Donald Trump Makes Gains in 5 Battleground States in Nate Silver Forecast

Former PresidentDonald Trump’s polling numbers have improved in five of the seven key battleground states compared to last week, according to pollster Nate Silver.
Silver’s polling aggregator averages released Monday shows Trump has cut into Vice President Kamala Harris’ leads in the swing states of Pennsylvania (plus 0.5 points), Michigan (plus 0.7), Wisconsin (plus 0.8) and Nevada (plus 1.2), and improved his average lead in Arizona by 0.2 points.
Trump and Harris have seen no shifts in their polling numbers in North Carolina and Georgia compared to last week, with the former president still ahead on average by 0.8 points and 0.9 points respectively.
Silver founded 538, formerly FiveThirtyEight, and now uses a similar forecast model for his Silver Bulletin blog. The latest results suggest the race between Harris and Trump is still neck-and-neck with three weeks to go, with neither candidate recording a lead beyond 1.1 points in any of the seven key swing states.
Silver’s forecasting shows that Harris has a 2.9-point average lead over Trump nationally (49.4 percent to 45.5).
Newsweek has contacted the Trump and Harris campaign teams for comment via email.
Even with Trump making gains, Silver’s latest swing states averages have Harris ahead in Pennsylvania by 0.6 points (48.4 percent to 47.8), Michigan by 1.1 points (48.5 percent to 47.4) Wisconsin by 1 point (48.7 percent to 47.7) as well as Nevada by 0.8 points (48.4 percent to 47.6).
Harris’ clearest path to victory in November would be to win the three blue wall battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, barring any shock results elsewhere. With Harris also currently ahead in Nevada, the vice president would win the election with 276 Electoral College votes under Silver’s model.
Trump is ahead in Arizona by 1.6 points (48.9 percent to 47.3). Trump’s leads in the other Sun Belt states of North Carolina (48.7 percent to 47.9) and Georgia (48.6 percent to 47.7) have remained the same compared to last week.
Trump’s most efficient path to 270 Electoral College votes would be to win North Carolina and Georgia and flip Pennsylvania in November.
In his Monday update, Silver said the race in Pennsylvania could still go either way despite strong polling for the former president in the Keystone State from Republican-friendly polls.
“Mondays are often slow for polling, with most of the numbers released by Republican-leaning or explicitly GOP-partisan firms. And that was the case today,” Silver wrote.
“Rasmussen Reports has Trump leading by 3 points in Pennsylvania—and from another firm, that would be a strong number for him. But given Rasmussen’s house effect (and indeed explicit coordination with the Trump campaign), it’s in line with other polling showing the Keystone State as a tossup.
“Still, there’s been a slight upward trajectory for Trump in our forecast over the past week,'” Silver added.
In part years, Rasmussen Reports has been criticized for being unreliable due to apparent bias as results are thought to lean toward Republican candidates.
In March, 538 dropped Rasmussen Reports from its list of usable polling companies for failing to meet its standards.