If a forecast from Northwestern University data scientist Thomas Miller’s “The Virtual Tout” ends up being correct, one of the 2024 candidates will win the electoral college with landslide numbers not seen since the 1980s.
As of the end of Wednesday, the site said Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s ticket is expected to have 449 Democratic votes in the electoral college.
Audacy checked the National Archives and found that no ticket has had more than 400 electoral college votes since Republican President George H.W. Bush beat Democrat Michael Dukakis in 1988 with 426 to 111. President Ronald Reagan was the last candidate to get more than 449 when he beat Democrat Walter Mondale in 1984 with 425 to 13.
When former President Donald Trump – the current GOP candidate – won the 2016 election against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, he had 304 electoral college votes to her 227. Clinton won the popular vote in that election, with 48.18% compared to Trump’s 46.09%. Former President George W. Bush, a Republican, also lost the popular vote to former Vice President Al Gore in 2000 but won that election due to the electoral college.
Per the National Archives, the Founding Fathers established the electoral college process in the Constitution as a compromise between the election of the president by a vote in Congress and election of the president by a popular vote of qualified citizens. There are 538 electors and a majority of 270 is required to be elected president. Each state (and Washington D.C.) has as many electors as it has members of Congress, political parties choose their slate of electors and electoral votes are awarded on the basis of the popular vote in each state.
“In 2016, even though millions more individuals voted for the Democratic candidate than the Republican candidate in CA, PA, and TX (if you add the votes from the 3 States), the Democratic party was only awarded the electors appointed in CA,” said the archives. “Because the Republican candidate won the State popular vote in PA and TX, the Republican party was awarded 3 more total electors than the Democratic party.”
Even though he won the 2016 election via the electoral college, Trump himself has advocated for doing away with the electoral college, according to POLITICO.
In 2020, President Joe Biden won the popular vote and the majority of electoral votes at 306 to Trump’s 232. Miller accurately predicted the outcome of that election, according to Newsweek.
“I was intrigued by the highly original methodology Miller deployed in calling the trends, and outcomes, first in the presidential race, then for the two Georgia senatorial contests, where the surprise twin victories gave Democrats,” said Shawn Tully this week in a piece for Fortune magazine.
The Virtual Tout website explained that Miller’s forecasting models rely on prediction markets instead of polls. This is because polls are snapshots of the recent past and are therefore limited when applied to election forecasting, said the site. Prediction markets focus on investor anticipation regarding election day, That means they look to the future rather than the past.
Indeed, poll results don’t always align with election results. Leading up to the 2016 election, CNN polling after the first, second and third debates between Clinton and Trump showed that people believe she won the debates. Still, she lost the electoral college vote.
This time, Harris’ perceived win during what looks to be the only debate between her and Trump does seem to be moving the prediction markets. Since that Sept. 10 debate, The Virtual Tout has been predicting a significant win for the Democratic ticket. That day, there was a rise of 100 forecasted electoral college votes for Harris.
“It’s gone from a drastic landslide in Trump’s direction to a drastic landslide for Harris,” Miller told Fortune. Trump was also previously leading in the polls before Biden exited the race this summer following his own lackluster debate performance in June.
Before the debate, Sept. 6 news that Trump’s sentencing in the New York “hush money” case would be delayed until after the November election may have contributed to a 68-vote drop for the Democratic ticket, said the site. By Sept. 9, Miller was predicting a close election with 288 votes for the Harris/Walz ticket.
Other factors that have kept momentum going for Harris since the debate include pop stars Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish’s endorsement of Harris, podcaster Joe Rogan praising her debate performance, news from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics that inflation reached a three-year low and the Federal Reserve Bank cutting interest rates this week. Harris’ numbers stayed steady even in the wake of a second assassination attempt on Trump’s life last weekend.
According to Newsweek, Miller uses PredictIt, the largest U.S. political betting site, to track candidates and forecast elections. As is stands today, Miller said it looks like Harris has the potential to win swing states and even flip some Republican states. While Audacy mentioned the wins of Bush, Sr. and Reagan, Miller likened the forecasted Harris win to Democratic President Lyndon Johnson’s win against Republican Barry Goldwater in 1964, when Johnson won the electoral college 486 to 52.
Earlier this month, Audacy also reported that Allan Lichtman, a 77-year-old historian and professor at American University, predicted a win for Harris in November. Known as the “Nostradamus” of presidential picks, Lichtman has only missed one prediction in around 40 years – the 2000 Bush-Gore race. However, he maintains that he was right on that one and that Florida “screwed up,” to give Bush the win.