When I say the odds in this year’s presidential race are about as close as you can possibly get to 50/50, I’m not exaggerating. At exactly midnigh

A random number generator determined the “favorite" in our forecast

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2024-11-05 13:30:03

When I say the odds in this year’s presidential race are about as close as you can possibly get to 50/50, I’m not exaggerating.

At exactly midnight on Tuesday, I pressed the “go” button for the final time on our election model this year. I knew it was going to be close. I felt like I was spinning a roulette wheel. (Appropriate, I guess, in a year when I published a book about gambling.) We’d decided ahead of time to run 80,000 simulations instead of our usual 40K.

And after 80,000 simulations, Kamala Harris won the Electoral College in … 40,012 of them, or 50.015 percent. The remaining 39,988 were split between Trump (39,718) and no majority — a 269-269 tie — which practically speaking would probably be resolved for Trump in the U.S. House.

Harris jumped out to a huge early lead, ahead 50.7%-49.3% after the 18,000th simulation — but then Trump + no majority mounted a thrilling comeback. But on simulation #79,281, Harris went on a winning streak, claiming 15 of the next 17 simulations to turn a 5-sim deficit into a 8-sim lead and never looking back. Trump closed to within single digits again as late as simulation #79,603, but couldn’t seal the deal.