Political Scientist Who Predicted 5 of Last 6 Elections Gives President Trump 91% Chance of Re-Election

A political science and college professor who studies elections is forecasting that President Donald Trump will win the November election, making his prediction on the basis of a model he has used to successfully forecast five of the last six presidential elections. Helmut Norpoth finalized his electoral prediction earlier this month, predicting that President Trump will have a 91% chance of securing reelection.

Norpoth, a professor at Stony Brook University, bases his electoral predictions on the results of the presidential primaries. He is pointing to record-setting turnout for President Trump in the Republican primaries, and pointing to some of Joe Biden’s early struggles in the Democratic primary. The now-Democratic nominee secured only around 8% of the vote in the first-in-the-nation primary, a shocking figure for an eventual nominee.

“People have forgotten how Joe Biden did in New Hampshire,” Norpoth added during his interview with Stony Brook News. “He was terrible. He got 8.4 percent of the vote, which is unbelievable for a candidate with any aspirations of being president.”

The only presidential election that Norpoth has ever predicted incorrectly was the hotly contested 2000 presidential election, which George W. Bush won over Al Gore by a razor-thin margin in the swing state of Florida alone.

“The key to the November election is the primaries,” Norpoth told Fox News in July. “The early primaries are giving us a lot of information. Based on that, Donald Trump won them very easily in his party. Joe Biden, the likely nominee for the Democrats, had a great deal of trouble, pulled it together, but on balance is that stronger performance of primaries that gives Donald Trump the edge in November.”

Polling is breaking in the direction of the president, and it’s worth noting that it’s considerably rare in American history for a challenger to defeat an incumbent.