US election ‘Nostradamus’ Allan Lichtman took a jibe at poll guru Nate Silver hours before the election day as Silver came up with his final predictions. Nate earlier condemned the pollsters who claimed that the race is tight and accused them of not showing the actual numbers. But in his final prediction, he did something similar and made a 50/50 forecast.
Silver said at Tuesday midnight, he pressed the ‘go’ button for the final time on his election model this year. “I knew it was going to be close. I felt like I was spinning a roulette wheel. (Appropriate, I guess, in a year when I published a book about gambling.) We’d decided ahead of time to run 80,000 simulations instead of our usual 40K.”
Full coverage of election results
“And after 80,000 simulations, Kamala Harris won the Electoral College in … 40,012 of them, or 50.015 percent. The remaining 39,988 were split between Trump (39,718) and no majority — a 269-269 tie — which practically speaking would probably be resolved for Trump in the U.S. House.”
“Harris jumped out to a huge early lead, ahead 50.7%-49.3% after the 18,000th simulation — but then Trump + no majority mounted a thrilling comeback. But on simulation #79,281, Harris went on a winning streak, claiming 15 of the next 17 simulations to turn a 5-sim deficit into a 8-sim lead and never looking back. Trump closed to within single digits again as late as simulation #79,603, but couldn’t seal the deal.”
Live coverage of US Election 2024
Silver said the race now is closer than a coin flip, but he made sure that he was not predicting a Harris win — neither a Trump win, though a few days ago he said his guts said it would be Trump.
“Nate Silver’s compilation of polls is so unreliable that he now says that who will win the presidency is down to luck,” Allan Lichtman said. Lichtman’s prediction is Kamala Harris and that did not change once during the campaigning as he said his model is not based on polls but on 13 keys.