Former President Donald Trump has retained a massive lead in election guru Nate Silver’s first 2024 election forecast released after the ABC News presidential debate, which could very well be the only debate between Trump and Harris before November.

After Harris gained a slight lead on the heels of a massive enthusiasm boost among Democrats following President Biden’s decision to suspend his re-election campaign, Trump was able to regain and expand his lead in Silver’s forecast in August.

As of September 6, Silver was giving Trump a 60.1% chance of winning the Electoral College, a dramatic increase from just a few weeks prior. Silver, who evaluates variables such as response bias when fitting recent polls into his model, had Trump up in a number of key swing states as well, especially Pennsylvania.

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On Wednesday, Silver released his first post-debate forecast. While post-debate polls have yet to come in, viewers and undecided voters appear to be split on picking a winner, with many post-debate polls naming Trump as a clear winner.

In Wednesday’s update to the model, Silver is giving Trump a 61.6 percent chance of winning the electoral college. Trump is also inching closer to a potential popular vote victory, as the model is currently giving Harris a 49.9 percent chance of winning the popular vote while Trump trails closely behind at 49 percent.

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The ABC News-hosted debate has been heavily criticized due to the biased conduct of moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis.

Davis and Muir allowed Harris to get away with several verifiable lies, including the false claim that police officers were killed on January 6, the debunked claim that Trump called Neo-Nazis “very fine people,” the false claim that Trump authored and endorsed Project 2025, and lies concerning her own campaign positions.

While allowing Harris to get away with at least 11 lies, the moderators frequently jumped in to “fact check” Trump. On more than one occasion, the moderators jumped in to provide “fact checks” that were not even correct.

On the topic of abortion, Vice President Harris falsely claimed that Trump will sign an abortion ban. The former president has repeatedly stated that he has no interest in supporting a national abortion ban. Instead, Trump opted to shift the conversation to late term abortion.

After Trump finished delivering his answer, Davis falsely claimed that full term abortion is not legal in any state without giving Trump a chance to respond.

Despite Davisā€™ false claims, several Democratic politicians have endorsed the idea of full-term abortion, including former Virginia Governor Ralph Northam. When asked what would happen if a mother decided to ā€œabortā€ a live baby, Northam stated that the child would be ā€œmade comfortableā€ before a decision whether to kill them was made.

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