October came and went without any surprises although some might argue the Trump rally at Madison Square Garden counts as one. At a minimum, it was a dud and not helpful to him. Whatever message he was hoping to amplify against Harris or for himself got drowned out by the bigoted comments made by speakers there. Personally, I don’t consider that a surprise. Who is surprised by speakers at a Trump rally saying awful things? Maybe the real October surprise was the friends we made along the way.
The presidential race remains as it was last week and has been since August. In the seven swing states, both candidates are a normal polling error away from winning/losing all of them convincingly. No matter what happens on Tuesday, we shouldn’t be surprised by the outcome.
If the polls are accurate, there are many possibilities for how things could unfold. One candidate could win/lose anything from all to none of the swing states. Either could win by a healthy margin or a whisker, but we won’t know until the votes are in.
This late in the campaign, looking at polls is of limited use. Polls of the swing states have been herding like crazy this cycle. In English, that means they’re almost all showing more or less the same result. It’s happened before, but I don’t think it’s happened in a presidential election.
This piece by Nate Silver explains what might be going on for those who want to dive into the weeds. The quick story is some pollsters might be hiding some of their own data to avoid being the odd ones out. The last two cycles saw polls understate support for Trump and pollsters are scarred by that. This piece by Nate Cohn explains the changes pollsters have made since 2020 to try to fix things and lays out the case for and against their succeeding at it.
I have no idea whether pollsters have fixed their past mistakes, but I really hope they have. Aside from elections, polling is the best way to measure public opinion and get a feel for where things are. There is no better non-election alternative to polling that I can think of. If it’s no longer reliable, we’re all going to be flying blind.
I have a lot of sympathy for those conducting polls. It’s never been easy to do and has become much harder over the years as response rates have fallen substantially. It can be a thankless job, too. If a pollster gets an election call right, nobody cares, but if they get it wrong, everyone remembers it. That’s why they’re herding. If they all produce the same result and it’s wrong, then none of them can be singled out for vilification since they all made the same error.
With the polls being what they are, we should all have a wide imagination about what could happen on Tuesday. The polls could underestimate Trump like in 2016 and 2020. That possibility has been the subject of plenty of discussions and understandably so. There is another possibility, though, that has gotten very little attention and that is polls underestimating Harris. It could be that in their efforts to fix past mistakes, pollsters go in the opposite direction and wind up overestimating Trump. I’m not predicting that will happen, but we shouldn’t be surprised if it does.
As for congressional races, Democrats may have somewhat of an edge in the House. Their candidates are better funded and they have more opportunities to gain seats. That edge is slight and so it shouldn’t be a surprise if they come up short or do even better.
As for the Senate, Republicans have a big advantage because of how favorable the map is for them. They only need to gain two seats for a majority and already have West Virginia. Unfortunately, Jon Tester is probably not going to make it this cycle. He’s won three tough races, but ticket splitting has declined a lot since he was last on the ballot in a presidential election. Montana has always been a red state presidentially, but has elected Democrats downballot. The problem is that required high levels of ticket splitting that have been almost non-existent since 2016. He could pull a rabbit out of a hat and win, but it’s less likely than not.
In Ohio, Sherrod Brown is running a good race and has a weak opponent. He’s won three times statewide, too. His biggest problem is Ohio has moved rightward and ticket splitting has declined. He certainly has a chance and will do better than Harris, but he needs to do at least a few points better. We’ll see if he can pull it off.
In the other seats Democrats are defending, their candidates are ahead albeit by a small amount in most places. Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Nevada all have incumbents running who know their states well, have plenty of money and are running good races. My guess is how well they do depends heavily on how the presidential race goes. I would rather be them than their challengers, but that’s hardly a guarantee of victory. In Arizona, Ruben Gallego will almost certainly win. He’s run a good race and his opponent is Kari Lake. In Michigan, Elissa Slotkin is ahead and favored, but not insurmountably so.
Offensively, the only opportunities Democrats have are Texas and Florida. The latter is likely too far gone, but the former is possible if unlikely. Colin Allred has raised plenty of money and is a strong candidate. He’s won two tough races before. The biggest problem he has is Texas hasn’t elected a Democrat statewide since 1994. National Democratic Party groups have barely spent any money here in decades. Some Democratic Super PACs have spent money on Allred’s behalf, but not nearly as much as they should have.
One thing Allred has going for him is his opponent is Ted Cruz. That alone makes it easy to raise money. I don’t expect him to win, but if he does it won’t be the biggest upset in history.
If the Senate map was more favorable, Democrats would have a much better chance of keeping it. It’s nothing short of miraculous that they control the Senate now. They gained it back by winning the runoffs in Georgia in 2021 and their candidates drew the most toxic opponents imaginable in 2022. I hope Chuck Schumer sent Trump the nicest thank you note ever written.
What to conclude if Trump/Harris loses
Before going any further, let’s stop to recognize how insane it is that the presidential race is close at all. It should be a wipeout. You could even argue it’s one of the most winnable races of all time. It’s a big indictment of one of our two parties that they aren’t running away with it. I’m talking about the Republican Party.
The question of why the race is close, as I have written about before, is almost always framed around why Democrats aren’t crushing Republicans. As I have explained, that is the wrong question to ask. Many pundits, columnists, commentators and others who hold themselves out as being knowledgeable about elections have been asking the wrong question for over a year.
To think there are all these people out there getting paid big bucks to do that while here I am asking the right question and doing it for free! That’s why you should read my blog and recommend it to others. You’ll get better electoral analysis here than you will from 99% of those who do it for a living. No, I’m not delusional enough to think I’m the only one asking the right question. Examples of others doing it can be found here, here, here, and here.
Asking the right question is a great way to tell those who know what they’re talking about and should be listened to from those who don’t know what they’re talking about and should be ignored. The right question is to ask why Republicans aren’t crushing Democrats. You can’t look at our election in isolation. You have to look at how incumbent parties/coalitions in other democratic countries are doing. The answer is they’re almost all very unpopular and losing.
The biggest anchor weighing down Harris’ prospects by far is inflation. It has come down to a manageable level, but the overall price level is higher than it was a short while ago. Inflation has been a global issue. I’m not aware of a single country where it hasn’t happened. Voters being mad about inflation is not a uniquely American thing, far from it.
Since 2021, the following countries have had elections where the incumbent party/coalition has either been voted out or weakened: Australia, New Zealand, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Italy, UK, France, Germany, South Africa, India and Japan. Canada will soon join their ranks. Those are just the countries I can think of off the top of my head. Incumbent parties/coalitions have done poorly regardless of their ideological orientation.
One big exception to incumbent parties/coalitions doing poorly is the US. The midterms should have been a banner year for Republicans. Inflation was at 8% and concerns about crime and immigration were high. Biden’s approval rating was in the low 40s, lower than Clinton’s in 1994 and Obama’s in 2010 when Democrats got crushed. Democrats didn’t get crushed. They had the best midterm the party in the White House has had since 1934. How did it happen?
The biggest factor by far was Republicans shooting themselves in the foot. Abortion became a major issue after Roe v Wade was reversed and Republican candidates in key races advocated for draconian bans. Not only that, but their candidates almost always denied the validity of the 2020 election. Absent abortion and election denial being issues and Republicans being on the wrong side of both, the midterms would have been a red wave.
Fast forward to today and Republicans have nominated Trump again. It’s possible things will be different on Tuesday. Presidential elections have much higher turnout than all other elections. Abortion and election denial could be less salient than they were in 2022, but if Harris wins, those issues will be some of the biggest reasons.
Beyond those issues, let’s not forget how awful a candidate Trump is. His behavior doesn’t sink him like it would anyone else, but he pays a big price for it. Plenty of voters are tired of him and that, too, will likely be a big explanation if he loses. His behavior has alienated many college educated whites in suburban areas who are high propensity voters. Areas that used to be solidly red are now either purple or blue because the Republican Party became the Trump party. Virginia and Colorado were swing states as recently as 2016, but aren’t competitive now.
The flipside is Trump has brought in many new voters to the Republican side. States like Ohio, Iowa and Florida are not competitive this cycle. Large parts of the country that used to be blue are now red or purple. He has made inroads among working-class voters of all groups.
It’s cliché to say it all comes down to turnout, but it’s true, especially on Tuesday. If Trump wins, a big part of it will be that he convinced a large number of low propensity voters to show up. The groups he has made inroads with the most tend to be unreliable voters. If Harris wins, part of it will be because she has more reliable voters on her side.
If Harris loses, the biggest explanation by far will be inflation. That is what has brought down incumbents all over the world. If Harris loses and Democrats elsewhere lose, it will be gravity catching up to them. That’s very unsatisfactory for those with hot takes because inflation doesn’t neatly fit into anyone’s particular narrative or pet issue. It’s not a left/right issue and is not something that can tied to culture war fights. Sorry culture warriors, but inflation isn’t caused by transgender athletes and campus protesters.
There will be plenty of hot takes about Harris losing because of someone’s pet issue and they will all be garbage. No, if Harris loses, it won’t be because she didn’t rail against wokeness. Other than inflation, the biggest problem for her is immigration. If someone trying to explain her loss leads with anything other than inflation followed by immigration, they’re doing it very wrong and shouldn’t be paid attention to.
Another hot take you’ll hear if Harris loses, especially if she loses Pennsylvania, is that she should have picked Josh Shapiro as her running mate. I wrote about her running mate selection over the summer so feel free to check it out for more detail. Repeat after me: Nobody. Votes. For. Vice. President. If the only reason a presidential candidate would pick someone for VP is because of electoral considerations, they shouldn’t be picked.
All in all, I think Harris has run a great campaign. She’s made mistakes as everyone does, but almost all of her big decisions have been good. She’s raised a crazy amount of money in a very short time and substantially boosted her favorable rating. She had a great convention, killed it in the debate and has largely done well in interviews and on the campaign trail. She’s turned out to be a much better candidate than almost everyone thought she would be and has made the best of the messy situation she inherited. If she comes up short, very little of it will have anything to do with her.
What I think will happen
I hate making predictions. I’m hesitant to do it about much of anything. I don’t have a crystal ball or any inside information. Creating models and making forecasts based on them is something I have never done and wouldn’t know the first thing about how to do it. The only thing I have is my gut instinct, which is worthless for predicting election results. I’m also heavily biased, as any reader of this blog can tell, and that will likely impact what I predict.
With that out of the way, I’m going to make a prediction. It’s based entirely on my gut instinct so don’t take it seriously at all. I think Harris will win. By how much, I don’t know and am not going to predict how any specific states go. I just think, when all the votes are counted, she will make it to at least 270 electoral votes.
Ideally, she would win all seven swing states in a landslide, pull off an upset in Texas, Iowa and Ohio while making big inroads in some previously reliably red states. That’s probably not going to happen, but one can always dream. The funniest outcome would be if Trump wins the popular vote, but loses in the electoral college. No matter how much Harris wins by, Trump will say it was stolen. He’s already telegraphing it.
That’s part of why my gut says Harris will win. I just don’t think the country is going to put in office an aspiring dictator who tried to overturn the last election. I think what he did on and leading up to January 6 (plus abortion) is going to be disqualifying in the minds of enough voters that it will make the difference.
One reason why I think that is the Harris coalition is made up in part of former Republicans and Republican-leaners who are high propensity voters. Trump has to work overtime to get his supporters to show up while Harris doesn’t need to. That’s a very different set up from how things were a decade ago.
Because of that advantage, she has been focusing her time on appealing to the Liz Cheneys and Adam Kinzingers of the world. I think that will pay off in the end. Harris has her party’s base in her corner and so she has spent time courting those who are not loyal Democrats, many of whom were reliable Republicans until recently. Abortion has been a huge issue in convincing those voters to pull the lever for Democrats.
Part of why I say she has run a good campaign is she has moved away from the left both rhetorically and substantively. She’s gone out of her way to reach out to Republicans and talked about being a president for everyone. On substance, her platform is fairly modest and her emphasis has been on the need to build things, especially housing. There is no talk of being transformational. The kinds of Republicans who have been alienated by Trump are some of the target audience for that message.
Beyond her campaign and substantive issues, I just don’t see the country embarking on a potentially suicidal experiment. As I wrote about last week, a second Trump term will be nothing like the first. There will be nobody to hold him back from acting on his worst ideas. In a second term, Trump himself will do little of the work. It will be mid and lower level hires picked as part of Project 2025 who will run the show. Between Trump’s old age and indifference to policy, we’re likely going to have de facto President Vance, who is even worse.
Vance and the Project 2025 hires will try to turn the executive branch into a vehicle for enacting their fantasies. That includes everything from firing a good chunk of the federal workforce and replacing them with MAGA toadies to banning abortion nationally. For Trump, a second term will be all about revenge and using the Justice Department as his own personal terror force. I just don’t think the country is going to do that. I think there are enough people out there who, while they aren’t political junkies, know in their gut that Trump is dangerous and can’t be put in charge again.
Believe it or not, 2016 actually makes me more convinced Harris will win. I thought then that there were enough people repelled by Trump’s behavior to keep him away from the White House. That was wrong, but just barely. Had it not been for James Comey’s intervention, I doubt he would have won given how close it was in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. This time around, there is no equivalent of the Comey letter. Harris has not imploded and at this point it’s not going to happen. If the election is as close as it was in 2016, she should be favored.
I think there are undecided voters out there who are just now tuning in, saw that Harris hasn’t fallen apart and are more receptive to her by virtue of that. It may also be the case that the rally at MSG has broken through to normal people. For those who are just now starting to pay attention, if what they hear about Trump is people making racist remarks on his behalf, it’s not likely to endear them to him.
Part of the promise of Harris has been moving on from Trump. I wrote recently that I think he’ll run again in 2028 if he loses, but that’s just a guess. He says he won’t and I don’t believe it, but who knows? His condition was overshadowed by Biden’s much worse condition, but he’s declined a lot. By 2028, he’ll be 82 and likely in much worse shape than he is today.
I think there are a significant number of swing voters who are exhausted and want to move on from Trump. The promise of not having to hear his name again is likely a big selling point. He has been a ubiquitous presence for 9 years now and many just want it to be over.
All that is just a guess. I could easily be wrong. I just think there are enough people out there in key states who will vote for Harris to get her to 270+ electoral votes. This country has been running a good and highly successful experiment for over 200 years. I have a hard time seeing us knowingly and willingly risking throwing it all away, especially at a time when unemployment is at 4%, inflation is under control and crime is plummeting.