Nate Silver's Warning on Kamala Harris' Post-Debate Gains - Newsweek
By: Kaitlin Lewis (Newsweek)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
CLOSE X By Kaitlin Lewis Night ReporterFOLLOW
Early polling has shown that Vice President Kamala Harris came out on top after her debate against Donald Trump, but pollster Nate Silver warns against reading "too much" into such numbers.
Many commentators, including conservatives, have said that Harris was the winner of Tuesday's event in Philadelphia. The matchup may be the only time voters get to hear from both candidates on a debate stage, however. Trump said Thursday he is rejecting Harris' challenge for a second debate.
Trump's campaign has said the former president gained a slight boost in his poll numbers after Tuesday, but several early polls found that viewers believed Harris outperformed him. The first national post-debate poll, released by Reuters/Ipsos on Thursday, also found Harris leading Trump among registered voters by 5 percentage points (47 percent to 42 percent).
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Thursday. Early polling indicates that Harris is viewed as the victor after her debate with Donald Trump on Tuesday. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Thursday. Early polling indicates that Harris is viewed as the victor after her debate with Donald Trump on Tuesday. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
"The first post-debate polls are in, and they helped Kamala Harris very slightly in our forecast—but we'd caution against reading too much into any of this data just yet," Silver wrote in his Thursday afternoon update of Silver Bulletin, a Substack publication.
The pollster, who created the polling analysis site FiveThirtyEight, said that it "takes several days to conduct a traditional poll" and that the surveys that have come out so far after the debate have been conducted online or through automated telephone polling companies.
"Harris got a good number (+5 nationally) in an Ipsos poll, but that's generally been one of her stronger polls this cycle," Silver added. "And Trump led by 2 points nationally in a Rasmussen Reports survey, but Rasmussen has a very strong GOP lean."
Newsweek reached out to the Harris and Trump campaigns via email for comment.
According to Silver's aggregate of national polling, Harris is leading Trump 48.7 percent to 46.8 percent on average. But Silver's model still gives Trump a higher chance of winning the necessary 270 Electoral College votes in November, with the former president projected to take critical battleground states like Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada and North Carolina. The other closely watched swing states this fall, Wisconsin and Michigan, are a toss-up, according to Silver's predictions.
Silver's model did give Harris a slight boost to her chances of winning after Tuesday's debate. But as of Thursday, the pollster projects Trump has a 60.6 percent chance of victory, while Harris has 39.2 percent.
Silver said during an appearance on Maria Konnikova's podcast, Risky Business, on Thursday that he plans to vote for Harris in November. He also said he is trying to remain as nonpartisan as possible in his predictions.
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Will overconfidence kill?
It looks like it will come down to a couple hundred thousand votes in a few states, just like the last two times.
I'm going to say whoever wins PA, wins the election.
Anyone picking winners today is premature.
That's what I was told when I pointed to this very same story.
I just had multiple reports of Harris now topping Fox New's Power Ranking hit my news feed. While this, of course, isn't a clincher statistically it is interesting to note Harris' polling trend has maintained upward since she topped the Democratic ticket - even if it's inch by inch.
Her honeymoon had ended. Trump should have never gone along with an ABC debate.
Now we have Kamala, supposedly with no policies to defend and doing what Biden did in 2020, just pointing at Trump.
lol
You gotta admit, it must be hard to defend policies when they shift so rapidly (with the polling!)
She never said she changed her mind on anything. It was always a campaign spokesperson. Should she win and govern as Biden did from the extreme left, she can say I never said I changed my mind.
Anyone who thinks Kamala has renounced her radical policies must be deaf, blind, or crazy.
Combination of actually
Kamala Harris was going to win the debate before anyone set foot on the stage. The all too blue venue should have been a clue. And the same old Trump we've seen many times before showed up for the debate. The Republican elite and pundits may have wanted a different Trump. But Trump may have behaved the way he did just to spite the Republic elite. That's been Trump's trademark since he first ran in 2016.
The only reason Donald Trump was on the debate stage is because Republicans like John McCain, Dick Cheney, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Karl Rove are no longer important. If these stale, failed nobodies really had any influence over today's Republicans then we wouldn't be discussing Donald Trump, would we?
Doesn't anyone recognize that Donald Trump's behavior is motivated, in part, just to spite the deadwood in the ranks of the Republican elite? If Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich crap their pants then Trump wins. Republicans aren't going back.
Carrying Kamala Harris piggy back won't magically transform Harris into a serious, substantive candidate. Harris may win points on style but she is still just an empty suit. A President Harris won't be running the country; she'll rely on the bureaucratic Deep State to run the country and tell her what to do. And Democrats recognize that Kamala Harris isn't up to the job. Otherwise Harris, as Vice President, would be more involved in actual governing to prove her abilities.
The media, being in the entertainment business, will naturally highlight the style, glitz, and clickbait value of Kamala Harris. The media has a very shallow and cynical view of the electorate. But the electorate is more than just TikTok teenagers. The electorate has to live and work in the real world. So, the electorate really can recognize an empty suit when they see one. And that's why the election is still close.