Does a weak debate performance lower an incumbent's election forecast?
Core argument: Joe Biden's win probability in the Silver Bulletin 2024 presidential forecast has fallen to 28% from 35% on debate night.
Last update: 6:40 p.m, Monday, July 1: We’ve got a string of polls in late this afternoon, they’re mostly poor for Joe Biden, and they’re beginning to have a bigger impact on the model. Trump now leads by 2.7 points in our national average. And Biden’s win probability has dropped to 28% from 35% on debate night. Our guess is that more likely than not, there’s some further decline ahead: the model is trying to figure out whether this is random noise, but instead it’s almost certainly caused by a challenging first debate for Biden. It’s not great news for the president.

