Polling expert Nate Silver argued Monday that President Biden’s debate performance has put him at serious risk of not being the Democratic Party’s nominee in November and called it one of the “craziest asks” in political history for him to seek a second term.
“I think the probability that Biden isn’t the nominee on Nov. 5 is closer to underrated than overrated,” Silver wrote Monday in a thread on X.
Silver added that Democrats face many risks maintaining Biden as the head of the party ticket. Biden, already the oldest president in American history, would be 86 by the end of a second term if re-elected. Ronald Reagan, who held the record before him, was 77 when he left office in 1989.
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“It’s fundamentally a terrible idea to ask the public to make the guy they saw on Thursday president until he’s 86,” Silver wrote, explaining that Biden leaving “[p]robably won’t involve him giving up the office rationally or easily.”
Silver wrote that “[p]ost-debate polls,” while bad now, may become even worse.
He warned that further “senior moments” from Biden are “probably unsurvivable” and that the weaker his campaign becomes, the more likely it is people will abandon the campaign.
The campaign is already weathering difficult calls and questions from donors, as well as a swelling list of liberal media figures urging Biden to drop out of the race for fear of losing to former President Trump. Silver said it was “fundamentally untenable” to nominate Biden for another four-year term.
“One of the craziest ‘asks’ in the history of American politics,” Silver said of giving Biden another term.
Silver also predicted that Trump “likely wins close calls in the Electoral College” in a showdown with Biden.
The former president was solidly favored to win the White House in Silver’s first presidential election forecast last week, which was conducted before the debate where Biden’s frail, halting performance has sent donors, party members and liberal media allies into panic mode.
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Silver’s forecast model, based on 40,000 simulations, found Trump had a 65.7% of winning the electoral college, compared to Biden, who had a 33.7% chance. Biden was slightly favored to win the popular vote. Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 but won the presidency with a slew of narrow swing state wins.
The Biden and Trump campaigns did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
Fox News’ Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.
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