Nate Silver: “Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: the Electoral College is starting to look like a challenge for Kamala Harris. This was a problem for Democrats in 2016, of course, and also in 2020 — when Joe Biden won the popular vote by 4.5 points, but the tipping-point state, Wisconsin, went for Biden by only 0.6 points.”
“There’s been a lot of talk lately about our model’s convention bounce adjustment, and that’s understandable. Harris is still ever-so-slightly ahead in our polling averages in enough states for her to win 270 electoral votes — but she’s slightly behind in our forecast of those states, mostly because the model assumes that polls conducted just after the DNC are likely to be relatively favorable for Harris.”
“I think the adjustment is highly defensible, but if you don’t like it, don’t fret: it will begin to work its way out of the model over the course of the next week or two. And if you really hate it, you can always just stick to our ‘raw’ polling averages instead, which aren’t subject to the convention bounce adjustment at all.”
“The problem for Harris is that Donald Trump has been gaining on her in our polling averages, too — at least in the most important Electoral College states. If, say, Harris had gained 1 point, when the convention bounce adjustment was expecting her to gain 2 points, that would look like more of a rounding error in the model. Instead, though, she’s actually losing ground since the start of the convention in swing state polls.”
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