Donald Trump again favorite to beat Kamala Harris: Election forecast

According to Nate Silver's prediction for the 2024 presidential election, former President Donald Trump is expected to defeat Vice President Kamala Harris for the first time since August 3.

Trump and Harris are neck and neck heading into November's primary, and most pollsters and forecasters believe the election is wide open.

Before Harris emerged as the Democratic candidate, replacing President Joe Biden, who dropped out of the race in July,—Trump had a consistent lead, but it quickly dwindled as Harris' candidacy sparked new enthusiasm among Democrats and record-breaking fundraising.

While Harris was doing well in the polls after the Democratic National Convention last week, Silver's election forecast on Thursday also had good news for Trump: He has a slight lead and could beat Harris in November.

“While we wouldn't recommend worrying too much about the difference between a 52/48 race one way and a 48/52 race the other way – it's not a huge difference – this was not a good day for Kamala Harris in our model, with Donald Trump the slight favorite for the first time since August 3,” Silver wrote in an update.

Silver wrote that there was “one big reason” Trump was the favorite: Pennsylvania.

He said it had been “quite a long time” since a poll showed Harris ahead in Pennsylvania, the state that could be the turning point, as was the case in two polls released Thursday.

Newsweek has emailed the Trump and Harris campaign teams for comment.

An Emerson College poll of swing states found that Harris and Trump each have 48 percent of support in Pennsylvania. The poll surveyed 950 likely voters from August 25 to 28, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Meanwhile, a Pinpoint Policy Institute poll of 400 likely voters conducted August 19-21 found Trump leading Harris by a single percentage point in a neck-and-neck race in Pennsylvania (47 percent to 46 percent).

While several polls have Trump ahead in Pennsylvania, some have Harris ahead. An ActiVote poll of 400 likely voters conducted Aug. 5-22 found Harris leading by two percentage points (51 percent to 49 percent).

“The model also applies a convention-matching adjustment to Harris' recent numbers, which have been gaining in national polls, and one could argue whether that's the right assumption. But the bottom line is that the model re-opens the gap between electoral votes and popular votes, which has always been a concern for Harris,” Silver wrote, noting that the model gives Harris a 17 percent chance of winning the popular vote but not the electoral vote.

Elsewhere, FiveThirtyEight's election model gave Harris an advantage on Thursday.

His model showed Harris winning 59 out of 100 times and Trump winning 40 out of 100 times. It predicted that Harris would receive 291 electoral college votes while Trump would win 247 electoral college votes.

According to FiveThirtyEight's forecast, Harris was projected to win in the key swing states of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, while Trump was considered the favorite in Georgia and North Carolina.