Presidential races

FiveThirtyEight: Trump would win if election were held today

Donald Trump would beat Hillary Clinton if votes for president were cast today, according to the election results predictor designed by top pollster Nate Silver.

{mosads}FiveThirtyEight’s “now-cast” model is giving Trump a nearly 10-point edge over Clinton in response to the question, “Who would win the presidency today?”

Silver previously gave the Republican presidential nominee a sizable advantage over his Democratic rival in late July, following the Republican National Convention.

Today’s prediction comes just hours before the crucial first presidential debate.

Clinton, the Democratic nominee, still holds the lead in FiveThirtyEight’s two other predictive models: polls-plus forecast and polls-only forecast.

In both models she leads by a narrow margin of 3.6 percentage points.

The website’s electoral map graphic appears to show Clinton winning over 270 electoral votes in all three models, though in its calculation of total electoral votes won by each nominee, Trump receives 275.9 votes to Clinton’s 261.9.

UPDATE 3:53 p.m.: New polls released since Monday morning have led FiveThirtyEight to revise their now-cast in Clinton’s favor.