Vice President Kamala Harris has overtaken former President Donald Trump in the race for the presidency for the first time in the calculations of one of the nation’s most popular poll watchers.
According to a model published by Nate Silver’s substack on Sunday, Harris has now taken a slight lead against Trump for the presidential election in November—though the election remains a “toss-up” by Silver’s own estimations.
Silver’s model, which compiles the results of statewide polls and weights them based on reliability, showed Trump polling ahead of the Democratic candidate for most of July—including during the weeks immediately after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race. Harris began to lead the former president on July 31, according to the data published on Sunday.
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Harris now leads Trump with 45.5% of the expected vote, compared to Trump’s 44.1%.
According to Silver’s calculations, Harris now has 50.5% chance to win the general election, compared to Trump’s 48.8%. Harris also now has a 65.9% chance to win the popular vote—but the predicted elector share remains close, with the vice president only beating Trump by about 18 votes in the Electoral College.
The same model had independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. polling at about 5% in the general election.
Silver founded the popular polling blog FiveThirtyEight in 2008, but left the website in May 2023.
FiveThirtyEight’s most recent polling averages are almost identical to Silver’s. In a model published on Friday, the blog now published by ABC News had Harris slightly leading Trump with 45% of the vote, compared to the former president’s 43.5%. The election is too close to predict, FiveThirtyEight concluded.
Silver has a mixed record with calling elections. FiveThirtyEight gave Biden an 89% chance at defeating Trump in the 2020 presidential election—a bold prediction that eventually proved accurate. However, he also gave Hilary Clinton a 71% chance of winning on the eve of the 2016 general election.
Silver’s newsletter was published after a week of promising polls for the vice president showed Harris gaining an advantage in key swing states. A Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll published last Tuesday showed Harris leading Trump by single-digits in Arizona, Wisconsin, and Nevada, and leading by a staggering 11 points in Michigan.
The same survey showed Trump ahead in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, and the two candidates tied in Georgia.
However, other models have not shown Harris taking the lead over the last week. The New York Times’ poll tracker still has Trump leading the vice president in Pennsylvania and Michigan, with the pair tied in Wisconsin. The Times’ model has Trump ahead by one point in the general election—but that lead shrinks to a draw if you include Kennedy.
