Category: US Politics

US presidential election minus seven days

Donald Trump has a slight edge in the Electoral College, according to forecast models. Also covered: three Canadian provincial elections and electoral events in Japan, Moldova and Georgia.

Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is a paid election analyst for The Conversation. His work for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.

The US presidential election is next Tuesday, with results on Wednesday AEDT. In Nate Silver’s aggregate of national polls, Kamala Harris has a 48.5-47.6 lead over Donald Trump (48.6-47.4 in my US election article for The Conversation on Monday). Harris’ national lead peaked on October 2, when she led by 49.4–45.9.

In presidential elections, the Electoral College is decisive, not the national popular vote. Trump leads by 0.5 points in Pennsylvania (19 electoral votes), after Harris had led there until last week. With slightly larger leads in North Carolina (16), Georgia (16) and Arizona (11), Trump leads in the Electoral College by 281-251 with Nevada’s six tied. If Harris wins Pennsylvania, she most likely wins the Electoral College, although she only leads by 0.3 points in Wisconsin (ten). Silver’s model gives Trump a 55% chance to win, while FiveThirtyEight gives him a 53% chance.

I will have an article for The Conversation tomorrow that also looks at the congressional races. On Monday, my final pre-election article for The Conversation will give poll closing times for next Wednesday. I will do a live blog here that day.

Canadian provincial elections

From October 19 to Monday, there have been elections in the Canadian provinces of British Columbia (BC), New Brunswick (NB) and Saskatchewan. All these elections were held using first past the post.

At the October 19 BC election, the left-wing New Democratic Party (NDP) won 47 of the 93 seats (down ten since 2020), the Conservatives 44 and the Greens two (steady). The NDP retained government for a third successive term. Vote shares were 44.8% NDP (down 2.9%), 43.3% Conservatives (up 41.4%) and 8.2% Greens (down 6.8%).

The main BC conservative party used to be the BC Liberals, who are not part of the centre-left federal Liberals. But the BC Liberals were supplanted by the Conservatives during the last term, and didn’t contest any seats under their new BC United name.

At the October 21 NB election, the centre-left Liberals defeated a Conservative government, winning 31 of the 49 seats (up 14 since 2020), the Conservatives 16 (down 11) and the Greens two (down one). Vote shares were 48.2% Liberals (up 13.9%), 35.0% Conservatives (down 4.3%) and 13.8% Greens (down 1.5%).

At Monday’s Saskatchewan election, the conservative Saskatchewan Party (SP) won a fifth successive term with 35 of the 61 seats (down 13 since 2020) to 26 for the NDP (up 13). Vote shares were 52.9% SP (down 8.2%) and 39.4% NDP (up 7.6%). Postal votes are still to be counted, but the SP has definitely won 32 seats. Late polls that gave the NDP a narrow lead were wrong.

LDP-led coalition loses majority in Japan

Of the 465 lower house Japanese seats, 289 are elected by FPTP and the remaining 176 using proportional representation in multi-member electorates. The conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) with its Komeito allies have governed almost continuously since 1955, with the last interruption after the 2009 election.

At Sunday’s election, the LDP won 191 seats (down 69 since 2021) and Komeito 24 (down eight). For the first time since 2009, the LDP and Komeito were short of the 233 seats needed for a majority. The centre-left Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) won 148 seats (up 52). Two other conservative parties won 38 and 28 seats, so the LDP, Komeito and one of these parties will be enough for the LDP to reach a majority and stay in power.  The LDP won the FPTP seats by 132-104 over the CDP on vote shares of 38.5-29.0.

Moldova and Georgia

A referendum on joining the European Union was held in Moldova on October 20. The Yes case prevailed by just a 50.35-49.65 margin after No had led until near the end of the count. This referendum was only a first step towards Moldova joining the EU.

Georgia (the country) used national PR with a 5% threshold to elect its 150 seats. At Saturday’s election, the pro-Russia and autocratic Georgian Dream retained government for a fourth successive term, winning 89 of the 150 seats on 53.9% of the vote (up 5.7% since 2020). No other party won more than 11%. This election was marred by reports of ballot rigging and voter intimidation.

US presidential election minus two weeks

Still effectively nothing in it, but all three of the main forecasters detect movement in favour of Donald Trump.

This site has cautioned against getting too excited one way or another about movements inside of a percentage point on polling aggregates or of a few points on probability forecasts, such distinctions more than likely to be quite a bit smaller than the ultimate overall polling error. Nonetheless, it presumably means at least something that Donald Trump has gone from slightly behind to slightly ahead in the forecast models of Nate Silver, The Economist and FiveThirtyEight. Going back to my original point though, Silver makes the following observations:

One thing that might be counterintuitive is that even a normal-sized polling error — polls are typically off by around 3 points in one direction or the other — could lead to one candidate sweeping all 7 key battleground states. In our simulations yesterday, which account for the possibility of a correlated polling error, the most common outcome was Trump winning all 7 swing states: this happened 24 percent of the time. And the next most common was a Harris sweep, which occurred in 15 percent of simulations …

The baseline assumption of the Silver Bulletin model is that while the polls could be wrong again — and in fact, they probably will be wrong to some degree — it’s extremely hard to predict the direction of the error. Empirically, there’s basically no correlation in polling error from one cycle to the next one. And pollsters could be overcompensating if they’re worried about missing low on Trump again or if the 2020 polling error was primarily caused by COVID: Democrats being more likely to “socially distance” and having more time to respond to polls. There are prominent examples of this, such as in the 2017 UK election, where pollsters put a heavy finger on the scale for Tories but Labour beat its polls instead.

Adrian Beaumont has more at The Conversation.

US presidential election minus three weeks

“If you squint at the polling averages, things are getting closer”, notes Nate Silver. But you probably shouldn’t.

There’s been a fair bit of chatter around lately about momentum in favour of Donald Trump, but by any reasonable metric the situation remains as it’s been since the dust settled a few weeks after Joe Biden’s withdrawal. Namely, poll aggregates have Kamala Harris up by three points nationally, which translates into an effective dead heat from election forecasts. A narrowing in Nate Silver’s probability forecast from around 56-44 to 50-50 has no doubt been influential, but the fundamental calculus is unchanged: the polls will very likely prove to have been out in one direction or another, and whoever they are underselling will take home the prize. For what it’s worth, The Economist’s and FiveThirtyEight’s models have ticked back a little to Harris over the past few days after narrowing to almost dead level a week ago, respectively putting her at 54% and 56%.

Considerably more depth on all this is available from Adrian Beaumont’s latest for The Conversation. The monthly Resolve Strategic polls for Nine Newspapers have been asking their Australian respondents who they would vote for if they could or would, consistently finding the fifty-first state to be deep blue: the latest has Kamala Harris at 52%, up two on last month, with Donald Trump down four to 21%.

US presidential election minus four weeks

Bad polls for Kamala Harris in Wisconsin and Michigan. Also covered: the UK Conservative leadership election, the far-right wins the most seats in Austria and Japan’s October 27 election.

Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is a paid election analyst for The Conversation. His work for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.

The US presidential election is on November 5.  In Nate Silver’s aggregate of US national polls, Kamala Harris has a 49.3-46.1 lead over Donald Trump (49.3-46.2 in my previous US election article for The Conversation on Monday).  In presidential elections, the Electoral College is decisive, not the national popular vote.  Harris has at least a one-point lead in enough states to win the Electoral College by a 276-262 margin.

The New York Times released polls from the highly regarded Siena on Tuesday, which had good and bad news for Harris.  Siena’s national poll gave Harris a 49-46 lead, her best position in this poll.  But Trump led by a thumping 55-41 in Florida, which used to be a swing state.  This caused Silver’s Florida aggregate to move two points in Trump’s favour, and he now leads by 5.5 points there.

On Wednesday, Quinnipiac polls of Wisconsin and Michigan gave Trump 2-3 point leads, though Harris had a three-point lead in Pennsylvania.  Silver’s model now gives Harris a 53.5% chance to win the Electoral College, down from 56% on Monday.  There’s a 23% chance that Harris wins the popular vote, but loses the Electoral College.  The FiveThirtyEight model is now very close to Silver, with Harris a 53% chance to win.

Two right-wing candidates to contest UK Conservative leadership

As in previous UK Conservative leadership elections, the final two candidates are selected by Conservative MPs, with Conservative party members to choose between these final candidates.  At Wednesday’s final round of MPs’ votes, the right-wing Kemi Badenoch won 42 of the 120 votes, the right-wing Robert Jenrick 41 and the more centrist James Cleverly 37. 

Cleverly had easily won the previous round of MPs’ votes on Tuesday with 39 votes, followed by Jenrick on 31 and Badenoch on 30.  It’s likely that a tactical voting blunder caused him to finish third and be eliminated, with some of his supporters voting for Jenrick as they thought Cleverly had a better chance to beat Jenrick than Badenoch in the members’ vote.

Members will now decide between Badenoch and Jenrick by an online vote, with the final result to be announced November 2.  A late September YouGov poll of Conservative members gave Badenoch a 41-38 lead over Jenrick.

Labour and PM Keir Starmer’s dreadful start to the term continues, with a recent More in Common poll giving Labour just a 29-28 lead over the Conservatives with 19% for Reform and 11% for the Liberal Democrats, although three other early October polls gave Labour 5-8 point leads.  The latest two polls that have asked about Starmer’s ratings have him at net -30 (Opinium) and net -36 (YouGov).

Far-right wins most seats in Austria

Austria uses proportional representation with a 4% threshold to elect its 183 seats.  At the September 29 election, the far-right FPÖ won 57 seats (up 26 since the 2019 election), the conservative ÖVP 51 seats (down 20), the centre-left SPÖ 41 (up one), the liberal NEOS 18 (up three) and the Greens 16 (down ten). 

The FPÖ had its best result in an Austrian election and it was the first time since World War Two that a far-right party has won the most seats.  However, the FPÖ is well short of the 92 seats needed for a majority.  The ÖVP and the Greens had formed a coalition government after the 2019 election.  A coalition between the ÖVP and SPÖ is the only way to keep the FPÖ out of government.

Japanese election: October 27

The conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has formed government after every Japanese election since 1955 except after the 2009 election.  Of the 465 lower house seats, 289 are elected by first-past-the-post, while the remaining 176 are elected using proportional representation in 11 multi-member electorates.

This election is being held a year early after Shigeru Ishiba replaced Fumio Kishida as LDP leader and PM on September 27 and called an early election.  Polls indicate the LDP is far ahead of their nearest party rival, the centre-left Constitutional Democrats, but there’s a large “no party” vote.  The LDP should easily win yet another election.

US presidential election minus five weeks

Polls and forecast models continue to find little or nothing to separate the two presidential contenders.

All three of the main forecast models are now very much singing from the same song sheet, with The Economist and FiveThirtyEight both putting Kamala Harris’s win probability at 56% and Nate Silver’s differing only insofar as it goes to one decimal place. A very similar story is told by a regularly updated YouGov MRP poll presently drawing on 100,000 respondents, which rates Harris favourite in enough states to get within 13 electoral college votes of a majority and another two (Pennsylvania and Georgia) as toss-ups each with enough votes to get her over the line. Adrian Beaumont’s latest overview is available at The Conversation.

US presidential election minus six weeks

Kamala Harris a slight favourite to win in Nate Silver’s model. Also covered: two Canadian by-elections, a dreadful poll for Keir Starmer, France’s new Prime Minister, a German state election and a socialist wins in Sri Lanka.

Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is a paid election analyst for The Conversation. His work for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.

The US presidential election is on November 5. In Nate Silver’s aggregate of US national polls, Kamala Harris has a 49.0-46.3 lead over Donald Trump (49.2-46.2 in my previous US election article for The Conversation on Monday). In presidential elections, the Electoral College is decisive, not the national popular vote. Harris has at least a one-point lead in enough states to win the Electoral College by a 276-262 margin.

In Silver’s model, Harris has a 55% chance to win the Electoral College, up from 54% on Monday. She has been the favourite since last Friday after falling to a 35% win probability on September 9. Previously there had been a large gap between Silver’s and FiveThirtyEight’s models, with Harris favoured more at FiveThirtyEight. But this gap has nearly vanished, with Harris now a 56% win probability at FiveThirtyEight.

Monday’s Conversation article also covered elections for the US House of Representatives and Senate that will be held concurrently with the presidential election. If Harris wins, Democrats have a good chance to regain control of the House, but Republicans are likely to gain Senate control. Democrats are defending seats in three states Trump won easily in 2016 and 2020 and the Senate system favours Republicans owing to two senators per state.

Canada looking bleak for Liberals

Two Canadian federal by-elections occurred on September 16. In LaSalle-Émard-Verdun in Quebec, 91 candidates stood as a protest against first-past-the-post, with most receiving very few votes. The left-wing separatist Quebec Bloc gained from the centre-left Liberals, winning by 28.0-27.2 with 26.1% for the left-wing New Democratic Party (NDP) and 11.6% for the Conservatives. At the 2021 federal election, results in this seat were 42.9% Liberal, 22.1% Quebec Bloc, 19.4% NDP and 7.5% Conservatives.

At the by-election in Elmwood-Transcona in Manitoba, the NDP retained against the Conservatives, but by a much reduced margin. The NDP defeated the Conservatives by 48.1-44.1 with 4.8% for the Liberals. In 2021, the NDP won this seat by 49.7-28.1 with 14.7% for the Liberals.

The next Canadian federal election is due by October 2025. FPTP will be used to elect all 343 seats, with 172 needed for a majority. The CBC poll tracker gives the Conservatives 42.9%, the Liberals 24.1%, the NDP 17.6% and the Quebec Bloc 7.8% (33.5% in Quebec). This would be a Conservative landslide with the seat projection giving them 218 seats, the Liberals 63, the Quebec Bloc 39 and the NDP 21. The Liberals have governed since they won the October 2015 election, though they were reduced to a minority government after the 2019 election.

UK, France, Germany and Sri Lanka

In my previous article in early September, I covered the lack of a honeymoon for UK Labour and PM Keir Starmer after winning the July 4 general election. In an Opinium poll taken last week, Starmer’s net approval had plunged 45 points since the first post-election Opinium poll in mid-July. His net approval is now -26, one point lower than for former Conservative PM Rishi Sunak.

At snap French parliamentary elections in early July, the left-wing NFP alliance won 180 of the 577 seats, President Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble 159, the far-right National Rally and allies 142 and the conservative Republicans 39. On September 5, Macron appointed the conservative Michel Barnier as his new PM. Last Saturday, Barnier and Macron announced a new cabinet composed of mostly conservative ministers. The NFP is hostile to the new government, so its survival depends on National Rally abstaining on confidence motions.

I previously covered September 1 German state elections in Thuringia and Saxony where the far-right AfD made gains. At last Sunday’s state election in Brandenburg, the centre-left SPD won 32 of the 88 seats (up seven since 2019), the AfD 30 (up seven), the economically left but socially conservative BSW 14 (new) and the conservative CDU 12 (down three). The Greens and Left had won ten seats each in 2019, but were wiped out as neither cleared the 5% threshold.

At last Saturday’s Sri Lankan presidential election, the socialist candidate of the National People’s Power party defeated the establishment candidate by 55.9-44.1 after preferences. The NPP had won just 3.2% in 2019.

US presidential election minus seven weeks

Still anyone’s guess as to who will occupy the White House come February, but it does seem that last week’s debate has moved the dial towards Kamala Harris.

Evidence is starting to emerge of a strengthening in Kamala Harris’s position in the wake of last week’s debate, and while this hardly amounts to a paradigm shift in terms of the popular vote – after rounding to whole numbers, The Economist’s poll aggregate records no change from Harris’s 50-46 lead when the debate was held on September 10 – it’s been enough to move forecast models substantially in her favour. Nate Silver’s model is the most striking case in point, with Trump’s win probability falling from 59.7% to 52.0% just over the past few days, having peaked at 64.4% the day before the debate. After bouncing around 52-48 for a couple of weeks, The Economist’s probability reading now has Harris leading 57-43. FiveThirtyEight’s model remains the most bullish for the Democrats, putting Harris’s win probability at 63%. More from Adrian Beaumont at The Conversation.

US presidential election minus eight weeks

After a fortnight in which the balance of the polls tipped back towards Donald Trump, indications of a clear win to Kamala Harris in yesterday’s debate.

The most robust item on reaction to yesterday’s presidential candidates’ debate, at least so far as I’m aware, is a CNN poll “conducted by text message with 605 registered US voters who said they watched the debate”, which recorded a 63-37 win for Kamala Harris from a sample that going in had a 50-50 split on who they expected to win. This doesn’t quite match the 67-33 result in favour of Trump after the June 27 debate that marked the beginning of the end for Joe Biden, but it isn’t far off, and both seem about as close to decisive as can be expected by the polarised standards of American politics.

It was a win that Harris badly needed, if recent polls and forecast results are any guide. The latter have recorded what looks to my untrained eye like a dividend for Donald Trump from Robert F. Kennedy’s withdrawal, sufficient to reduce the modest lead Harris opened up in The Economist’s model to effectively nothing. Still more striking has been the recent form of Nate Silver’s model, which won the approval of Trump himself by swinging to a 64.4% probability in his favour as of Monday, though it’s since eased to 61.3%. The divergence between the two models, which were hitherto finely matched, appears to be largely down to Silver’s model correcting for an anticipated Harris convention bounce, of which the polls have offered no sign.

Adrian Beaumont has an update on the polling situation in The Conversation, dating from Monday.

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