FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver Says Trump Has a Chance Despite Huge Current Poll Deficit: He Can ‘Absolutely Win’

FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver believes that President Donald Trump can “absolutely win” the 2020 election over former Vice President Joe Biden despite several polls showing the president down double-digits. Still, Trump “has his work cut out,” he said.

Both CNN and Fox News have had Trump down 14 and 12 points to Biden in the last two weeks, respectively. The CNN poll led to Trump’s campaign sending the corporation a cease-and-desist letter while Trump lashed out against Fox over their numbers. Even a poll from Trump-friendly Scott Rasmussen had the president down double-digits, too.

In 2016, FiveThirtyEight gave Trump a 29 percent chance to defeat Hilary Clinton for the presidency on the night of the election, much higher than most polls and 11 points larger than Trump’s betting odds.

Weeks before the election, Silver was accused of “changing poll results to achieve a result beneficial to Trump” by a HuffPost writer. Silver responding saying that writer didn’t “actually give a shit about evidence and proof.” On Monday, Silver again wouldn’t write Trump off to make a comeback.

“National polls don’t really matter unless Hilary Clinton would be President,” Silver said on ABC. “But it’s worth noting that such a large lead is unusual in politics these days.”

Silver pointed out that Clinton had a seven-point lead over Trump at this point and former President Barack Obama was up six points to John McCain in 2008. Though, Silver recently found that Trump’s disapproval rating is higher than any other president at this time in their administration on June 2. The midwest is tight, Silver noted, but said if Biden can win either Florida or Arizona, it would be key to winning the presidency.

“For the time being, no I don’t buy that we’re going to have the same map as we did in 2016,” Silver said. “Instead, Trump is a fighting a two-front war with problems in the midwest on one hand and Arizona and Florida on the other hand.”

“I want to be really clear, Trump can absolutely win re-election,” Silver added. “But he definitely has his work cut out for him.”

Watch above, via ABC.