Soothsayer Nate Silver Predicts Hillary Clinton's Chances of Beating Donald Trump in Oregon

They are good. Very good.

By Ben Stone

Oregon is Hillary Territory. At least that's what soothsayer Nate Silver says.

Silver is the powerhouse statistician and writer who accurately predicted 49 state outcomes in the 2008 presidential election. He's had a rougher go of it this year—his ESPN-owned website FiveThirtyEight predicted again and again that Donald Trump would fade out of presidential contention.

Today he returned with new numbers: forecasts of the November presidential race. Those numbers look good for presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.

FiveThirtyEight projects Clinton has a 74-percent chance of winning the national election. Closer to your home: Clinton has an 85.5 percent shot of beating Donald Trump in Oregon this November.

Trump's chance of winning Oregon? Just 14.1 percent.

Understand: Silver isn't saying Clinton will win 85 percent of the vote. Instead, he's predicting the likelihood that Clinton will win 50 percent of the Oregon vote, plus one.

FiveThirtyEight's "polls-only" forecast relies only on polls, while the "polls-plus" forecast, which has a better outlook for Trump in Oregon and nationally, mixes polling information, current economic data and historical data.

Two polls comprise Oregon's forecast: a Davis, Hibbitts & Midghall, Inc. poll taken May 6-9 and a Clout Research/Wenzel Strategies poll taken May 10-13.

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