Nate Silver says Biden should step down and let Harris become president before November

Nate Silver, political pollster and founder of FiveThirtyEight, called for President Joe Biden to hand the presidency over to Vice President Kamala Harris before the November election after his defiant and first post-debate television interview Friday.

In his sit-down with George Stephanopoulos, Biden said only "the Lord Almighty" could convince him to drop out despite a growing number of calls from within his party to step aside. When Stephanopoulos asked Biden about polls showing his low approval ratings and poor chances of beating former President Donald Trump this fall, Biden said he did not believe they were accurate. Polls are not always precise and trust in their reliability has decreased in recent elections, but Silver took to social media to fact check Biden's comments about a New York Times poll.

"The New York Times had me down 10 points before the debate, 9 now, whatever the hell it is," Biden said adding that his opponent "also lied 28 times" during the showdown.

Silver posted a clip of the Biden's remarks to social media and called it a "pretty incoherent answer," adding that the Times had him down three or four points before the debate. Trump now leads Biden by six points, according to the Times-Siena College poll.

On Friday ahead of the interview airing, Silver wrote a column skeptical about Biden's chances of winning but didn't go so far as to call for him to end his bid for the White House. After watching Biden's appearance on ABC News, he changed his mind.

"I wimped out in today's column and deleted a line saying he should formulate a plan to transition the presidency to Harris within 30-60 days, but I'm there now. Something is clearly wrong here," Silver said in a follow-up post on X, formerly Twitter. "The most generous way to put it is that he doesn't seem in command, and that's an extremely hard sell when you're Commander in Chief."

Rachel Barber is a 2024 election fellow at USA TODAY, focusing on politics and education. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, at @rachelbarber_

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Nate Silver says Biden should make way for Harris after ABC interview