It’s time for us to lay down our markers. What will happen in the presidential, House, and Senate races?
At Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball, J. Miles Coleman and Kyle Kondik opine:
With decision time getting tantalizingly close for the presidential election, the seven states that we rate as Toss-ups have dominated political discourse—and our own internal thinking—to a perhaps unhealthy degree.
Wednesday night, David Plouffe, a veteran Obama strategist who is now advising the Harris campaign, said that all 7 Toss-up states are on track to be decided by a percentage point or less. At this point, we’d truly not be surprised if Plouffe’s prediction comes to pass. However, we did want to look back through history to see how common it was to have so many states decided by such narrow margins.
What’s going to happen?
I genuinely have no idea what the outcome of the election will be but I don’t expect either presidential candidate to run away with it. My gut level tells me that Kamala Harris will win but will have next to zero coattails and the Republicans will hold the House and gain a narrow majority in the Senate.
Trump wins. We will now by Thursday at the latest. GOP takes a one seat majority in senate. They will pass tax cuts and likely at least some of the tariffs Trump wants. I expect some showy theatrical stuff that wont make a difference like passing laws saying oil companies can drill more (when oil companies mostly decide based open their own supply/demand curves). I would expect extensive use of executive action. Sounds like Trump will abort funding for the CHIPS Act and basically try to cut funding for anything passed by Biden.
The talk about health care has been worrisome. We have had, since the ACA was passed, the longest stretch of time with health care spending not exceeding inflation in the Medicare era. So a lot more people have insurance, it’s mostly better insurance for those who have new insurance and spending has been under control. Have to hope they dont make it worse which seems likely given that health care costs have grown fastest when the GOP holds the POTUS office.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/184968/us-health-expenditure-as-percent-of-gdp-since-1960/
Steve
That comparison makes me queasy. When healthcare was 5% of the economy the statement might have meant something. But healthcare is now 17% of the economy. The comparison that interests me is between healthcare inflation and non-healthcare inflation.
Nate Silver has Trump at a 50.4% win probability, so that’s my prediction with all the confidence that number implies. 538 predicts a two seat majority in the Senate for Republicans, which would be the product of a 56% win probability of the Republican winning Ohio. 538 predicts a one seat Republican majority in the House, which would be pretty much ungovernable. Anyway I’m predicting a Republican trifecta with very little confidence.
I certainly have no idea, and don’t trust the polls for a host of reasons. I have previously said the internal polls are the ones that matter, but we don’t get to see them. So you have to read tea leaves of candidate’s actions as indicators of what the internal polls say.
On that point, Harris’ actions look like they might think N Carolina is in play. Surprisingly, WI not so much (for Harris). I find that odd. MI toss-up. AZ and NV and PA good for Trump. GA problematic. (Although I’m here, and it appears non-Atlanta voting for Trump is outsized. But Atlanta is as corrupt as Chicago)
What’s it all mean? I dunno. And then we have the observation that Trump traditionally underpolls. If the magnitude of that is to be believed (as I have read) he gets to 300. Is early R voting cannibalizing election day voting? I dunno. How many taxis have boxes of ballots sitting in the trunk? I dunno.
What I do know is that I stocked up on popcorn and Diet Coke…………
For the record, I did not vote for president. I’m sure some think I am a big Trump supporter. No. I like a lot of his policies, but I’m not a big fan.
But wow, Kamala Harris? Have people lost their minds? She’s vacuous, dishonest to the core and scary to think of as a Pres.
First prediction, I will take the under that 7 states will be decided by 1 percentage or less. Purely based on history, 2016 had 4 states with a margin under 1%, 2020 had 3, 2020 had 5, 1976 had 4, 1968 had 0, 1960 had 6, 1948 had 5.
Second note, most of the data to base predictions are “poll derived”, whether its polls, polling averages or models based on polls — are showing 50/50. But Nate Cohn used some statistics to show it is mathematically impossible (like 1 in 2 trillion) for sampling as mathematically defined to show the lack of dispersion like this year. So the polls aren’t statistical samples, and all outputs that use polls (averages, models) are suspect since they rely on their inputs being statistical samples.
So I like to go back to first principles; which is Joe Biden’s approval rating. It too is part of those “samples” — but his approval rating at 40% in the last 2 years seems remarkably constant no matter the population asked (adults, voters, likely voters). It was bad enough that Democrats forced Biden out; that is the ultimate context the election is running through.
It might not matter who wins. Harris and Walz are the most unqualified and stupidest people ever to run for P/VP. They will be easily controlled by the White House staff or whoever currently controls the “Biden” administration.
While Trump is more based than Harris/Walz, he also was easily controlled by his staff in his first term. The fact that Bolton/Pompeo publicly vetoed Trump’s agreement with Kim (thereby guaranteeing the Nork nuke threat for all time) tells all you have to know. The neocons will run him.
So, we’re really voting for factions within the Permanent (Deep) State. Harris/Walz probably means an expanded war in Ukraine, perhaps direct NATO intervention, while Trump probably means no war in Ukraine but an expanded war in West Asia. Netanyahu is suddenly in deep trouble on a security matter, so he needs a Trump win. I don’t think there’s enough time for AIPAC to organize a win for him, but with seven states in a dead heat, a stolen election would be easy to achieve.
No matter who wins, the ongoing deindustrialization of the US will continue, our military will continue to unravel, the wholesale invasion by Third World young men will continue and their gangs will become stronger, DEI will eviscerate ever larger sections of our economy, culture and education system, blah, blah blah.
Silver ran his last model last night and now Harris won 50.015% of the time, so I’m changing my prediction drastically to divided government.
Here’s another prediction. Overall turnout will be down this year nationwide. Basis, postal vote data coming from the West Coast states where postal votes are the main way to vote.
I agree with that prediction, CuriousOnlooker. For one thing there’s the yard sign indicator. Here in Chicago (where MOST are Democrats) there are VERY, FEW Harris-Walz and NO Trump-Vance yard signs.
We had very few Clinton or Biden signs, but I am seeing more Harris signs. There are fewer Trump signs than in 16 or 20 but there has been a surge in the number of signs in the last couple weeks. I have driven past our voting place twice and lines are as long as I have ever seen. Will try again later and take a book.
Of note, drove to dentist yesterday, pewee hour drive. Listened to sports talk radio (Eagles need a new coach). Almost every ad was a political one. All of the GOP ads were basically anti-trans ads.
Steve
I strongly disagree with the low turnout prediction but I think D turnout is very low (esp compared with 2020) and I think Trump is going to win decisively.
Lines in my red county have been historically long, and I’m hearing that from other red counties too. Early voting in GA broke records and overall in swing states the Dems didn’t get their usual firewall. The only way that leads to a D win is if R voting today is lower than usual (if the EV cannibalized the vote) but so far that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Agreed. Have thought all along it would be a turnout election. Polls dont really account well for that.
Steve
In terms of empirical analysis, I have no idea who will win. There isn’t enough quality information to make any kind of definitive judgment.
Based on intangibles and anecdata, there is a lot of evidence that goes both ways. If forced to choose a side, I’d give Harris the advantage.
Ironically, I think if the GoP had nominated a normal candidate like Halley, they’d be rolling Harris. And if the Democrats had a more traditional process with a candidate who broke with the unpopularity of the Biden administration (who is just as unpopular as Trump overall), then the Democrats would probably be rolling Trump. We continue to be blessed with weak parties who support unpopular positions and are unable to muster a decisive winning coalition, an unusual condition in American history.
Agreed. I wonder whether people understand how unusual the present situation is?
It makes complete sense if you assume that the higher priority for both sides is not alienating their core voters, probably 10% or fewer for each.
Andy and Dave- sorry guys but the 90s called and they want their polical analysis back 😉
Haley is a candidate for the Bush / Romney, conservative middle, middle-upper class constituency; unfortunately a significant chunk of those voters in that demographic swung hard towards Democrats starting from the 2nd Bush administration. If she was the nominee, she arguably would do worse then Trump, since she would lose a big chunk of the blue collar, working class without gaining enough of the middle upper class.
In some ways, I don’t think its appreciated Trump is a very tough candidate to strategize against this year. He is so well defined already that even several hundred million dollars of negative advertising couldn’t really drive his negatives up to matter (since he had been typecast as a fascist / racist for a decade already). That Trump had an actual governance record that compared well to the Biden administration also made it hard to compete on policy.
Well, that was unexpected – for me at least. Clearly I need to do some recalibration.