Nate Silver reveals who he will vote for in the US election

Nate Silver, statistician and founder of the opinion poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight, has announced his voting plans for the November elections.

In a press conference on Friday, former President Donald Trump praised Silver after giving the Republican candidate a 56 percent chance of winning the election, calling Silver a “very respected man.”

In Thursday’s episode of Risky businessthe podcast he co-hosts with Maria Konnikova, Silver said he would vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.

“I will vote for Harris,” Silver said after explaining that he was trying to be bipartisan with his audience.

He also discussed the candidates' odds of winning after their debate on Tuesday: “Before the debate, it was something like: Trump 54, Harris 46. Those are not vote shares. Those are winning odds. And afterward, it's 50-50,” Silver said.

According to the Silver Bulletin model, Harris would poll at 48.7 percent and Trump at 46.7 percent.

“She's polling at 49 percent right now,” Silver said on the podcast. “To win, she needs to get 51 percent – 51 because she's likely at a disadvantage in the electoral college.”

Although Trump's poll numbers had previously surged, Silver's model now puts him neck and neck with Harris. Newsweek has emailed Silver for comment.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Silver also identified four “mistakes” that Trump made during the election campaign:

1. Vance
2. Excessive speech at the party conference, moment of goodwill evaporates
3. Not prepared for Harris swap
4. Obviously not well prepared for today's debate and/or unable to achieve sustained peak performance

Silver had previously stated that he voted for Barack Obama. In 2008, he mentioned this in the FAQ section of his website, where he stated that he generally votes for Democratic candidates and specifically mentioned that he supported Obama in that election year.

The pollster addressed concerns about whether his political views influence his forecasts, stressing that his predictions are based on statistical methods.

In an episode of the 2023 podcast FreakonomicsSilver discussed his approach to data science and his belief in dealing with uncertainty and probabilistic thinking. He described how his strength lies in refining best guesses based on incomplete information, a skill he honed during his time as a professional poker player. Silver stressed the importance of quickly understanding data sets and getting to the “core” of them while acknowledging uncertainty.

He also spoke about his methodology for making predictions, explaining that it is about striking a balance between rigorous analysis and the need for efficiency in real-time data journalism. Silver acknowledged the difficulties of forecasting, adding that sometimes forecasts can be wrong. However, he defended his approach by stressing the importance of transparency and continuous refinement of methods.

After announcing his plans to vote for Harris, Silver said on Risky business: “If I'm being completely honest, the audience for sophisticated news content is largely made up of voters who lean Democratic. The newsletter audience is highly college educated. If Harris does well in the polls, we'll probably get slightly better results. [to paid subscriptions].”

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