trump winning 48 times out of 100.
There is a less than one in 100 chance of there being no Electoral College winner, the polling aggregator said.
Similarly, the founder of FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver , who is no longer associated with the site, has technically called it for Harris. In his final election forecast with FiveThirtyEight's "direct descendant," the Silver Bulletin, he picked Harris as the favorite to win by a razor-thin edge.
Out of 80,000 simulations, Harris won in 50.015 percent of cases, while Trump won in 49.65 percent of cases, per Silver's model. Some 270 simulations resulted in a 269-269 Electoral College tie.
Silver cautioned in his Election Day newsletter: "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.
"It's not because my default is to hedge or just throw some extra uncertainty parameters in the model for no reason. This is my fifth presidential election—and my ninth general election overall, counting midterms—and there has never been anything like this."
Newsweek has contacted teams for Harris and Trump, via email outside of normal working hours, for comment.
The day before the election saw Harris campaigning in Pennsylvania—its 19 electoral votes make it the largest prize among the battleground states that are set to determine the winner of the Electoral College. Trump held rallies in North Carolina and Pennsylvania before ending his campaign with a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan , on Monday night.
