Kamala Harris Suddenly Becomes Favorite To Win in Top Election Forecast

For roughly two weeks leading up to Election Day, the analytics website FiveThirtyEight positioned former President Donald Trump as the likely winner. However, as of Monday, that outlook shifted. Out of 100 simulated election scenarios, Trump came out ahead in 53 of them, while Vice President Kamala Harris won 47 times.

But in a pivotal update on Election Day itself, Harris emerged as the slight favorite. In these new simulations, Harris won 50 out of 100, while Trump followed closely with 49 out of 100 wins. This marked a significant change, as the site’s data-driven model, which incorporates polling trends, economic indicators, and demographic factors, had last favored Harris on October 17. Back then, Harris was found to win 52 times out of 100 simulations, compared to Trump’s 48.

According to FiveThirtyEight, there remains a less than 1% chance that the election will end without an Electoral College victor. This slim probability underscores the close nature of the race.

Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight’s founder who is now unaffiliated with the site, has also leaned towards a narrow victory for Harris. Through his own forecasting platform, the Silver Bulletin, Silver predicted Harris as the favorite in his final election forecast. His model, run over 80,000 simulations, gave Harris a slight edge, winning in 50.015% of cases, while Trump won in 49.65%. Silver noted that in 270 of these simulations, the outcome was a 269-269 tie in the Electoral College.

In his Election Day newsletter, Silver cautioned about the unprecedented closeness of the race: “When I say the odds in this year’s presidential race are about as close as you can possibly get to 50/50, I’m not exaggerating. It’s not because my default is to hedge or just throw some extra uncertainty parameters in the model for no reason. This is my fifth presidential election—and my ninth general election overall, counting midterms—and there has never been anything like this.”

Meanwhile, as the final campaign efforts unfolded, Harris focused on Pennsylvania. With its 19 electoral votes, Pennsylvania is the largest battleground state and a key prize in determining the Electoral College outcome. Trump, on the other hand, held rallies across North Carolina and Pennsylvania, culminating with a major rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Monday night.

Newsweek reached out to representatives from both the Harris and Trump teams for comment, though responses are still pending.