Nate Silver Reveals Who He'll Vote for in the US Election

Nate Silver, the statistician and founder of the polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight, has announced his voting plans for November's election.

In a news conference on Friday, former President Donald Trump praised Silver after he gave the Republican nominee a 56 percent chance of winning the election, calling Silver a "very respected guy."

On Thursday's episode of Risky Business, the podcast he hosts with Maria Konnikova, Silver said he would be voting for Vice President Kamala Harris.

"I'm gonna vote for Harris," Silver said, after saying he is trying to be nonpartisan to his audience.

He also discussed the candidates' win probabilities following their debate on Tuesday: "Before the debate, it had been like Trump 54, Harris 46. These are not vote shares. These are win probabilities. And after, it's 50-50," Silver said.

The Silver Bulletin model shows Harris at 48.7 percent in the polls, with Trump at 46.7 percent.

"She, right now, is at 49 percent of the vote in polls," Silver said on the podcast. "To win, she has to get to 51 percent—51 because she has a disadvantage in all likelihood in the Electoral College."

Despite having previously shown Trump as surging in the polls, Silver's model now has him neck and neck with Harris. Newsweek has contacted Silver via email for comment.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Silver also identified four "mistakes" Trump has made during the campaign:

1. Vance
2. Meandering convention speech, blowing moment of goodwill
3. Not prepared for Harris swap
4. Clearly not prepped well for tonight's debate and/or incapable of sustained A-game

Silver previously said he voted for Barack Obama. In 2008, he mentioned it in the FAQ section of his website, where he described himself as generally voting for Democratic candidates, and he specifically mentioned supporting Obama during that election year.

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

In a 2023 episode of the podcast Freakonomics, Silver discussed his approach to data science and his belief in dealing with uncertainty and probabilistic thinking. He described how his strength lay in refining best guesses based on imperfect information, a skill he honed during his time as a professional poker player. Silver emphasized the value of quickly understanding datasets and getting the "gist" of them while acknowledging uncertainty.

He also spoke about his methodology for making predictions, explaining that it involves balancing rigorous analysis with the need for efficiency in real-time data journalism. Silver acknowledged the difficulties of forecasting, adding that sometimes forecasts might be wrong. However, he defended his approach by highlighting the importance of transparency and continual refinement of methods.

After announcing his plans to vote for Harris, Silver said on Risky Business: "If I'm being super-duper honest, I mean, most of the audience for kind of highbrow news content are Democratic-leaning voters. The audience of the newsletter is very college educated. When Harris is doing well in the polls, we probably convert a little better [to paid subscriptions]."

Follow Newsweek's live blog for election updates.

Do you have a story Newsweek should be covering? Do you have any questions about this story? Contact LiveNews@newsweek.com.