Poll aggregator Nate Silver has warned that Joe Biden is ‘one of Kamala Harris’ biggest impediments to victory’ after the president referred to Donald Trump supporters as ‘garbage’.
Silver, the founder of poll analytics site FiveThirtyEight, suggested that Biden will be largely responsible if the Democrat does not win the White House next week.
He claimed that Harris, 60, has done a ‘pretty good job’ at rallying support ahead of what could be one of the closest races in history, despite ‘Biden doing everything possible to f**k it up’.
The statistician and author even went a step further, claiming Biden’s latest gaffe and ‘the fact that he can’t consistently speak clearly’ may suggest he is unfit to continue his lame duck term.
It comes as several leading bookies have cut their odds on Trump winning the election to 65 percent, claiming that Biden’s boneheaded gaffe ‘has not helped Vice President Harris’ chances of winning the White House’.
Just days ahead of a razor-tight contest between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, a pollster has suggested that Joe Biden will be largely responsible if the Harris, pictured during a campaign rally on the Ellipse Tuesday night, does win the White House next week
Joe Biden called Trump supporters ‘garbage’ Tuesday night while on a campaign zoom call with a Latino advocacy group. Biden is pictured during the call
Just days ahead of a razor-tight contest between Harris and Trump, Biden sent the White House into panic mode Tuesday night after his attempt to call out racist remarks by a comedian who spoke at a GOP campaign rally backfired.
‘Just the other day, a speaker at his (Trump’s) rally called Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage,” Biden, 81, said on a campaign zoom call Tuesday night.
‘The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters, his, his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American. It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been.’
But the statement left people on both sides of the aisle perplexed and outraged, with some analysts, such as Silver, warning it could possibly cost Harris the election.
‘If Harris loses you’re going to get a hot take with the power of Arcturus from me about Joe Biden,’ Silver tweeted Tuesday night.
‘Then you’ll get a hot take from me about how she did a pretty good job despite Biden doing everything possible to f**k it up.’
He added: ‘It’s a really close race but I’ll live and die with the take that the leader of the free world being incoherent is a problem that deserves a lot of journalistic “energy” and is also that Biden is one of Kamala Harris’s biggest impediments to victory.’
Poll aggregator Nate Silver, pictured in 2018, has now warned Biden is ‘one of Harris’ biggest impediments to victory’ and even suggested the president may be unfit to continue his lame duck term
Silver’s suggestion that Biden’s gaffe could hurt Harris was a stark contrast from his claim on Monday that the fallout from Trump’s rally ‘could throw Harris a lifeline’. Joe Biden is pictured with Vice President Kamala Harris at a campaign event last month
Kamala Harris held a campaign rally on the Ellipse in DC Tuesday night, the same spot Donald Trump spoke from on January 6th, 2021
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump spoke at a campaign rally at the PPL Center in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on October 29, 2024
The Signal and the Noise author also took direct aim at Biden, saying: ‘The fact that he can’t consistently speak clearly to a point of reasonable comprehension might also seem to imply that he shouldn’t be the President of the United States.’
Silver’s suggestion that Biden’s gaffe could hurt Harris was a stark contrast from his claim on Monday that the fallout from Trump’s rally ‘could throw Harris a lifeline’.
Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage’ at a rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday.
He also made demeaning jokes about Black people, other Latinos, Palestinians and Jews during his routine before Trump’s appearance.
Silver, in a post to his Silver Bulletin blog, said there was evidence Trump’s rally seemed to be ‘drawing broader attention’ in the media and suggested that could possibly be beneficial to the Vice President’s campaign.
‘Harris is more popular than Trump, but has had trouble driving a substantive message – in part because she’s running away both from her unpopular positions in 2019 and her unpopular boss,’ he wrote Monday.
‘So a final week that’s all about Trump – and shows off some of the most unappealing elements of his campaign – could throw Harris a lifeline.’
The statistician and author claimed that Harris, 60, has done a ‘pretty good job’ at rallying support ahead of what could be one of the closest races in history, despite ‘Biden doing everything possible to f**k it up’
But Trump’s chance of victory in November rose to 65 per cent overnight, with his odds now being as short as Biden’s leading up to the 2020 election.
Just five days ago, the odds of Trump winning the White House say at 5/7 (58 per cent) but shot to 8/15 (65 per cent) overnight, according to the latest data from Betfair Exchange. The odds of a Harris victory are now 9/5 or 36 per cent.
Bet365 and Paddy Power, two other leading bookmakers, slashed Trump’s odds from 1/2 (66.7 per cent) to 10/21 (67.7 per cent) and 4/9 (69.2 per cent) respectively, Newsweek reported.
Trump’s chances of victory were also slashed to 4/9 with Ladbrokes and Unibet.
Analysts allege that Biden’s overnight gaffe ‘has not helped Vice-President Harris’ chances of winning the White House’.
‘Only five days ago, he was 5/7, translating to around a 58% chance. Harris is now out to 9/5 or a 36% chance. This is despite a week where the Trump campaign had to distance itself from comments by a comedian at his Madison Square Garden rally calling Puerto Rico ‘a floating island of garbage’,’ a Betfair spokesman told DailyMail.com.
‘Harris will have to pull out all the stops as early voting is well underway and the election in less than a weeks’ time. In fact, only Donald Trump has pulled off a comeback this big going into the final days of a US election campaign, back in 2016, when he was 9/2 before the voting closed. ‘
Biden’s team claimed he was only criticizing comedian Tony Hinchcliffe who performed at Sunday’s rally at Madison Square Garden
Biden claimed his remark was about comedian Tony Hinchcliffe who made a joke about Puerto Rico being an ‘island of garbage’ during Trump’s rally on Sunday
Biden’s team also provided a transcript of what he said, bizarrely claiming that he used the word ‘supporters’ as a possessive – written as ‘supporter’s’ – and he was only criticizing comedian Tony Hinchcliffe for making the joke about Puerto Rico being an ‘island of garbage’
Hinchcliffe’s comments on Sunday drew wide condemnation by Trump’s opponents and highlighted the rising power of a key Latino group in the swing state of Pennsylvania.
Some of Trump’s top Republican allies have condemned the remarks, and his campaign took the rare step of publicly distancing itself from Hinchcliffe’s joke.
And in a series of interviews Tuesday, Trump claimed to not know Hinchcliffe ad insisted that he hadn’t been privy to the comedian’s comments.
When asked what he made of them, Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that he knows nothing about Hinchcliffe but said, ‘I can’t imagine it’s a big deal.’ He later agreed, though, that ‘probably he shouldn’t have been there.’
But Biden’s supposed attempt to call out Hinchcliffe’s remark, has now drawn instant comparisons to Hillary Clinton’s infamous dismissal of Trump voters as ‘deplorables’ in 2016.
Speaking to a Latino advocacy group Biden said, ‘The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s – his – his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable and it’s un-American,’ according to a transcript posted on X by a White House spokesperson.
Several news organizations cited the same quote but without the apostrophe amid criticism that Biden had appeared to direct his garbage comment at Trump supporters more broadly.
In a desperate attempt to clean up the president’s mess, a White House spokesperson issued a damage control statement that added an apostrophe to the word ‘supporter’s’ to imply that Biden was only referring to Hinchcliffe.
Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (R) walks with husband US Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff after speaking on The Ellipse just south of the White House in DC
Supporters of Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris gather near the Washington Monument to hear her speak on The Ellipse
Supporters could be seen stretching back outside the security perimeter across the National Mall, with the Jefferson Monument seen in the background
Biden also sought to clarify matters on X, saying: ‘Earlier today I referred to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporters at his Madison Square Garden rally as garbage — which is the only word I can think of to describe it.
‘His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable. That’s all I meant to say. The comments at that rally don’t reflect who we are as a nation.’
But Republicans seized on the comment, comparing it to a remark by Hillary Clinton in 2016 referring to Trump supporters as ‘deplorables’. Clinton later lost to Trump in a major election upset.
‘Now, on top of everything, Joe Biden calls our supporters ‘garbage’. You can’t lead America if you don’t love the American people,’ Trump posted on X.
His running mate, JD Vance, said: ‘This is disgusting. Kamala Harris and her boss Joe Biden are attacking half of the country.’
Vance had earlier defended Hinchcliffe’s comment, saying: ‘We have to stop getting so offended at every little thing in the United States of America.’
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