ClaimsNate Silver

“Harris won all swing states but Arizona in about 4 percent of simulations, which basically gets her to Trump’s 20 percent when added to her clean sweeps.”

Nate Silver, author of Silver Bulletin 7 November 2024 The model exactly predicted the most likely election map (Silver Bulletin) archived copy

Factual Their own work or organisation

In Silver Bulletin's final model, Harris won all swing states except Arizona in about 4 percent of simulations.

Unresolvable The public record could not settle it.

Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?

What would count as true or false

Judged against Silver Bulletin's final 2024 presidential model simulation outputs or published scenario breakdowns. True: the share of simulations in which Harris won all seven swing states except Arizona is roughly 3.5% to 4.5%. Mostly true: about 3% to 5%. Mixed: the figure is about 2-3% or 5-6%. Mostly false: the figure is clearly different (e.g. 1-2% or 6-8%) though the scenario was real. False: far from 4% (e.g. under 1% or over 8%), or the model published no such scenario.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (3)

  1. E1 Kamala Harris' chances of winning a landslide, according to Nate Silver Newsweek · 4 November 2024

    “Vice President Kamala Harris' chances of winning seven key swing states and securing a landslide victory are 12.6 percent—nearly half the 21.4 percent likelihood of former President Donald Trump achieving the same result, according to pollster Nate Silver.”
  2. E2 Kamala Harris' chances of winning a landslide, according to Nate Silver Newsweek · 4 November 2024

    “Silver's model suggests that Trump winning all of these swing states is the most likely scenario, and a Harris clean sweep is the second most probable outcome.”
  3. E3 Top polling guru reveals final election prediction model – it couldn’t be any closer The Independent · 5 November 2024

    “In Silver’s model, Harris won the Electoral College in 50.015 percent of the 80,000 simulations, giving her a razor-thin lead.”

Reasoning

E1 reports that Silver's model gave Harris a 12.6 percent chance of winning all seven swing states, and E2 ranks the clean-sweep outcomes. E3 confirms the final model ran 80,000 simulations and that Harris won 50.015 percent of them. None of these sources gives the share of simulations in which Harris won every swing state except Arizona, so the roughly 4 percent figure cannot be checked against the criteria.

Cite this claim

Nate Silver, “In Silver Bulletin's final model, Harris won all swing states except Arizona in about 4 percent of simulations.” (said 7 November 2024). Verdict: unresolvable. Reliability API, claim c_02fadfda3042, method 0.1.0+28da144b, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_02fadfda3042

This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.

Reply to this claim

For Nate Silver, or someone speaking for them: a correction or counter-evidence. Replies are read before anything is shown; an approved reply shows your name, role, date, statement and link. Your email address is never shown and is deleted 30 days after the decision (privacy).

More factual claims by Nate Silver

  1. Resolved true Factual 7 November 2024
    “a Trump sweep of the swing states was actually our most common scenario, occurring in 20 percent of simulations.”

    In Silver Bulletin's final model, a Trump sweep of the seven swing states was the most common scenario, occurring in 20 percent of simulations.

  2. Resolved true Factual 13 August 2024
    “Part of why I've moved the model back to the newsletter, where the probabilities are paywalled, technically”

    Nate Silver has moved his election forecast model back to his Silver Bulletin newsletter, where the probabilities are technically paywalled.

  3. Mostly true Factual 11 September 2023
    “launching FiveThirtyEight was basically my fourth career after management consulting, professional poker, and baseball analytics.”

    Nate Silver said launching FiveThirtyEight was basically his fourth career, after management consulting, professional poker, and baseball analytics.

  4. Resolved true Factual 11 September 2023
    “I’ve turned on the option for paid subscriptions.”

    Nate Silver turned on paid subscriptions for the Silver Bulletin newsletter by 11 September 2023.

  5. Mostly true Factual 8 June 2021
    “Overall we were quite happy and the forecasts were largely accurate and well-calibrated despite a bad year for the polls.”

    The 2020 election forecasts by Nate Silver's team were largely accurate and well-calibrated despite a bad year for the polls.

All of them

Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.