NATE SILVER: Donald Trump's odds of winning are at their highest point in weeks

Renowned statistician Nate Silver's election forecast on Wednesday gave Donald Trump his best odds of winning since late July. In Silver's "polls-plus" model, the Republican nominee had a 34.7% chance of winning in November. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton was sitting at a 65.3% chance of victory. But the model showed the Electoral College projection tightening significantly. Silver's model had Trump as more likely to win Florida, North Carolina, Iowa, and Ohio, the latter of which has voted in step with the nation in every election since 1964. Clinton, in Silver's model, held a 294.2 to 243.6 edge in the Electoral College projection. A total of 270 electoral votes are needed to secure the presidency. The model also showed Clinton with a slim 47% to 44.5% edge in the popular vote, with Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson receiving 7.2% of the vote. The last time Trump was above 35% in the model was July 31, when Silver's forecast showed Trump with a 39.1% chance of winning the presidency.

Although Silver is a liberal, he tries to keep his statistical analysis bias-free. He takes the attitude that “you can get some information from all polls” and tries to include some of the polls favorable to Trump in his analysis (i.e., LA Times) as well as those favorable to the other side.

The biggest flaw in his analysis is that like everyone else, he is including polling data that is 1, 2 or 3 weeks out of date. Given how fast this race is changing in Trump’s favor, the polls and predictions are inevitably going to lag what every sees is actually happening on the ground.

To his credit, Silver does have a “polls plus” model which Silver says is his most accurate predication. The polls plus model takes some other factors into account that go beyond a simple average of polls taken over the last 3 or 4 weeks. This model does not show North Carolina, Florida, Iowa and Ohio has having moved into the Trumps column (and Georgia and Arizona as never having been in any serious doubt for Trump).

What this means is that Trump is now within one state of an electoral college majority: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Virginia, Colorado, Michigan or the combination of (Nevada + New Hampshire) would put him over the top.

I’ve found one of the more useful tools on Silver’s site is a graphic with a long snake-like listing of all the states from most-blue to most-red, showing where the likely dividing point is. That dividing point is now creeping very close to an electoral majority for Trump.

Trump has also written a couple of articles for the site that says despite the popular wisdom that has been put out that there is an “electoral college advantage” for democrats, that in fact Trump is far more likely than Clinto to be able to put together an electoral college victory without a clear win in the popular vote.

I think even Nate Silver is telling us good news.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.