Hillary's Chances of Winning, per Nate Silver: 79%

Though he concedes 'there's a lot of football left to be played'
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 29, 2016 2:49 PM CDT
Hillary's Chances of Winning, per Nate Silver: 79%
Nate Silver prognosticates on the general election on "Good Morning America."   (YouTube)

If you're looking for odds on what's going to happen in Election 2016, you can ask a Las Vegas bookie or Nate Silver. And according to what the FiveThirtyEight.com numbers whiz told George Stephanopoulos on Wednesday's Good Morning America, Hillary Clinton has an almost 80% chance of taking the White House, Politico reports. The stats and polling analysis website, which tweeted it will have more on the site about its election predictions later Wednesday, places Clinton with a 79% chance of winning the presidency in November, while Trump can only claim a 20% chance. "We're kind of at halftime of the election right now, and she's taking a seven-point, maybe a 10-point lead," Silver told Stephanopoulos. "There's a lot of football left to be played, but she's ahead in almost every poll, every swing state, every national poll." Silver noted that no candidate has thrown away a lead as large as the one Clinton currently enjoys since Michael Dukakis in 1988, though he also acknowledged "it's been a crazy year, politically."

And that lead, per a recent Ballotpedia poll of seven swing states, shows Clinton beating Trump in all seven, with her lead ranging from 4 to 17 percentage points. Interestingly, when similarly matched up against Ohio Gov. John Kasich and House Speaker Paul Ryan, Clinton didn't do as well, with Kasich beating her in five states and Ryan pulling ahead in three. Silver—who shot to fame after correctly calling all 50 states in the 2012 election—has faced criticism, along with many others, for initially downplaying Trump's chances at even becoming the GOP nominee (he gave Trump a 2% chance in August), though he's since admitted he "acted like a pundit and screwed up." But he told Stephanopoulos his first impression "wasn't based on looking at polls" and "one big lesson of [Trump's] campaign is don't try and out-think the polls and try and out-think the American public." "He did a great job of appealing to the 40% of the GOP he had to win … the primary," Silver added. "A lot different than winning 51% of 100%." (Last year Silver said polls were in bad shape.)

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