Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump currently has a slight lead over his opponent in the run for the White House.
That is according to elections analyst and FiveThirtyEight founderNate Silver, who revealed Trump is edging out Vice President Kamala Harris with a 52.4% chance of winning the Electoral College to Harrisā 47.3% chance, according to Silver.
This new model from Silver has the former president in the lead for the first time since Aug 3.
And it appears the Keystone State could be the keystone of the election.
Silver reported āone big reasonā Trump is ahead is Pennsylvania. Silver said Pennsylvania is āthe tipping-point state more than one-third of the timeā in his model āand where itās been quite a while since weāve seen a poll showing Harris leading (including two new polls today).ā
Silverās model also takes into account āa convention bounce adjustment to Harrisās recent numbersā as she rides the high in popularity after the Democratic National Convention.
Harrisā numbers will eventually wane in subsequent weeks, Silverās model hypothesizes.
That, in addition to her weak polling in Pennsylvania, makes her the underdog in the race.
āThereās another, longer-term concern for Harris, though: itās been a while since weāve seen a poll showing her ahead in Pennsylvania, which is the tipping-point state more than a third of time in our model,ā Silver said.
He added, āToday, in fact, we added one post-DNC poll showing Pennsylvania as a tie, and another (conducted during the DNC) showing either a tie or Trump +1, depending on what version you prefer.ā
āThe model puts a lot of weight on this recent data because of all the changes in the race. And you can see why it thinks this is a problem for her: if sheās only tied in Pennsylvania now, during what should be one of her stronger polling periods, that implies being a slight underdog in November,ā Silver said.
