Election savant Nate Silver blasted FiveThirtyEight for suspending its presidential forecasts — offering up a “theory” that the website he founded is waiting for Vice President Kamala Harris’ polling numbers to improve.
Silver, the statistician and data journalist who rose to prominence in 2008 after accurately predicting the results of the presidential election, called out the ABC-owned website Monday for not publishing new polling since Harris replaced President Biden as the presumptive Democratic nominee.
A note on the FiveThirtyEight website says: “As of July 21 at 2 p.m. Eastern, President Joe Biden has suspended his campaign for the 2024 Democratic Party nomination for president.
“We will publish an election forecast including the new presumptive Democratic nominee, when such nominee is announced.”
An X user posted a screenshot of the FiveThirtyEight disclaimer and wrote: “538’s forecast is really still not up yet? What are they waiting for?”
Silver wrote in response: “My theory is that Harris was doing worse than Biden in their model and they’re waiting until she’s doing at least as well or otherwise what to do about that.”
When asked to clarify, Silver wrote that his statement was a “theory” and “not an accusation.”
“It’s not based on any inside info,” he wrote in a subsequent post, which was first reported by the news site Mediaite.
The Post has sought comment from FiveThirtyEight.
Harris locked up the nomination in a virtual roll call Monday and named progressive Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate Tuesday.
Silver’s own poll in June had Republican nominee Donald Trump easily defeating Biden before the president exited the race following his debate debacle.
His most recent forecast on Monday gave Harris a slim lead over the former president.
It is the first time since he launched the model that Harris jumped ahead of Trump, who polls showed was handily defeating Biden in key swing states.
Silver left FiveThirtyEight last summer after ABC News decided not to renew his contract.
At the time, parent company Disney had ordered layoffs across the television news division, which swept up Silver and other FiveThirtyEight personnel.
Silver has since moved on to create a Substack newsletter that includes prediction models analyzing the presidential race.
