One prominent Democrat pollster said other pollsters are "cheating" to show the White House race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris remains close in the final days before Election Day.
Silver, who founded FiveThirtyEight, said other pollsters are recycling some results to keep Trump and Harris within a point or two of each other each time polls are released.
"I kind of trust pollsters less," Silver said on his "Risky Business" podcast. "They all, every time a pollster [says] 'Oh, every state is just plus-one, every single state’s a tie,’ no! You’re [expletive] herding! You’re cheating! You’re cheating!
"Your numbers aren't all going to come out at exactly one-point leads when you’re sampling 800 people over dozens of surveys. You are lying! You’re putting your [expletive] finger on the scale!"
Meanwhile, Silver has Trump ahead 55% to 45% nationally. He added that each of the key seven swing states were polling within 2 percentage points
"It doesn’t take a genius to know that if every swing state is a tie, that the overall forecast is a tie," he said
Silver blasted "all these GOP-leaning firms" showing Trump narrowly ahead each time to project that they’re "not going out too far on a limb."
"The pollsters are just [expletiive] punting on this election, for the most part," said Silver, who said The New York Times was an exception to his comment.
"Some of the other, high-quality polls will actually publish numbers that surprise you once in a while. If a pollster never publishes a number that surprises you, then it has no value."
Trump and Harris were tied at 48% in the final New York Times/Siena College poll earlier this month.
Early Friday afternoon, RealClearPolitics showed Trump with a 0.3-point edge nationally and a 0.9-point swing-state advantage.
In a New York Times opinion column last week, Silver said he's finding the close numbers in this year's presidential race "unsatisfying," but his "gut" prediction is that Trump will win.
"My gut says Donald Trump. And my guess is that it is true for many anxious Democrats," Silver wrote in his column.
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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