NO SILVER LINING

Nate Silver Drops Final Forecast With Brutal News for Trump

Polls suggest Tuesday night could be a long one for the GOP.

Polling expert Nate Silver says Donald Trump will have to shoulder the blame if the GOP suffers an electoral blowout in Tuesday’s midterms.

Writing in his Silver Bulletin Substack, the election forecaster said it would be a “major surprise” if Democrats don’t win back control of the House, while his FLIPR model gives the party an 80 percent chance of flipping enough seats to seize the Senate.

Silver noted that polling showing Democrats with a commanding lead in generic congressional polls has coincided with Trump’s dire approval ratings.

The Democrats also have precedent on their side, with the party in power historically suffering major losses in the midterms. Silver suggested that the intense backlash to Trump’s second term could damage the GOP more severely than in 2018, when Democrats won a net 40 seats in the House.

“In 2018, we weren’t at war with Iran. Gas cost about $2.70 a gallon, not $4.20. Trump was 72 years old, not 80. He hadn’t broken his promises on the Epstein files,” Silver wrote.

“He was a bit closer to being a true populist and spent less time hanging out in the company of highly unpopular billionaires. AI wasn’t a thing that people had all this anxiety about, and Trump hadn’t positioned himself on the wrong side of a supermajority on data centers. And the Republican Party had more holdovers from the pre-Trump era: more John Cornyns, fewer Ken Paxtons.”

“All of these problems are Trump’s fault. He almost seems to have a death wish in these midterms,” he added.

Democrats have long been expected to flip the House on Tuesday, where Republicans currently hold only a razor-thin majority.

Silver said that if the GOP manages to hold the lower chamber, the results would “well and truly be coming out of nowhere,” given what the polls have been showing and contrasting the general mood of Republicans during the midterm cycle.

POLLS DON'T VOTE!

Fox Host Freaks Out at Polls Pointing to Disaster for Trump

Leigh Kimmins

Silver was more cautious about the Senate, saying that polls suggesting a historic, sweeping blue wave may not come to fruition, particularly in red states such as Alaska and Iowa.

Play Video

However, Silver said Democrats have strong enough leads in enough crucial Senate races that Republicans will probably need “something systematic to be off with the polls” to come out on top.

“If I were placing my bets, I might wager some chips on the ‘Dems slightly underperform polls but win the Senate anyway’ spot on the felt and some on ‘Republicans narrowly hold the Senate,’ but also a few on an epic Democratic blowout,” Silver wrote.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.

See more of our coverage in your search results.

ADD THE DAILY BEAST ON GOOGLE

Ewan PalmerReporter

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.