Nate Silver: ’50/50′ forecast means ‘people should be making their
contingency plans’
BY JULIANN VENTURA - 09/21/24 5:52 PM ET
Pollster Nate Silver said that a 50/50 forecast for the presidential election
means that people should start planning in the event that former
President Trump takes back The White House in November.
Silver’s election forecast and model showed Vice President Harris beating
Trump for the first time since Aug. 28. Harris, as of Saturday, leads
Trump, 49 percent to 46.3 percent.
“One potential advantage of having a forecast that says … it’s 50/50, is
that people should be making their contingency plans, like, right away. It
doesn’t mean you need [to stockpile] ammo and peanut butter, but it
means, you know: what’s your strategy to protect American institutions in
the event of a Trump second term? Or, in 2028 [or] 2032, a Trump-like
Republican who maybe is more effective than Trump?” Silver told The
Guardian on Saturday.
“If I were a liberal donor, for example, I would want to begin funding now
… to protect institutions in that eventuality, instead of giving another
$100,000 to Kamala Harris, who has more money than she needs,” Silver
added.
The Guardian also reported that Silver “fears a Trump win,” but that he
also warned against labeling a second Trump term as a threat to
democracy as a political strategy.
“The notion of basically holding voters hostage in that sense is very
unappealing,” Silver said. “Biden was like: ‘OK, sure, I may be running for
president until I’m 86 and can barely form a complete sentence, but if you
don’t vote for me, the country gets it.'”
Silver then applauded Harris’s “joyfulness,” calling her a “very talented
woman.”
Silver did, however, question whether Harris has kept too many Biden
staffers who had “thought it was a good idea to keep running [him].” He
added that he guessed she didn’t have a choice.
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