With The Conversation keeping this site’s regular US correspondent busy, a quick post of my own on the US election campaign, and a forum for the discussion thereof. The big news from my perspective is that, after all the noteworthy forecasters closed for refurbishment following Joe Biden’s withdrawal, Nate Silver has lifted the lid on his Harris-versus-Trump model.
The model launches with a 61.3% win probability for Trump and 38.1% for Harris, the balance presumably reflecting the possibility that one candidate or the other doesn’t survive until November. These numbers suggest a model with a judiciously wide zone of uncertainty around projections that superficially look very encouraging for Trump. Silver’s model records an essentially dead head on the national popular vote, and doesn’t credit Harris with a better than even chance unless she lands at least two points clear. State-level projections find Trump more likely than not to flip Wisconsin (just), Michigan and Pennsylvania (a little further ahead), Nevada (a little further again) and Arizona and Georgia (both about as strong for Trump as North Carolina, which he carried in 2020).
The Economist’s model is still on ice, but its page explaining its methodology is well worth reading. Its charts comparing the predictiveness of its poll-based and “fundamentals” models going back to 1948 are particularly interesting in finding that the latter have the superior record – certainly at predicting the result 150 days out, but even unto election day itself. However, one of its parameters does not seem to me to be quite as fundamental as all that, being a poll-based measure of presidential approval.
The question of polls-versus-fundamentals was the focus of a critique by Nate Silver of the new model developed by FiveThirtyEight, the enterprise formerly synonymous with Silver but now bought out, LucasFilm style, by Disney. Its new incarnation is overseen by G. Elliott Morris, of whom Silver says he is “not a fan”. This was producing remarkably bullish results for Biden up until it was put on ice, which evidently wasn’t persuading too many senior Democrats. As well as criticising a lack of transparency, Silver observes that the model seems to be overwhelmingly favouring fundamentals, despite its supporting data suggesting that fundamentals should in fact be viewed as less predictive than polls. Its thesis, Silver argues, is that – as of July 21 – “Joe Biden is a reasonably clear favorite to win the popular vote because he’s an incumbent, and it’s too early to really update that assumption based on the polling or anything else”.
Can we please keep this thread for discussion of US politics. The open thread for general discussion is here.
For what it is worth, Allan Lichtman says Harris has 6 of the 13 keys to the white house and Trump has 3.
The remaining keys include the third-party factor, which Lichtman says is notable given independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s place in the race.
Keys are also still in the air for having “no social unrest,” as well as “foreign military failure” and “foreign military success”.
The “keys” are as follows:
party mandate
contest
incumbency
third party
short-term economy
long-term economy
policy change
social unrest
scandal
foreign/military failure
foreign/military success
incumbent charisma
challenger charisma
Well, this is a little disheartening.
But the whole point of switching from Biden to Harris was to install a candidate who could campaign strongly. And she’s only just gotten started.
She was always going to face challenges. Biden’s big advantage was that he was widely seen as a safe pair of hands. Unfortunately, he lost that advantage overnight when his debate performance demonstrated clearly that his mental acuity was on the wane.
Kamala is a bit of an unknown quantity for most voters. And, notwithstanding all the complaining from journalists and the disingenuous “no you shouldn’t say that” comments from some Republicans, the “DEI candidate” slur bites because voters so far have a limited understanding of what Harris has achieved and what policies she stands for.
On the other hand, Trump’s message might sound like a lot of demented murmurings to the likes of Boerwar, but it continues to come through very clearly to a very large group of voters. It’s paradoxical, because Trump is almost certainly the most self-centred person ever to run for the Presidency, but the message these voters get from Trump is “I care about you, while those Democrat ‘elites’ only care about helping their own niche constituencies: ‘minorities’, LGBTQ+ people, the yuppies of the east and west coasts, environmentalists, university graduates with large debts from tuition fees and etc.”
Worst of all, a high proportion of these voters know that Trump is a totally insincere grifter. But that doesn’t matter to them because he keeps sending them the message that they want to hear.
These Trump-friendly voters do not constitute a majority of the electorate, and Harris and the Dem leadership seem to believe that they can counter it by ensuring high turnouts of core Dem constituencies and persuading a slab of voters in the middle that Trump – and, moreoever, Vance (if he doesn’t get dumped from the ticket) that the prospect of a second Trump term is too scary to be tolerated in terms of foreign policy, abortion, tariff policy, etc.
But I’m starting to wonder if this strategy is going to be enough. It was a good strategy with Biden because, as I said earlier, he was seen as a safe pair of hands. Kamala does not have that sort of an image. Perhaps it will be necessary for her to come up with a message about doing something new and positive for middle America. And her VP choice could play a major role in selling such a message. I think it probably has to be something about educational opportunities for middle America’s children. Something to counteract the widespread perception that the top tertiary institutions in America are now doing as much as they can to keep white kids from ordinary backgrounds out of their ivy-covered gates.
Poor take.
Just a few hours ago, Kamala has polled ahead of Trump in several national polls and leads by 4 in a new Pennsylvania poll.
Several pollsters have also recorded significant jumps to her approval rating (net +1-4).
Josh Shapiro is definitely a person – a bit confected as a politician – but definitely a person. It is pretty weird for a grown adult to copy someone else’s public speaking voice instead of developing their own style.
No it’s not humans mimic success all the time, it’s how they become …. successful.
The campaign position, Trump’s team is just weird, seems to be doing well.
Consider the last 7 weeks:
– Trump convicted on 34 felony charges
– Biden’s disastrous debate performance that questions his mental acuity
– SCOTUS presidential immunity ruling
– 3 weeks of Dem infighting and angst about Biden’s mental acuity
– Trump assassination attempt
– RNC and JD Vance pick as Trump’s running mate
– Republicans and many others believe Trump will be the next president
– Biden withdraws his candidacy for president and endorses Harris for president
– Fastest ever coalescing of Democrats behind Harris
– Polls are moving in the right direction for Harris
Biden stepped aside 9 days ago.
The ABC has a shallow (with pictures) review of the current VP picks. Even so, I found this bit interesting about Kelly.
Kelly as the Harris VP pick would allow the Party of T**** to double down on the hot topic of border protection and immigration, and at the same time cast doubt about his loyalty to Harris. (A bit like Pence and T****.)
Chipping away…
… and anyone interested in the previous USPOL thread, it’s here.
I think the first blush of success for the Harris campaign now needs to be tempered by the hard facts derived by the polling. The Democrats have given them self a chance, which is streets ahead of the no chance they had just over a week ago.
From this point onwards the hard slog of campaigning begins. Inch by inch the Dems might peg back Trump’s earlier lead, but everyone should temper their expectations henceforth. Reading this blog you’d think Harris has it in the bag, she does not. But let’s hope she gets across the line.
Momentum still with Harris with numbers improving. Hitting +2 in a couple of polls now. The questions are how far and how long of course.
While it is obvious that Trump’s messaging to his base is heard by his base, it is not Trump’s base that will decide the election. They are not going to go away because their chap shows increasing signs of dementia: phonemic aphasia, disconnected sentences, non sequiturs, lunatic policy brainfarts, silences, falling asleep in a courtroom in a trial, weird silences during his rally speeches and his lies.
They will put up with all of that. They will put up with his dictatorial intentions. They will do all of that because he will deliver them low taxes and control over women’s reproductive systems and a massive assault on people of colour.
But it is not this base that will decide the election outcome.
Nor is it the Dem base that will decide the election.
The people who will decide the election are those who decide to turn out as well as those who are capable of changing their minds.
This is why Trump’s dementia, malignant narcissism, sadism and paranoia do matter.
I noticed somewhere the other day that the MSM is not sated by its success with Biden. It has turned on Trump and is now giving Trump the Biden treatment. IMO, this is totally pathetic.
But at least people are starting to be shown Trump for what he is: a demented and malignant narcissist. A bone spur gutless coward. A sadist. A paranoid. A misogynist. A racist. A criminal. A cheat.
A weirdo.
And don’t ever, ever forget: Dutton@Trump. A third of Dutton’s Australian base are Trumpists.
Absolutely predictably the Greens are going to spend more time sticking it to Harris than to Trump after having spent more time sticking it to Biden than to Trump.
Same same in Australia. The Greens spend far more time sticking it Albanese than to Dutton.
Bandt thinks this is clever politics. The reality? Bandt is Dutton’s Toolie.
Is the rate of change in momentum such that the commentators discussed in the preamble of this string have been caught with their pants down?
I’d like the PB major domo to consider Nate Cohn and Harry Enten’s psephological analysis as well as Nate Silver’s. I believe they have just as much insight and ability as Nate Silver.
Boerwar @ #17 Wednesday, July 31st, 2024 – 8:31 am
No I dont think so, I’d see it as a curve that will now trend towards being flatter. That short sharp spike in support was bring the Dems back to the norm.
“WASHINGTON—The Heritage Foundation official who leads Project 2025, the conservative road map for the next Republican administration, is stepping down after former President Donald Trump and his aides publicly criticized the group”
https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/project-2025-head-steps-down-89cba52b?st=bxun30sykagtmwq&reflink=article_copyURL_share
This is my surprised face that it didn’t make it into the morning roundup.
Thought you guys would like it.
And ever, ever forget: Dutton@Trump. A third of Dutton’s base are Trumpists.
Actually, it would be more. That one third was across all voters but would be concentrated in the Liberal base, the Hansonites and the Palmists. If we allow 8% for the latter two and other fringe Right, maybe a few percent from Labor, none from the Greens and Teals, that would leave the other 22% among the 38% who vote Coalition, i.e nearly 60%. It would be higher in the Coalition base.
Worth looking into the detail of that Morning Consult poll fess just posted. I had wrongly assumed the swing states the headline referred to were just the rust belt blue wall. But no, it also includes Arizona, Georgia and NC. This is the poll breakdown without the need to sign up in the previous link….
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4801445-vice-president-harris-trump-battleground-states-poll/amp/
PA seems a state that throws up wildly different poll results – the poll has Trump still well ahead there but another poll today (also posted above/below) has Harris well ahead.
And… some more good generic party vote polling today too.
It’s often easy for some of us to forget that a big part of campaigning in a country where voting is optional is just in getting people off of their arses. My suspicion, based on not much more than anecdotal reports, is that this is exactly what Biden stepping aside has done. It will certainly firm up the democrat-voting public and have an effect on the self-proclaimed undecideds.
I don’t think there is as yet enough depth in the post-Biden polling to capture that effect in any conclusive way.
There’s no way I think Kamala Harris ‘has it in the bag’. She simply isn’t a beneficiary of the media architecture that Trump is which is able to send out messages constantly and guide people’s thinking.
Also I note that Trump and his campaign will get down and dirty, and they and the tech bros like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel who are seeking to take over America via their chosen one, JD Vance, will promote all manner of disgusting material about Kamala Harris, most of it untrue. But what do they care? They just want virtually non-existent taxes and the obscene amounts of wealth for themselves that follows from that. Trump and Vance will deliver that for them and Kamala Harris won’t. So, it’s Game On! Fortunately I believe Kamala Harris has secured a good campaign team around her.
Also, the VP Running Mate choice will be key. I hope her campaign gets it right. It’s worth those 2 points clear she needs to be at the end of the race to the White House.
autocrat says:
Wednesday, July 31, 2024 at 8:39 am
It’s often easy for some of us to forget that a big part of campaigning in a country where voting is optional is just in getting people off of their arses. My suspicion, based on not much more than anecdotal reports, is that this is exactly what Biden stepping aside has done. It will certainly firm up the democrat-voting public and have an effect on the self-proclaimed undecideds.
I don’t think there is as yet enough depth in the post-Biden polling to capture that effect in any conclusive way.
_________
This comes back to the question the other day. How accurate are the pollsters in identifying “Likely Voters”. Does the change to Harris make it more difficult?
Team Katich,
The Democrats really need to win down ballot as well, so generic polling which is favourable to them is a good sign. The Democratic Party needs to take the House and/or hold the Senate, especially if Trump gains the White House.
FUBAR @ #20 Wednesday, July 31st, 2024 – 8:36 am
It shows the Trump campaign is running away from Project 2025. Before the election. Though that doesn’t mean they have repudiated Project 2025 itself. Just found a sacrificial lamb.
Griff @ #25 Wednesday, July 31st, 2024 – 8:45 am
I assume they would self-identify.
Good to see rapid responses from the Harris campaign team:
(Raw Story)
I’ll also note for the record that the Harris campaign looks like it has outreach into the Muslim community via its spokesman, Ammar Moussa. Covering these bases sooner rather than later is a good thing.
Perhaps it will be necessary for her to come up with a message about doing something new and positive for middle America. And her VP choice could play a major role in selling such a message. I think it probably has to be something about educational opportunities for middle America’s children.
Could be a good reason to choose, former teacher and Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz. He could sell an education platform.
The Democrats will need to retain the Senate otherwise there will be annual threats of shutdown over the debt ceiling. They would also find it difficult to make any appointments requiring Senate conformation.
They’ll need both Houses to get legislation through in the face of bloody-minded Republicans who will believe that they were cheated out of the Presidency.
autocrat says:
Wednesday, July 31, 2024 at 8:51 am
Griff @ #25 Wednesday, July 31st, 2024 – 8:45 am
autocrat says:
Wednesday, July 31, 2024 at 8:39 am
It’s often easy for some of us to forget that a big part of campaigning in a country where voting is optional is just in getting people off of their arses. My suspicion, based on not much more than anecdotal reports, is that this is exactly what Biden stepping aside has done. It will certainly firm up the democrat-voting public and have an effect on the self-proclaimed undecideds.
I don’t think there is as yet enough depth in the post-Biden polling to capture that effect in any conclusive way.
_________
“This comes back to the question the other day. How accurate are the pollsters in identifying “Likely Voters”. Does the change to Harris make it more difficult?”
I assume they would self-identify.
________
Sometimes. They are asked a few questions and then it is adjusted. Here is the link to the Gallop method for determining Likely voters back in 2012: https://news.gallup.com/poll/111268/How-Gallups-likely-voter-models-work.aspx
But some pollsters attempt to model using a variety of statistical techniques: See https://www.pewresearch.org/methods/2016/01/07/measuring-the-likelihood-to-vote/
This is huge. Trump in a interview with Laura Ingram on Fox channel confirmed that Christians don’t have vote again if they vote for him this time and meherbaba appears to thing that Trump is fair dinkum(which is really unfortunate)
Trump digs deeper hole after vowing Christians ‘won’t have to vote’
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/7/30/2259293/-Trump-digs-deeper-hole-after-vowing-Christians-won-t-have-to-vote?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_5&pm_medium=web
“On Monday, Trump got the chance to sit down with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham and explain what he meant … and he made it so much worse.
In this interview, Trump made a lot of excuses. Once again he refused to debate Kamala Harris even though his previous excuse that Barack Obama had not yet endorsed her was no longer applicable. He once again demonstrated that he had no better line of attack on Harris than to complain about what he called her “crazy person” laugh.
Trump also tried to brush off JD Vance’s creepy focus on right-wing natalism in a way that doesn’t make it one bit less creepy.
Before giving Trump an opportunity to extract himself from the autocracy hole he dug at the “Believers Summit,” Ingraham primed Trump by saying that Democrats were attacking him for “ridiculous reasons.” Ridiculous reasons like repeating exactly what he said.
“They’re saying that you said to a crowd of Christians that they won’t have to vote in the future,” Ingraham said.
Trump first responded by claiming that Christians, and particularly Catholics were “persecuted” by the administration of Catholic Christian Joe Biden. Then he rambled into how any Jewish person voting for Harris—or “whoever is gonna run”—should “have their head examined.”
Finally, he got down to explaining his statement about Christians not voting.
“That statement is very simple,” Trump said. “I said vote for me, you’re not going to have to do it ever again. It’s true, because we have to get the vote out. Christians are not known as a big voting group.”
“This time vote. I’ll straighten out the country. You won’t have to vote anymore. I won’t need your vote. You can go back to not voting,” he added.
This does not make things better.
Ingraham was clearly frustrated by how she handed Trump a ladder and he only used it to dig the hole deeper. So she skipped right past allowing Trump to tell her what he meant and tried to get him to just repeat after her.
“You meant you won’t have to vote for you because you have four years in office,” Ingraham said. “Is that what you meant?”
Trump refused to pick up the lifeline and started talking about gun owners. So Ingraham broke out a full-sized life raft and paddled hard to rescue Trump from his babble.
“Just to be clear–” she began. But by this point, Ingraham was clearly struggling to find a way to get Trump back to safety. “It’s being interpreted, you’ll be surprised to hear, by the left as ‘well, they’re never going to have another election.’”
Ingraham put on her best mocking-the-left tone so that Trump would understand this is supposed to be a bad thing. But as she tried to bring it home, she was obviously concerned that Trump still may not understand what he was supposed to say. And she couldn’t think of how to say it any more clearly.
“He’s saying … he’s saying there’s a … he’s …” she tried before giving up. “So. So can you even just respond to that?”
“I said Christians,” Trump began. Then he gathered himself for another go. “I started off by saying ‘Just so you understand, you never vote.’ Christians do not vote well. They vote in very small percentages. Why, I don’t know. Maybe they’re disappointed in things that are happening, but for a long time—I’m saying, ‘You don’t vote. Go out. You must vote. November 5 is going to be the most important election in the history of our country. Whether you vote early or not …’”
”
There is a video of interview. Watch it.
Steve777 @ #31 Wednesday, July 31st, 2024 – 9:03 am
They also need to garner, with a little help from a few Republican friends, 60 votes in the Senate to achieve Supreme Court change.
I’m backing in Shaprio as the VP pick.
Yes he has some downsides, the obvious one people will jump on is the matter of Israel and Palestine. But I think this is more than balanced out by his popularity in his home state which is critical to the Dems winning, his ability to sell a message convincingly, he more than cancels out JD Vance and in fact I think he can make JD even more of a drag on Trump, he’s a white guy from the midwest.
Shapiro is giving me red flag vibes
“They also need to garner, with a little help from a few Republican friends, 60 votes in the Senate to achieve Supreme Court change.”
Yup.
Thats going to be an important one for a program of beat Trump, and then inoculate the system against populist demagogues as best as can be done.
Stacking the SCOTUS was a major achievement of the RW in the US. Their problem is that they stacked it with bought bodies and not genuine true believers. Those bought bodies have made it too obvious they are there with a serious agenda that is NOT in the peoples interests.
C@tmomma @ #27 Wednesday, July 31st, 2024 – 8:48 am
As you say, it shows them pretending to run away. Someone in Team T**** has their eye on the undecideds.
Rex Douglas @ #36 Wednesday, July 31st, 2024 – 9:31 am
Yeah I do hear you, the smarmy thing is a negative and would there be friction with Harris. But at the end of the day I think winning the election is more important, so with that in my mind I’d go with Shapiro and then deal with the fallout later.
CNN adds an important fact to this story:
C@tmomma @ #18 Wednesday, July 31st, 2024 – 8:03 am
I rate Silvers polling analysis but he has become more opinionated on general political strategy. I like when he pulls someone elses opinion up saying ‘poll analysis suggests otherwise, here is a counter opinion that may explain the data’. But too often, at least on X, he just leads with hack feelpinion. I mean, I can do that.
Example, he said the Dems should have been thinking more seriously at Witmer for VP. Now, I had already posted that here, so I agree. But that isnt his calling. Where is the polling that says Americans wont flinch at two women on the ticket? I go to Silver to either hear counter argument or supporting argument based on real data. Now I seem to have to scroll passed too much guff.
I have found the 538 layout has become quite poor since he has gone. In the pollster ratings, I think I need a degree in stats to understand “pollscore”. Just give me a bias reading ffs.
Some of the swing state polls coming out from Bloomberg/Morning Consult look positive for Harris. Even in Georgia, +2 in Arizona and Nevada and only down 2 in North Carolina. These sunbelt states looked gone in Biden’s later days but look like they may be back in play. In the rust belt Trump’s holding up in PA, but Michigan result was +11 for Harris, 53-42!
I thought Harris made a great choice talking about the border issue very early in the Georgia rally this morning. Taking it head on and putting it back on Trump for stopping the bipartisan border control act was a good move.
Lots of energy at that rally too which will play well on socials.
evads @ #42 Wednesday, July 31st, 2024 – 9:33 am
Would Julian Castro as VP help in Arizona? Georgia?
Redfield is not the highest ranked pollster, but 50 points up on HarrisX who have Trump up by 4.
I wonder what effect including ‘Biden favourability’ questions has in the subsequent presidential head-to-heads?
Redfield has:
In our Presidential Voting intention poll, conducted on Monday, we now find that Kamala Harris leads Donald Trump by 2% nationally.
After weighting by respondents’ self-declared likelihood to vote, 45% of Americans say they would vote for Harris, while 43% say they would vote for Trump if they were candidates in 2024. 5% would vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., while a further 4% say they don’t know how they would vote.
Harris’ vote share in our latest poll is three points higher than the 42% who said they would vote for Joe Biden in our previous poll, while Donald Trump’s vote share of 43% is unchanged from two weeks ago.
https://redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/joe-biden-administration-approval-ratings-and-hypothetical-voting-intention-29-july-2024/
A couple of things about the Harris Atlanta rally just now – nice length of about 20 minutes
1. Took on the border issue straight up – Trump killed the bipartisan bill.
2. Goaded Trump to debate her – ‘you got a lot to say, say it to my face’
3. Seemed to throw a bone to the left by inserting ‘rent controls’ into the future program.
So the same basic stump speech structure, but adding a bit here, deleting a bit there based on feedback they are getting.
https://www.youtube.com/live/7g1nLZiUNps?si=ou5NO12ywN7JAlIq
Watched the Harris rally speech today. Looked for tripping over the tongue, word searching, struggling to cover a wide breif, all negative observations instead of saying what she would do for America. None of that. She looked and sounded pretty sharp and clear on her vision for the USA. No wonder the Trumpster is avoiding debating her in September or any time soon.
sprocket, HarrisX is one of the pollsters I scroll past. No offence to them, I just dont weigh them heavily enough to bother with.
Susquehana on the other hand is the polling highlight today. Good pollster. Having Harris up by 4 in PA. This fits with a few other pollsters now (including Beacon/Fox and perhaps Echelon too) that are showing marked disagreement with Emerson and Morning Consult in that state.
This is important. If Harris thinks the blue wall will hold, she may chose a VP from elsewhere. However, I reckon the Dems are still singed from their Clinton/Michigan debacle in 2016.
The bandwagon is starting to roll. US voters generally like to back a winner. This makes a good deal of sense, when you think about it. Elections are about assembling majorities, so rallying to the leading candidate will make your vote ‘count’ in a way that it cannot if you support the losing choice.
The Democratic Convention is also approaching, which will give Harris a very significant surge. And once she’s clearly in front her support will consolidate as undecided/uninterested voters take more of an interest. Voters can not only say No to Trump, they can say Yes to a popular, credible alternative. This is a winning electoral proposition to voters.
Trump has no distinct positive message – nothing but a mangled sense of grievance, of malice, of retribution. These feelings will not be enough. They are expressions from the past. Elections are about choices for the future. Harris and the Democrats very clearly get that.
Trump is quite clearly cognitively dislocated. He is coming across as a bemused, spiteful, vengeful amnesiac. I reckon the Trump campaign will have trouble building turnout. His remarks about Christians reveal that turnout is on his mind. He is speaking from anxiety – from observing that his numbers are soft among marginally-motivated, usually politically-detached voters. If Republican voters stay home while Democrats rally with enthusiasm then the Democratic ticket will win very handsomely.
“No wonder the Trumpster is avoiding debating her in September or any time soon.”
He knows that a debate against Harris would be a disaster for him. No free passes from the media as they will be all over it like flies on poo. If it was even slightly well moderated then he wont be able to rant. And Harris will pick up on and pin him on any lies or OT statements that was really not a threat from Biden.
I actualy think a Harris Trump debate could end up with Trump walking off midway through, and then him trying to play up the theater of it …. which be red meat to the MAGA crowd. 🙂
His problem is its NOT the MAGA crowd he needs to win over.
” If Republican voters stay home while Democrats rally with enthusiasm”
Like if they are convinced the election is rigged anyway? Wonder if anyone has laid the groundwork for that one?? 🙂