Fox News anchor Bret Baier provided a big update on Tuesday about his highly-anticipated interview with Vice President Kamala Harris.
Speaking on “Varney and Co.” on the Fox Business Network, Baier revealed that Harris’ “handlers” placed some restrictions on a few things for the interview, which is set to air on Wednesday.
“Bret Baier, congratulations. I bet everyone has been telling you which questions to ask, am I right?” Varney joked.
“Just a few. I’ve been trying to stay off social media. It is pretty amazing how engaged people are but I asked for questions and there have been some great ones. @bret baer, x, Instagram, Facebook. There have been some great ones,” Baier said.
“We have roughly 30 minutes. I was waiting to hear what the timing would be on commercial breaks, uninterrupted, straight through the whole interview, nothing left off, and then take a commercial break and come back with the panel,” he added.
“I assume I will get to a lot of questions. If you had to guess, it’s the issues people tell pollsters are most important that will factor high,” Baier said.
For the first time, a noted election prediction model has shifted to “lean” toward former President Donald Trump after weeks of indicating that the race was a “toss-up.”
The change results from a series of new polling data suggesting that Vice President Kamala Harris’s national lead has diminished or vanished entirely.
Additionally, multiple swing states now show the former president holding a narrow lead in most of the battlegrounds that will ultimately determine the outcome of the next election, the UK’s DailyMail.com reported.
The outlet teamed with J.L. Partners to create an election model that now gives Trump a nearly 63 percent chance of winning.
“When those numbers are fed into our exclusive prediction model, it shows that Trump would claim the overall win in 62.4 percent of our simulations. At the end of last week, he was at 59.8 percent. The new numbers suggest the momentum is with him rather than the vice president, and it shifts the overall result from ‘toss-up’ to ‘lean Trump,’” the outlet reported.
“Even so, with Harris having nearly a 40 percent chance of victory, the election could still be one of the closest in history. With three weeks left of campaigning, there is everything to fight for. Callum Hunter, a data scientist at J.L. Partners, noted that key polls include New York Times surveys showing Trump with a five- to six-point lead in Arizona while Harris holds a three- to four-point lead in Pennsylvania. Additionally, a Redfield and Wilton poll indicates Trump has a two-point lead in Pennsylvania,” the outlet reported.
“The race continues to move in Trump’s favor despite a New York Times poll giving Harris the edge in Pennsylvania,” Hunter wrote in his latest briefing memo. “This poll was balanced out by a poll from R&W and the underlying national shift against Harris. It is important to remember that this model uses correlations as well as national vote shares to obtain each state’s average. This means that every state poll affects every other state – so a single poll that is good for Harris is not necessarily going to push things in that state in her favor.
“The model looks at the WHOLE picture of the country, not single spot polls. The trend is continuing in Trump’s favor and has shown little sign of changing since it began at the end of September. Momentum is building, and with just over three weeks left, Harris might not have the force to reverse the direction of voters,” he added.
Harris entered the race in July when President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign. She enjoyed weeks of positive headlines and record-breaking fundraising.
However, a recent bump in the polls has gradually unraveled, and the election model has reflected a reversal in fortunes, with Trump overtaking Harris in recent weeks.
Overall, the most likely outcome remains unchanged from Friday, with Trump projected to secure 312 Electoral College votes compared to Harris’s 226.
With 538 votes up for grabs, the magic number for victory is 270; the shifting dynamics also diminish the likelihood that Pennsylvania—which, according to the latest J.L. Partners poll, shows the two candidates in a dead heat at 47 percent each—will be the deciding state.
Nevada, for example, has moved towards Trump by 3.1 points this week and he is now predicted to win it in 60.5 percent of our simulation. That means it has moved from ‘toss-up’ to ‘lean Trump.
In Arizona, Trump’s win probability has increased by a further 2.6 points, keeping it firmly in the ‘likely Trump’ column.
