Election expert Nate Silver has slammed FiveThirtyEight for stopping its presidential election predictions, offering the “theory” that the website he founded is waiting for Vice President Kamala Harris’ poll numbers to improve.
Silver, a statistician and data journalist who rose to fame by accurately predicting the outcome of the 2008 presidential election, blasted the ABC-owned website on Monday for not releasing any new polls since Harris became the Democratic front-runner to replace President Biden.
Note As the FiveThirtyEight website states:“As of 2:00 PM ET on July 21, President Joe Biden has suspended his campaign for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination.”
“Once the new presumptive Democratic candidate is announced, we will release an election projection that includes that candidate.”
User X posted a screenshot of FiveThirtyEight’s disclaimer and wrote: “538 predictions not published yet? What are you waiting for?”
Silver responded by writing, “My theory is that Harris is underperforming Biden in their model, so they are waiting until she performs at least as well, or what if she doesn’t.”
Asked to explain, Silver wrote that his comments were a “theory” and “not an accusation.”
“This is not based on inside information,” he wrote in a subsequent post. The news site Mediaite reported this.
The Post has reached out to FiveThirtyEight for comment.
Harris secured the nomination during a virtual roll call on Monday and on Tuesday named progressive Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate.
A June poll by Silver predicted Republican candidate Donald Trump would easily beat Biden, but Biden dropped out of the race after his debate gaffes.
his Latest predictions Monday’s poll showed Harris with a slight lead over the former president.
For the first time since Harris released the model, she has outperformed Trump, who polls had shown handily beating Biden in key battleground states.
Silver left FiveThirtyEight last summer after ABC News decided not to renew his contract.
At the time, parent company Disney was ordering layoffs across its television news division, which caught Silver and other FiveThirtyEight employees in the crosshairs.
Silver then began creating a Substack newsletter that included a predictive model analyzing the presidential election.
