http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/fivethirtyeight-trump-winning-226114?lo=ap_b1FiveThirtyEight election forecast shows Trump ahead
By Caroline Kelly
07/25/16 10:01 AM EDT
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Political analyst Nate Silver’s latest forecast has Republican nominee Donald Trump with a 15 percentage point-greater chance of beating presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton if the election were held today, according to FiveThirtyEight.
Silver's "now-cast," updated with fresh surveys on Monday, shows Trump's current likelihood of winning at 57.5 percent, compared with Clinton’s 42.5 percent. In the 11 battleground states, Colorado, Virginia and Michigan would go to Clinton, while Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Iowa would go to Trump.
The breakdown shifts a bit between the Electoral College and the popular vote. Silver's model currently predicts the popular vote going 45.4 percent to Trump vs. 45.1 percent to Clinton, but the Electoral College giving Trump a wider margin of victory, 285 votes and Clinton 252.6.
The model predicts that Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson will garner just 0.4 Electoral College votes despite winning 8.2 percent of the popular vote.
Clinton still leads in 538's polls-plus model, Silver notes, as it accounts for any post-convention bounces that are likely to fade.
"It's not Trump's convention bounce per se that should worry Dems. That's pretty normal. It's how it became so close to begin with," Silver tweeted. "Trump trailed by around 3 points in our forecasts a week ago. Typical convention bounce is 4 points. So you end up at Trump +1 or so."
"Don't think people are really grasping how plausible it is that Trump could become president. It's a close election right now," he warned last week.
