Stony Brook Professor’s Primary Model Gives Trump 91% Chance of Reelection

As polls show Joe Biden as the favorite to win in November, a political science professor doubles down on prediction of President Trump winning reelection.

Primary Model vs Polls

Stony Brook professor Helmut Norpoth is doubling down on his “Primary Model,” which indicates that Trump has a 91% chance of reelection despite polls showing former Vice President Joe Biden in a favorable position.

Norpoth’s model reviews the results of primaries as the strongest indicator of the general election outcome over the polls. So far, the model has only failed to predict 2 elections since 1912 – the 1960 election of John F. Kennedy and the 2000 election of George W. Bush.

Norpoth told Mediaite on Wednesday that Biden’s much weaker position comes from his poor showing in the first two primary races, in which Biden came in at fourth and fifth place. Norpoth added that there are plenty of presidential races until now, in which nominees who had a lead in the polls never saw a win from it.

The primary model also indicates that President Trump will win by an even wider margin compared to 2016, in which he won in the electoral college with 304 votes against Hillary Clinton. The model expects Trump to receive 362 electoral votes, which Mediaite compared to Obama’s 2008 election, when he earned 365 votes.

Despite the model almost guaranteeing Trump’s reelection, national polls disagree and show Biden as the favored candidate. The Real Clear Politics average shows that Biden leads Trump by at least 8.7 points, as the president’s numbers dropped quite a bit recently amid the coronavirus crisis and social unrest following the killing of George Floyd.