Donald Trump’s Chances Take Dent in Top Election Forecast

Donald Trump’s chances of winning the 2024 presidential election have taken a hit, according to a top election forecast.

While Trump’s prospects had been improving steadily in recent days, with a shift in his favor as he briefly overtook Kamala Harris in the polls, his momentum appears to be slowing.

The former president was previously trailing behind Harris on October 18, when FiveThirtyEight’s forecast gave him a 47 percent chance of winning the election, compared to Harris’ 53 percent chance. Three days later, on October 21, the forecast had flipped, giving Trump a 53 percent chance of winning the election, compared to Harris’ 47 percent chance.

However, the forecast now shows that Trump’s chances are starting to slide, with the pollster giving the former president a 51 percent chance of winning the election, compared to Harris’ 49 percent chance.

Newsweek has contacted the Trump and Harris campaigns for comment via email.

FiveThirtyEight’s forecast is not the only one to show that Trump’s chances have slipped in the past few days. In the Economist‘s forecast, Trump’s chances of winning declined from a high of 56 percent on Wednesday down to 53 percent on Thursday.

However, pollster Nate Silver’s forecast shows that Trump’s chances have increased in the past few days, from 50.1 percent on October 17 to 53.1 percent on October 24.

It comes amid a positive few week for Trump in the polls. In the past month, four major national polls have shown the former president overtaking Harris’ lead. Those include polls by Fox News, ActiVote, Redfield and Wilton Strategies, and NBC News. However, all of them showed Trump’s lead within the margin of error.

But not all polls have shown Trump leading. Other recent polls, including polls by YouGov and Morning Consult, have given Harris a lead of up to 4 points. The most recent TIPP Insights poll, conducted between October 21 and 23, showed Harris leading by 3 points. The margin of error was not immediately available.

TIPP Insights was recognized by The Washington Post in 2020 as the most accurate national presidential poll.

Nonetheless, FiveThirtyEight’s poll tracker, which gives Harris a national lead of 1.7 points, shows that Harris’ position in the battleground states, which are crucial to winning the election, is declining.

According to 538’s tracker, Harris is leading by a slim margin of between 0.2 and 0.7 points in Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada. A month ago, she led in the three states by up to 2.4 points. Meanwhile, Trump leads by between 0.9 and 1.8 points in North Carolina, Arizona and Georgia. He is also leading by 0.2 points in Pennsylvania, where Harris had been leading since moving to the top of the Democratic ticket.

Silver’s forecast shows that if Harris won only Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada, she would have a 0.6 percent chance of winning the election. With Pennsylvania, her chances increased to 98.9 percent. But according to Silver’s model, there is only a 2.9 percent likelihood of this scenario occurring.

RealClearPolitics’ forecast showed Trump winning in every battleground state, giving him 312 Electoral College votes to Harris’ 227, while Silver’s model showed Trump had a 24 percent chance of winning every battleground state, making it the most likely scenario.

But the polls are so close that the race remains a toss-up. “The race has gone from almost a toss-up to definitely a toss-up,” Jon Parker, senior lecturer in American studies at Keele University in the U.K., told Newsweek last week. However, he added that this “does not suggest that either campaign is winning or losing.”