Nate Silver has just released the first version of his electoral model for the Harris-Trump matchup. At the time he suspended his Biden-Trump model upon Biden’s exit from the race, his model had Biden’s chances of winning the electoral college at 27%, although Silver felt that estimate was optimistic because it implicitly presumed that Biden would run an average campaign from then forward and it seemed clear to him that Biden’s age would prevent him from being able to do that.
With Harris in the driver’s seat, his model currently has her chances at 38%, even though it sees her as a slight favorite in the popular vote (47.7% to 47.1%). Given the slight differences in demographic support between Harris and Biden, Silver now thinks the Republicans’ inherent advantage in the electoral college is more like 2.5% running against Harris, as opposed to 2.0% running against Biden.
Silver notes that there is a lack of high-quality state-level polling of the Harris-Trump matchup in the key swing states, and as such I wouldn’t place a lot of weight on his model quite yet. However it does line up with the conventional wisdom that the switch from Biden to Harris has been beneficial for the Democrats but the race remains tight going into the DNC.
Harris has yet to tip her hand on when to expect her announcement of a Vice-Presidential candidate, but one imagines it will occur within the next week. Speculation has now focused on just three names: Kelly, Shapiro, and Walz. Walz’s longshot candidacy has gained momentum in recent days thanks to an increase in his public profile from having recently said “these guys are just weird” in reference to the Trump-Vance ticket. Personally I think his background would be a tremendous complement to Harris: a high school teacher and football coach who served 24 years in the National Guard, unexpectedly won a House seat in a rural district in the 2006 Democratic wave midterm election against a Republican incumbent who had won 60% of the vote two years earlier, and since has become a very successful governor in a state that is more purple in its state-level politics than it is federally.