According to The Economist’s national forecast model, Harris and Trump have about a 1 in 2 chance of winning the Electoral College.
As the 2024 election draws closer, an election forecast published on Friday is predicting the Electoral College vote totals for Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate and Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee.
According to The Economist’s national forecast model published on Friday, Harris and Trump have about a 1 in 2 chance of winning the Electoral College, which awards each state a certain number of electoral votes based on population. A presidential candidate needs to secure 270 electoral votes for victory, and winning the national popular vote does not guarantee the White House.
The election forecast shows that the median likely range of total electoral votes for Harris is at 272 while Trump is at 266.
This is a change from the 2020 election which saw Trump with 232 electoral votes and the Democratic nominee Joe Biden with 306, according to the forecast.
According to The Economist, the model estimates each major candidate’s chances of winning each state and the overall Electoral College. Developed by Columbia University, the forecast combines national and state-level polls with fundamental data about the state of the economy, historical voting patterns and the demographics of each state to predict the likelihood of various outcomes of the race by constructing thousands of scenarios.
