"Nan Harris" vs "Nan Trump"... US Presidential Election Neck-and-Neck, Even Experts Disagree

11 Days to US Presidential Election, Tight Race Between Two Major Candidates
Political Statistician Silver: "Trump Will Win"
Professor Richtman: "Considering Economic Situation, Harris"

As the U.S. presidential election scheduled for November 5 approaches with a fierce contest between the two major party candidates, predictions from experts known locally as "election gurus" have diverged. Political statistician Nate Silver forecasted a victory for the Republican candidate, former President Donald Trump, while Alan Lichtman, a distinguished professor at American University, predicted a win for the Democratic candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris.

On the 10th of last month (local time), local residents in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, were watching the presidential candidate TV debate broadcasted on a large screen. [Image source=Yonhap News]

On the 23rd (local time), The New York Times (NYT) published an op-ed by Silver titled "My gut says Trump will win." Silver anticipated a close race in all seven battleground states that will decide the election outcome?Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Nevada?but stated, "If I had to pick who has the edge, it’s Trump."

He noted that Trump outperformed polls in both the 2016 and 2020 elections, analyzing that "Trump supporters tend to be less likely to participate in polls." Polling organizations are thus failing to capture accurate results due to nonresponse from Trump’s base. He also pointed out that Harris, who is of Indian and Jamaican Black mixed heritage, might face the "Bradley effect," a phenomenon where the actual vote share of a non-white candidate is lower than poll predictions.

Silver, a renowned statistician, gauges the election landscape using his own U.S. presidential election prediction model called the 'Silver Bulletin.' This model aggregates nationwide poll results and assigns greater weight to polls with higher reliability. Silver correctly predicted the victories of former President Barack Obama in 2012 and President Joe Biden in 2020.

However, on the same day, Professor Lichtman offered an opposing forecast. In an interview with NewsNation, he said, "Considering the economic situation, Harris will win," adding, "There appears to be no recession in the U.S. this year, and the Biden administration’s per capita wage growth exceeds the average of previous administrations." He has consistently asserted Harris’s victory in recent interviews with NYT, Newsweek, and others.

Lichtman predicts the election winner based not on polls but on his own model called 'The Keys to the White House.' This model evaluates 13 factors: the incumbent party’s standing, primary elections, incumbency status of the candidate, third-party candidates, short-term economic performance, long-term economic performance, policy changes, social unrest, scandals, foreign/military failures, foreign/military successes, charisma of the incumbent, and charisma of the challenger. He has correctly predicted the winner in 9 out of 10 presidential elections held from 1984 to 2020.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.