Nate Silver has been keeping tabs on Election 2024, and his current model gives Vice President Kamala Harris a 52% chance of defeating former President Trump in November. Talking with New York Times columnist Ezra Klein for The Ezra Klein Show podcast, the statistics whiz says that Harris has "kind of stomped on Donald Trump's news cycle" and that her "momentum has been pretty good." He also notes that Hillary Clinton, whom he deems "kind of a terrible candidate," secured the popular vote in 2016 by two points. "Is [Harris] a little bit better than Hillary Clinton? Probably," Silver says. "So can [Harris] win by three or four? Well, if you win by three or four, then you win the Electoral College in most instances." More from his chat with Klein here:
- On Harris unexpectedly turning out to be 'meme-able': "Maybe you really can meme your way to victory. ... There's something about how it's off-trend a little bit, and it's kind of unexpected a little bit. ... I think people are ready for a vibe shift."
- On political performance under stress: Silver notes that Trump "kind of performed very well" after the assassination attempt against him, and that Harris has also had a "very good performance" of late, in terms of "leaping right into action to secure the nomination." As for Joe Biden? Silver says that the president went into "some kind of spiral" following his debate against Trump.
- On Trump's cockiness: "At a moment when Trump gets shot ... I think a lot of people seem to be like, oh, he's just going to win the election, right? ... And then he picks JD Vance and I think got a little arrogant. ... In [poker], when you go from having a big stack ... and then you lose a big pot, then you lose another big pot, and then you go on tilt, and then before long, you have no chips left."
- On Peter Thiel: Silver notes he has interviewed the Silicon Valley venture capitalist, and his first impression was that Thiel is a "weird dude," though a "thoughtful" one. "I think he kind of believes in predestiny a little bit," Silver says.
- On Sam Bankman-Fried: "I think Sam is kind of insane, and I'm not very sympathetic to him."
Read or listen to the interview in full
here. (More
Nate Silver stories.)
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