FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver, releasing his forecasting model for the 2024 presidential election, said Wednesday that the race "isn't a toss-up" and that the model is showing that former President Donald Trump is the clear favorite to win in November.
According to 40,000 simulations run by Silver's model, Trump has a 65.7% chance of winning the Electoral College vote, bringing an average margin of 287.2 electoral votes to 250.4.
However, his model predicts that Biden is 51% more likely to take the popular vote, but only by a margin of 47.2% to 47.1%.
Silver made his feelings clear.
"I think it's important to be upfront because I've been rather lucky in one sense in my election forecasting career," Silver said. "I began making election forecasts in 2008, and in literally every presidential year since then, I haven't really had to deal with a conflict between what I personally wanted to see happen and what my forecast said."
But this year, "the candidate who I honest to God think has a better chance (Trump) isn't the candidate I'd rather have win (Biden)," Silver said.
Silver said the current model is largely the same as the one he built and used for the 2020 election, but he adjusted it for "turnout dynamics" and included the relevance of strong third-party candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. while deleting "COVID-specific assumptions."
Silver conceded that election forecasting "is a hard problem" including which polls to include, fundamental factors such as the economy, and more.
"Even if we can agree that it's a good idea to incorporate these things, there are basically infinite 'researcher degrees of freedom' in exactly how you do it," he said.
Silver added that pundits who "obsess" over the one-point different in national polls between Trump and Biden are "kind of missing the point."
"If the Electoral College/popular vote gap looks anything like it did in 2016 or 2020, you'd expect Biden to be in deep trouble if the popular vote is roughly tied," he said.
There's always the chance that Biden could overachieve what his polls are showing, but there's also an equal chance that he'll do worse, said Silver.
However, Trump outperformed his polls in 2016 and 2020, he added.
There are also several factors included in reasons to believe Trump could win, said Silver, including the persistent concerns about Biden's age, as well as inflation that has resulted in higher prices since he took office.
In addition, "incumbents are getting crushed" everywhere, said Silver, and the fundraising gap Biden enjoyed earlier this year has narrowed.
"Plus, some of the factors I thought would be an advantage for Biden haven't proven to be," said Silver, adding that he is not sure Biden is running a "smarter tactical campaign."
Further, Silver said Biden "has the lowest approval ratings of anyone running for re-election since either George H.W. Bush or Jimmy Carter, depending on how you squint at the numbers," even though his numbers have improved after Trump was convicted in New York on his business records case.