Sliver Says Clinton Now Has An 80% Chance To Win
WASHINGTON – Today as a guest on the ABC program Good Morning America, famed stats man, Nate Silver, revealed his first general-election breakdown has presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton at a near 80% favorite to win in the fall.
Silver, who has made a name for himself founding the data-journalism website FiveThirtyEight, handicapped Clinton’s current odds at 79% while giving presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump a 20% chance of winning the general election.
“We’re at halftime of the election right now,” Silver said. “She’s taking a 7-point, maybe a 10-point lead into halftime.”
“There’s a lot of football left to be played,” he said. “She’s ahead in almost every poll, every swing state, every national poll.”
Silver was quick to add that “both candidates have a lot of room to grow.”
Should Silver be right it is important to note the last candidate to blow a lead as large as the one Clinton currently holds was former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis in 1988. Dukakis, who left the Democratic convention that summer with a large lead over then Vice President George H.W. Bush, would later lose by a wide margin in the fall.
“Trump has never been ahead of Clinton in the general-election campaign,” Silver said. “He did a great job of appealing to the 40 percent of the GOP he had to win the election, the primary — a lot different than winning 51 percent of 100 percent.”
There is no doubt that Silver has a pretty good track record in using his system of picking candidates. In 2008 he called 49 out of 50 states correctly. Then in the 2008 election and got all 50 states correct in the 2012 election.
That said in this most un predictable of all presidential cycles perhaps in history Silver has been far from perfect. Earlier this election cycle, he handicapped Trump as having a 2% chance of winning the GOP presidential nomination.
