President Donald Trump is likely to win the Electoral College in the presidential election as long he does not lose the popular vote to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden by more than 3 percent, pollster Nate Silver said Wednesday.

“You’ll sometimes see people say stuff like ‘Biden MUST with the popular vote by 3 points or he’s toast,'” Silver wrote on Twitter. “Not true; at 2-3 points, the Electoral College is a tossup, not necessarily a Trump win. “The Electoral College is not really *safe* for Biden unless he wins by 5+.”

Chance of a Biden Electoral college win if he wins the popular vote by X points:

0-1 points: just 6%!
1-2 points: 22%
2-3 points: 46%
3-4 points: 74%
4-5 points: 89%
5-6 points: 98%
6-7 points: 99%

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) September 2, 2020

The FiveThirtyEight editor in chief added that Biden holds a 6 percent chance of clinching the Electoral College if he wins the popular vote by 1 percent, compared to a 22 percent chance if if he wins by two points and a 46 percent chance if he wins by two to three points.

Silver didn’t provide methodology behind the figures, though they would line up with the results of the last presidential election.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton won 48.2 percent of the popular vote that year, just under two points more than Trump, who won 46.1 percent. That margin was largely due to the state of California, where Clinton won 8.7 million voters to Trump’s 4.5 million. She won nearly 3 million more votes than Trump among voters nationally, but lost the Electoral College — which ultimately determines the president — with 227 votes, compared to 304 for Trump.

If that dynamic plays out again, it would be the third time over the course of five presidential elections that the winner of the popular vote failed to match the winner of the Electoral College. President George W. Bush similarly won the 2000 election against former Vice President Al Gore despite losing losing the electorate by more than 500,000 votes.

Of the 42 presidents who preceded Bush, just three — Benjamin Harrison (1888), Rutherford Hayes (1876), and Andrew Jackson (1824) — experienced the same scenario.

from Mediaite https://ift.tt/2QMNZi7