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Donald Trump’s chances of winning the popular vote, according to odds and polls
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Donald Trump’s chances of winning the popular vote, according to odds and polls

With just a month until the election, polls show Kamala Harris winning the popular vote by a wide margin.

In 36 years, only one Republican candidate has won the popular vote, George Bush by two points.

Polls currently show that Trump is unlikely to break that trend, but with the former president rising in the polls, it’s not out of the question that he could still follow in Bush’s footsteps.

No poll aggregator shows Trump in the lead. Nate Silver’s model shows he has a 24 percent chance of winning the popular vote, versus 76 percent for Harris. The pollster predicts the former president will receive 48 percent of the vote, compared to 51 percent for Harris. That’s a decline from earlier this week, when Harris’ college poll probability was 75 percent while Trump was 25 percent.

Meanwhile, online betting platform Polymarket shows that Trump’s chances of winning the Electoral College rose to 36 percent from 27 percent on October 13, while Harris’s fell from 71 percent to 63 percent.

It comes amid a positive month for Trump in the polls. A new Fox News poll conducted between Oct. 11 and Oct. 14 of 1,110 registered voters and 870 likely voters found Trump leading Harris among registered and likely voters by 2 points, 50 percent to 48 percent, which is within the poll’s margin of error, an increase of 4 points compared to when Harris was leading Trump by 2 points a month ago.

Trump
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks during a Univision town hall event on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024, in Doral, Florida. Trump is unlikely to win the popular vote.

Alex Brandon/AP

Additionally. The latest ActiVote poll, conducted Oct. 3-8, showed Donald Trump with a 1.2-point lead nationally, with a 3 percent margin of error. This came after a September poll by ActiVote had Kamala Harris ahead by 5.4 points.

Trump has also seen positive signals in the swing states. RealClearPolitics’ poll tracker showed last week that Michigan had tipped in Trump’s favor for the first time since July 29. Nevada and Pennsylvania also went Republican.

And in FiveThirtyEight’s poll tracker, Trump’s vote share in Arizona rose to 1.6 points from 1.1 points at the start of the month, as well as in Georgia from 1.1 points to 1.7 points. Harris’ vote share declined slightly in Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. In North Carolina, Trump’s share of the vote fell slightly from 0.7 points to 0.5 points.

Meanwhile, pollster Nate Silver’s forecast last week showed that 19 states had swung in the former president’s favor.

Still, the polls remain close, especially in key swing states where the candidates are only a point or two apart. On Wednesday, Silver’s forecast showed that Donald Trump and Kamala Harris now have nearly identical odds of winning in November: Harris at 50.1 percent and Trump at 49.7 percent. The shift follows a six-point decline in Harris’ chances of winning since the end of September as Trump gains momentum in 19 states, according to Silver’s analysis.

“The prognosis is razor thin,” Silver noted. “With recent polls showing a dead heat in the Midwest battlegrounds, it is now essentially a 50/50 race.”

FiveThirtyEight’s tracker shows Harris currently leading Trump by 2.4 points nationally, while Silver’s tracker shows her leading Trump by 2.8 points.

Newsweek emailed the Trump and Harris campaigns seeking comment.

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