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”.
Unbelievable.
Asha:
I’ve only been exposed to Harris through US politics since 2019 and even I know she has African American heritage.
Trump was bullshitting, attempting to deflect attention away from his deficiencies and weaknesses and onto her. It’s offensive.
Confession:
I quite enjoy this one:
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/07/trump-nabj-racist-harris-interview/
Confessions:
Absolutely!
These arguments Mr Trump is trying to raise about how Ms Harris should be racially classified have distinct overtones of the Population Registration Act in apartheid South Africa.
Davidwh:
Some of these people desperately need a crash course in basic genetics. And roughly a billion other topics too.
The funny thing about today was this morning I thought Trump had done a genuinely clever thing by agreeing to be interviewed by the National Association of Black Journalists. Republicans want to chip away at the black vote because they know Democratic success depends partly on black voters being solidly behind them and even a slight fracture in that demographic (or at least a decrease in their enthusiasm to vote against Republicans) can be bad news for the Democratic Party. His campaign even knew this and, prior to the event, he even posted on his Truth Social thing that he is a friend of black voters and going to that event is going to prove he listens to black voices, and that Harris hasn’t done this and, if she does, it’s only to play catch up. It was crassly written but the point being made had the potential to be an effective one.
All he had to do was show up, be polite (even in his Trump-like way) get a few friendly photos with some black people, and voila! He owns the news cycle for the next day and potentially eats away at a key Democratic demographic. Instead, he made an absolute arse of himself, coming across as patronising and racist, and pissed everyone off. And before anyone says “Oh, that’s what people like about Trump! It’s red meat for his base!” that’s not why he was there. It was to show that he’s not an enemy of black voters. And he failed at that.
And, by the end of the day, conservatives are now preoccupied with race science of all things…
I’m no oracle and I am not going to make any predictions this far out. Different things can happen between now and November and who knows? Maybe Trump’s support is already baked in. But, since Biden dropped out, the Trump campaign has been flailing big time. They’re grouchy, their attacks aren’t landing and they’re being sloppy and undisciplined. Perhaps that’s what it’s always been but they had been permitted to walk it in due to weak opposition but they need to improve if they want to win.
“If the level of Trump supporters has sunk to the point of arguing that the daughter of a black American has no black heritage then they must believe things are no longer going their way.
This has to be one of the craziest arguments ever on this site.”
Full concurrence from me on that davidwh.
“And, by the end of the day, conservatives are now preoccupied with race science of all things…”
Which, oddly enough is just going to keep what a complete dickhead Trump is, in the news cycle for longer. Weird.
I just read a report on what Trump actually said. Sewer level politics at its worse. I find it unbelievable that anyone who posts here could support that utter crap in any way. I’m speechless.
sprocket_ @ #389 Thursday, August 1st, 2024 – 8:54 pm
Putin must think Trump’s going to lose now.
I’m still trying to figure out what an ‘authentic Black’ is? One who still puts a bone through their nose!?! 🙄
From https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/1/did-kamala-harris-shy-from-her-black-identity-truth-behind-trump-claims
From https://www.kqed.org/news/11998161/the-story-behind-the-woman-who-inspired-harris-to-break-barriers
Also see https://www.npr.org/2024/07/30/1198912981/kamala-harris-childhood-friend-carole-porter which talks about Harris’ biracial identity and https://whyy.org/articles/why-kamala-harris-was-raised-as-a-black-woman/.
Talk of Harris only recently claiming to be black for political purposes is racist bullshit that should be washed back down the sewer it came from.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/06/donald-trump-violence-threats-fbi-migrants-judges/
Dear Trump supporters: Please read this article.
I just caught up with the interview of Trump by the black journalists association.
Two points. First Trump’s answers were pathetically racist to a degree makes him look like an ugly dog whistler. Trump looked dumb.
Second kudos to the journalists asking the questions. They were actually probing and the journos did not back down, following up on obviously false answers.
If only Trump had gotten tough questions like this in 2016.
“A new round of surveys from GOP pollster Public Opinion Strategies, conducted for the Competitiveness Coalition, finds a tight presidential race in five battleground states:
• Pennsylvania: KAMALA HARRIS at 48%, DONALD TRUMP at 45%
• Wisconsin: Harris 48%, Trump 46%
• Arizona: Trump 48%, Harris 43%
• Nevada: Trump 46%, Harris 45%
• Michigan: Harris 45%, Trump 45%
Some caveats: In this sample, 47% of undecided voters lean Republican, compared to 19% who say they are Democrats. Each state had a sample size of 400 likely voters. The margin of error is ±2.19%.”
Politico Playbook
The Voice is coming back to bite the bigots.
https://x.com/i/status/1818519065113071897
The massive prisoner swap now dominating the news cycle.
DonOLD Trump has issued a churlish statement..
Aug. 1, 2024, 2:16 p.m. ET3 hours ago
Neil Vigdor
Donald J. Trump greeted with cynicism the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich’s from a Russian prison. “Are we releasing murderers, killers, or thugs?” he wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social. The former president regularly boasted during his campaign that he would use his deal-making acumen in a second presidency to free Gershkovich.
The list of those released from Russian prisons includes opposition political figures from Navalny’s campaign. A government in exile development?
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/01/world/europe/russia-prisoner-swap-detainees.html
And to stay on topic:
Aug. 1, 2024, 1:37 p.m. ET4 hours ago
Katie Rogers
Vice President Harris and President Biden will greet the released Americans tonight at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, Sullivan said.
Aug. 1, 2024, 1:31 p.m. ET4 hours ago
Katie Rogers
Sullivan says that Vice President Kamala Harris engaged with Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, at the Munich Security Conference to talk about the release of prisoners. Sullivan said that she was “very much” a core member of “the team that helped make this happen.”
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/08/01/world/russia-prisoner-swap-us
More Trump on prisoner swaps… blowing his own Trumpet
By Ben Brasch and Maegan Vazquez
Former president Donald Trump criticized the U.S. deal for the hostages, saying it sets a bad precedent in a post on Truth Social.
“I got back many hostages, and gave the opposing Country NOTHING — and never any cash. To do so is bad precedent for the future. That’s the way it should be, or this situation will get worse and worse. They are extorting the United States of America,” reads the post.
Trump portrays himself as a master negotiator despite little evidence to that effect.
Trump authorized a $2 million payment for Otto Warmbier after North Korea sent an invoice hours before his 2017 flight home, two people familiar with the incident told The Post. Trump tweeted that “no money” was paid for Warmbier. It isn’t clear whether the money was ever paid.
The University of Virginia student was imprisoned in North Korea after being accused of pulling down a propaganda poster in what was considered “a hostile act against the state.” The 22-year-old was comatose when he left the country and died shortly after arriving in the United States.
DonOLD (I like that one, sprocket_), always talked about what he would or could do, but never actually did any of it or achieved any of the things he said he would.
Talk of Harris only recently claiming to be black for political purposes is racist bullshit that should be washed back down the sewer it came from.
100%
Movement at the station…
47% of undecided voters lean Republican, compared to 19% who say they are Democrats.
——————————
To shy deplorables like Downer, holding your noses isn’t a get out of jail card. Voting for this cray cray has consequences. But no, they’d rather vote for a bigoted, autocratic, utterly self absorbed and dangerously incompetent fwit than – gasp! – a liberal. Partisanship makes you dumb af.
Trump dementia watch.
Sure, sure. The viciousness, the misogyny and the racism are on full display. The lies come thick and fast. Same old, same old Trump.
But wait, there’s more.
Plenty of slurring, several examples of phonemic aphasia and of hung sentences in Trump’s Harrisburg speech.
The Sundowner Syndrome is a feature of dementia. Basically it means that the more tired you are the more likely you are to exhibit symptoms of dementia. It is why Trump’s public appearances have been brought forward to earlier in the day. Trump’s dementia symptoms increase in frequency as this speech goes on.
Then there is weird Trump.
Trump transmutes the late great Hannibal Lecter, a wonderful man, into a bad guy. But is he, or was he, a real person?
Chuck Schumer is a member of Hamas.
Border crossers rape young girls and cut them up with knives because it is slower.
And so it goes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgRxV_l3VwY
With so much attention on rust belt VP options, I dont think Harris can now pick anyone else. The dems arent going to make the mistake again of ignoring the rust belt blue wall. So probably Shapiro.
I think the markets have it right with Beshear as second favourite. For me, he ticks a lot of boxes and would give them some minor upswing in places like Georgia, Arizona and…. (spoken very quietly – Texas). He has campaigned in Georgia for the Georgia Senate races to some effect. He is the sort of chap who might one day help bring places like Ohio back into the fray (or am I getting waaaay too far ahead of myself?).
Keep an eye on him for later I reckon. Not Clintonesque, not really from the South, but south-ish and some of the charm without all the smarm.
I have more commenters blocked than I’ve ever had. The racism and misoygny lately has become unbearable.
No wonder he’s frothing at the mouth about Biden getting the hostages released. This post was apparently from back in May.
confessions
Trump gazzumped.
Trump is still grizzling away at Biden. The old dog is barking. But the caravan has moved on.
Rasmussen dropped a poll. Now when Nate Silver was still with 538 he had managed Rasmussen out of his modeling due to the republican bias so just be aware of that background.
But I think these two lines show what is turning up up in other polls, Kennedy is hurting Trump and helping Harris by siphoning off right wing voters. This is clearly a threat to both campaigns, but in my opinion a bigger one for Harris.
If I was running Harris’ campaign I would have a lot of effort in looking at several contingencies based on Kennedy dropping out of the race. Because it will present a real threat to success if it occurs.
rhwombat says:
Friday, August 2, 2024 at 6:31 am
“The Voice is coming back to bite the bigots.”
https://x.com/i/status/1818519065113071897
I watched that. Very good add. And then down the page in comments the reaction from the RWfilth. 🙁
I reckon they are getting the message that Trump is a has been and they dont know what to do.
“The massive prisoner swap now dominating the news cycle.
DonOLD Trump has issued a churlish statement..”
Adults doing actual diplomacy? Of course Trump is pissed. His “magical powers of persuasion” with his good mate Putin weren’t needed. And really, where is the US at that a candidate can run on being personal friends with an authoritarian, wanker, Russian???
Simone Biles’ wild act drops jaws after historic gold medal
Simone Biles put down one of the greatest runs in the history of gymnastics and her first act following it is also blowing minds.
https://www-news-com-au.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.news.com.au/sport/olympics/simone-biles-wild-act-drops-jaws-after-historic-gold-medal/news-story/eb40ec553be68a992e5d4bcaddf1225b?amp=&_gsa=1&_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQGsAEggAID#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17225535149900&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.news.com.au%2Fsport%2Folympics%2Fsimone-biles-wild-act-drops-jaws-after-historic-gold-medal%2Fnews-story%2Feb40ec553be68a992e5d4bcaddf1225b
“sprocket_says:
Friday, August 2, 2024 at 7:21 am
The list of those released from Russian prisons includes opposition political figures from Navalny’s campaign. A government in exile development?
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/01/world/europe/russia-prisoner-swap-detainees.html
And to stay on topic:
Aug. 1, 2024, 1:37 p.m. ET4 hours ago
Katie Rogers
Vice President Harris and President Biden will greet the released Americans tonight at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, Sullivan said.
Aug. 1, 2024, 1:31 p.m. ET4 hours ago
Katie Rogers
Sullivan says that Vice President Kamala Harris engaged with Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, at the Munich Security Conference to talk about the release of prisoners. Sullivan said that she was “very much” a core member of “the team that helped make this happen.”
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/08/01/world/russia-prisoner-swap-us
”
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/8/1/2259920/-Kamala-Harris-played-essential-role-in-prisoner-swap-with-Russia?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_3&pm_medium=web
“Thursday’s prisoner swap with Russia was the largest since the fall of the Soviet Union and required years of work behind the scenes involving a variety of world leaders.
That included Vice President Kamala Harris, who conducted a pair of low-profile meetings at the Munich Security Conference in February with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob. Germany was holding Russian hitman Vadim Krasikov and Slovenia had two other Russian prisoners that Russia wanted as part of any deal.
When President Joe Biden needed someone to conduct these critical, secretive, high-level negotiations, he knew he could count on Harris to get it done.”
Rhwombat
“ The Voice is coming back to bite the bigots.”
https://x.com/i/status/1818519065113071897
Yes its a great ad. Kudos to John Farnham for letting the Harris team use his music.
Apart from Harris herself the campaign team seems vastly more active and focused since the change in candidate. Many millions and thousands more volunteers no doubt helps.
Amazing what you can do when you aren’t focussing on how to get your candidate in and out of a car or to and from a lectern or through a short speech with minimal embarrassment.
Socrates:
The Democrats are united which means they are able to focus externally.
I feel the initial burst of enthusiasm hasn’t worn off, but the polling bump is starting to plateau. The switch to Harris got the Dems within shouting distance and in with a real chance. The polling averages however have not moved Harris clearly in front of Trump at the national level, which we know doesn’t decide the race but the Dems need to have in the positive to give themselves a better chance in the horror show that is the electoral college.
Based on these two polling averages it’s a dead heat.
This is from the real Clear Politics polling average where Harris is behind
This is from the 538 polling average where Harris is in front
imacca @ #432 Friday, August 2nd, 2024 – 9:39 am
Vlad the Impaler is abandoning his pawn. The Obscene Orange has nowhere to go when he loses in November. The MAGAts will wither.
sprocket_says:
Friday, August 2, 2024 at 7:16 am
The massive prisoner swap now dominating the news cycle.
DonOLD Trump has issued a churlish statement..
Aug. 1, 2024, 2:16 p.m. ET3 hours ago
Neil Vigdor
Donald J. Trump greeted with cynicism the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich’s from a Russian prison. “Are we releasing murderers, killers, or thugs?” he wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social. The former president regularly boasted during his campaign that he would use his deal-making acumen in a second presidency to free Gershkovich.
=====================================================
I assume Don-Old Trump would prefer that the USA arrested a whole lot of innocent Russians. So they had a pool to prison swap for when Russia does the same?
TK
Don’t mention Texas. And it’s 40 electoral college votes – safe in the bank for DonOLD 🙂
Funny that since Biden dropped out, Kamala has been there twice. Dallas and Houston.
The trend over the last few cycles portends?
https://www.lonestarleft.com/p/will-texas-ever-turn-blue-heres-what
Sure Texas is on a trend towards purple, but I’d put it in the same basket as Florida just out of reach and a nice dream. There’d be downstream impacts under consideration, border war fires issues to try and put out, nation wide Latino votes to lock in, but overall I wouldn’t ever put Texas in the Dem column for at least another 12 years.
Silver:
Do weed a nice warm sunny day for a big turn out of Dems?
The T**** Party (TP) is throwing inauthenticity at Harris. If your strategy is to use confirmation bias to shore up your support, anything will do, including racism. They’re scared of her. I expect there’ll be more.
Socrates @ #435 Friday, August 2nd, 2024 – 10:06 am
It has been said by those who know that the Harris campaign team is virtually the same as the Biden campaign team. The problem was that Biden top aide, was vetting every idea that came in from the campaign team and vetoing most of them. Kamala Harris is letting the campaign team have their head now and you are seeing the results of that.
Couple of observations
1. Trump’s comment about Kamala Harris suddenly being black is the most old man comment I’ve seen. It’s the kind of thing you’d expect from the Central Coast not the potential future President. That entire thing was so cringe and made him look old as hell
2. Shapiro would be an unforced error. He isn’t JD Vance bad, but he is the governor of the state that Trump was nearly killed in, so it would give him some sorely needed momentum on something, and like others have pointed out, there’s nobody he reaches that Kamala doesn’t. I’d say the centre to centre-right vote is pretty locked down by the Democrats, especially among the people who just want gradual progress and not to be embarrassed by Trump every single day.
Hard to believe that it was only 12 days ago that the rules changed. Nobody is talking to Trump coming within an inch or two of having his head blown off 3 weeks ago. The media cycle is crazy fast.
The MSM in America is desperate to puff Harris, but they can’t imagine how to do that without comparing her to Trump.
Obvious problem is if she’s elected then Trump won’t be relevant anymore, so where does she go from there?
Voters have 14 weeks to work that out, plenty long enough.
I like AOC. 🙂
“Being obsessed with repressing women is goofy,” AOC said. “Trying to watch what LGBTQ+ people do all the time is abnormal. Punishing people who don’t have biological offspring is creepy … it’s SUPER weird. And people need to know.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/01/jd-vance-aoc-family
While it does not seem that Harris is avoiding more substantive campaign messages and discussion, the whole “weird” meme and its derivatives is powerful in its own way and is going to bite the Trump / MAGA Cult big time. 🙂
Badthinker @ #451 Friday, August 2nd, 2024 – 11:59 am
They’ll do what they need to do to keep both campaigns exciting and people buying their stories. The framing is, “Race to the White House”.
Harris becomes POTUS and T**** goes to jail, plenty of “column inches” in that, which is why I think I’m missing what you’re trying to say with “… where does she go from there?“.
This might explain why Shapiro and Beshear have suddenly cancelled weekend plans.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/01/kamala-harris-vp-search-00172401