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Donald Trump Would Win the Election Today, According to FiveThirtyEight

Nate Silver and his team of data journalists give Trump a 56.7 percent chance of winning the election in a new short-term poll, following the Republican National Convention.
Photo via Flickr user Marc Nozell

According to FiveThirtyEight political analyst Nate Silver, if the presidential election were held today, former real estate mogul and reality TV star Donald Trump would beat Hillary Clinton by 13.4 points, Politico reports. It's the first time Trump has passed Clinton in the site's short-term poll, which uses daily data.

Trump ended up coming out on top after the mess of the Republican National Convention, which gave the country plagiarized speeches, perceived Nazi salutes, and chants of "lock her up." He's currently leading Hillary Clinton in some recent polls, and now FiveThirtyEight's "now-cast" predicts Trump will take battleground states Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Iowa. It predicts Clinton would only nab Colorado, Virginia, and Michigan. Beyond winning the Electoral College and thus the presidency, Silver also has Trump narrowly grabbing the popular vote, too.

Silver and his team of data journalists have been wrong about Trump before, which was surprising for the team that's been notoriously accurate in the last two elections—Silver called 49 of 50 states in the 2008 election, and all 50 in 2012. Now, with the site's poll that uses updated daily data, they're taking Trump more seriously than before.

The numbers do account for a post-convention bump, and FiveThirtyEight still has Clinton winning in its long-term "polls-plus" forecast, which considers current polls and historic information. But Trump's short-term lead is a very accurate, very real look at where our country could be in the next four months.

Read: The Real Reason Why Donald Trump Will Never Be President