According to our friends at YouGov, nothing much happened this week. Kamala Harris continues to have a 3-point national lead over Donald Trump. But just for fun, here's a simple linear extrapolation of how they're doing:
Don't take this seriously in any way. Not that it matters. If things really do end up with Harris beating Trump by 3½ points in the popular vote, the Electoral College is likely to be a pure tossup. Harris needs to pick up her game.
The last two presidential elections, polls materially underestimated Trump. The recent swing state polling is,generally, tied or within the statistical margin of error.
The danger/ my fear perhaps Trump is being undercounted in the polls….
Every election since the overturn of Roe has gone the opposite direction when abortion was made an issue of a candidtate or directly on the ballot.
So I think the likelihood is the undercounts go the other way.
We women don't like having the freedom to control our own bodies taken away, no matter our political party.
I agree that this is a good possibility.
There is an article I found on "the Hill" which discusses polling errors.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4904402-trump-polls-accuracy-questioned/
“We don’t always see the misses in the same direction,” said Chris Jackson, the senior vice president of public affairs for Ipsos. “I can tell you that the polling industry has done substantial changes to how we do our surveys to try to account for what we think was driving those errors in 2020. So while there undoubtedly will be errors in the future, they’re probably going to be driven by different things and go in different directions.”
So, at least some pollsters are recognizing the errors which caused Trump to overperform his polls in 2016 and 2020, and will likely have taken some steps to avoid those errors this time.
From what I've read, polling companies adjusted their algorithms since 2020 to compensate for under-representing the Trump vote.
I've read the same but there's obviously no way of knowing till we actually hold the election.
Anyway, comparing today's date to the same date in 2020, using the FiveThirtyEight polling averages:
Biden 50.6% vs Trump 43.0%
Harris 48.6% vs Trump 45.9%
So Harris is 2.0 points below Biden and Trump is 2.9 points above his 2020 level.
The final 2020 result was 51.3% vs 46.9%. So Trump is polling pretty close to his final percentage whereas Harris is still lagging behind Biden's percentage.
Gang I or anyone can know now, IF the polls are undercounting Trump voters. However, you would be naive if you did not think this risk is significant....
There are two things to note here. The first is that we know why Trump's vote was underestimated. The problem was in the likely voter screens. Trump's presence on the ballot led to a significant increase in voting among certain demographics that were historically unlikely to vote. This also explains why the 2018 and 2022 polls were accurate: that same group wasn't motivated to vote without Trump on the ballot. So pollsters at least know what they are trying to correct.
The second is that there is reason to suspect that Harris won't need as large a margin in the national vote as Clinton and Biden did. Trump is polling better in California and New York than he did in 2016 and 2020, but not nearly enough to have any hope of winning those states. As a consequence, his vote totals are likely to be less efficient than they were previously.
At this point, it's just hypothesizing, but there are some countervailing trends.
It would be interesting to see how fast the GOP would try to change the rules if Harris were to clearly win the Electoral College, but lose the national popular vote by, say, 5 million votes.
Not that I would want to experience the social upheaval that would cause.
I agree. Harris needs to pick up her game. Maybe someone knows how to do what she can't figure out how to do, which is convince people to stop ignoring you while they're ignoring you. My God, she'd win by a landslide!
The comment I wanted to make.
It is a weird system we have wherein one candidate has to win by a lot to “win” and the other can lose by a lot and still “win”.
"It is a weird system we have . . . "
It is, but it's the only one that matters. Ask Al Gore and Hillary Clinton.
I live outside the US, in Colombia. I've tried to explain to some people here how we elect Presidents (not an easy task). They're always shocked to learn that we don't use the popular vote.
emh1969 - I am not trying to defend the US electoral system.
Rather, they way I think of it, the US uses a similar system to determine who wins the baseball World Series: baseball counts games won and not, for example, total runs scored.
But imagine a baseball game in which one team scored 1 run in three innings and the other scored 10 runs in one inning and the game was awarded to the team that “won” the most innings.
Or, a game in which one team had fewer “runs”, but the umpires who were employed by the losing team got to decide that the “real” winner was the team with fewer runs and awarded the loser the win.
iamr4man - I tend to believe that the US voting integrity, while not perfect, is solid: there has never been evidence of broad vote tampering, lots of undocumented folks voting, machine hacks etc.
Respectfully, the line you describe sounds much closer to the Republican false claims ...
The voting integrity was solid until now. But in 2020 Trump definitely tried to break it (e.g. "find 11,780 votes"), and he will try again this time, much more forcefully and will get much more help. If he succeeds, you will get what iamr4man describes.
motrd - this isn’t about integrity of voting systems, it’s about the anti-democratic structure known as the Electoral College. Far from a ‘false claim’, it is a matter of fact that this system has given us minority governments multiple times.
Republicans are famed for accusing others of doing things they themselves are doing. “Every accusation is an admission.”:
“But Democrats, civil rights lawyers and even some Republicans say that the threat is clear: Even if the cases fail, Mr. Trump’s allies are building excuses to dispute the results, while trying to empower thousands of local election officials to disrupt the process. Already, election board members in several states have moved to block certification of primary election tallies, including in a major swing county in Nevada last week.
“The fundamental principle of the system — the rule of law, the finality of the results, the ability to challenge an election but then accept the results if the challenges fail — is being stood on its head,” said Ben Ginsberg, a longtime Republican election lawyer who broke with his party over Mr. Trump.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/13/us/politics/republican-election-campaign-2024.html
This wildly understates or misrepresents how crazy the US system is.
Better analogy...imagine if games won on Tuesdays counted more than games won on Fridays, and runs scored in certain stadiums were worth more as tiebreakers and could even give you bonus wins. In some stadiums, winning more than 1 inning in an overall game loss could still earn you a fractional win.
And the rationale was that the league is a collection of regions and therefore, runs scored in certain stadiums counted for more because you know......regions.
This would be a totally different type of game/league. It wouldnt really even be baseball as we know it.
Welcome to the world of “you gotta work twice as hard to get half as much” that everybody but white men and the white women who love them have known since forever.
If Harris wins the popular vote (a near certainty) but loses in the Electoral College, that will mean in 7 presidential elections, the candidate with fewer total votes "won" 3 times. And for 1 additional time (2020) it was a nail-biter.
That is absurd and unacceptable. Instead of a nationwide WTA, we've got a collection of smaller WTAs, that subsequently "vote their share" in a WTA election [!]. An odd way to slice and dice the electorate.
A system like that *will* lead to results that don't reflect the national will.
Yes, but it will require a Constitutional amendment to change. Which will happen co-terminus with the first verified report of porcine aviation.
States can adopt proportional assignment of electors based on the vote in their state
They can. But most of them won't. Which brings us back to flying pig territory.
What Joel said.
Blue states adopting proportional distribution of electors would just be handing over more electors to Republicans. (Even the bluest states have people voting red.)
Meanwhile, red states adopting proportional distribution of electors would just be making it impossible for Republican candidates to win at all.
So no individual state has an incentive to adopt it beyond small states where it doesn’t really matter. (75/25 splits when you only have 3 electoral votes leads to all 3 going to the same candidate, just as if you were winner-takes-all.)
“ Even the bluest states have people voting red.”
A lot of people don’t know that more people in California voted for Trump than any other state. And Trump lost by 5 million votes.
There were more Trump votes in California than Texas.
There were more Biden votes in Texas than New York.
Etc., etc.
no one is going to unilaterally disarm, not blue states, not red states. the only way significant reform is going to happen is if enough states adopt the national popular vote interstate compact that awards electors based on the national total. and even that ain't happening any time soon.
Or the Interstate Compact could be ratified: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
And see how it washes out in the courts; an attempt at a step in the right direction
This is the approach I favor. It doesn’t require all 50 states to adopt changes, and it assures that the popular-vote winner wins the office. IIRC, awarding EC votes proportionately, or by Congressional-district winner, can still result in minority Presidencies, because of the imbalances in district populations and the two statewide Senatorial votes.
While the Interstate Compact is interesting I also think this concept will fail.
1. The compact, as I have read, would have to withstand the US Supreme Court. Good luck, in the near term with that.
2. IF you imagine the compact was in place, do you honestly think (yes clearly this is a theoretical only example) that say California would follow the compact, if that was the difference in electing Trump? Mind you, the compact really does not have an enforcement vehicle. The compact does not really work if its only one sided...
The compact doesn't have to get everyone on board. It just needs to get enough purple states to sign on. The question is not California, it's states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that are typically close or flip back and forth.
If, for example, the Dem candidate won the popular vote by 3%, but lost Pennsylvania by 0.5%, the compact might still stand there. Especially if Pennsylvania state government had Democrats in power.
No matter what, it makes sense for blue states to sign on. They aren't risking anything.
cephalopod - lets run with your example. Imagine a purple state, say Wisconsin, signs on to the compact.
Then assume that the Democratic candidate wins the popular vote but loses Wisconsin. Further, lets imagine the Wisconsin was the fulcrum state: this state provided enough electoral votes to determine the election.
1. If the Wisconsin's governor, or legislator were to follow the compact, and give the state's electors to the candidate who lost the state, don't you believe the Supreme Court would get involved? Do you believe the current Supreme Court would sustain the compact?
2. What forces Wisconsin to follow the compact? What if the Governor decides not to honor the compact? Basically, Wisconsin's Governor, or it might be the legislator depending on Wisconsin's state constitution, might follow the compact IF they preferred the Democrat. I do not believe there is any legal consequence for not honoring the compact.
The NPVIC comes into force only when and if it is adopted by states possessing an absolute majority of electoral votes. ‘Adoption’ means passed by the state legislature and signed by the governor; i.e. it becomes state law. Leaving the compact can only be accomplished by further legislation repealing the law. Failing to abide by the Compact would be a violation of that state’s law.
Currently only 15 states have ‘faithless elector’ laws, and no election has ever been decided by electors who voted for a candidate other than the one to which they were pledged: https://ask.loc.gov/law/faq/331082
It is the political parties that nominate electors, and party discipline has been sufficient to restrain faithlessness in all but a few cases.
The compact, as I have read, would have to withstand the US Supreme Court. Good luck, in the near term with that.
Agreed.
I favor adoption of the NPV Compact, but I think it's very far from clear the GOP Supreme Court would allow it. And no, it doesn't matter whether the Constitution allows such a change or not (personally, I think it's abundantly clear the Constitution allows it). All that matters is whether the GOP Supreme Court allows it. They probably won't.
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
It's crystal clear that the state legislatures control how electors are designated. The Supreme Court would have no basis for overturning such a compact (which is not to say that this Supreme Court wouldn't try).
Their basis would be: they strongly prefer Republican victories to Democratic victories. You’re not seriously thinking they couldn’t come up with some kind of bullshit “reasoning,” are you? The recent decision on presidential immunity should disabuse all of us of any remaining hope that the MAGA court majority retains a shred of integrity. They are deeply cynical, utterly partisan hacks devoted to the advancement of the Republican Party.
Make that 2 nail-biters; in 2004 Bush won Ohio narrowly. If Kerry had won OH then he'd have won the EC despite losing the popular vote.
That was probably the last, best chance to get rid of the EC. We would have two elections in a row where the popular vote winner lost thanks to the EC, with one from each party. It would have been tough, but maybe that would have provided enough impetus to change to the popular vote.
Good point. I had forgotten that one.
WTA?
Winner Take All. (I was puzzled at first, too.)
Thanks for clarifying. I used WTA as a shorthand because I wanted to point out that WTA is used for Electoral College results, so what's the problem with WTA for the nation as a whole. I thought it made the case more compact, verbally and conceptually.
Re everybody saying EC is forever. Yeah. Not arguing that it will change, but hope that, at a minimum, there will be no talk of a "mandate" when there are topsy-turvy results (every so often),
I'd like to lay down a marker: when will the "Trump didn't lose today but he didn't win, which is not enough because he's persistently behind and he's running out of time" episode of this particular TV series drop? (Assuming nothing changes, gotta be sometime in the next week or two, right?)
Harris can up her game by not running away from good economic news.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/29/election-biden-harris-administration-record
Sabato said: “Everything’s getting better except the American public thinks we’re in a recession and there are thieves outside their door every evening and those immigrants are trying to eat their pets. It’s insane. A classic case of the failure of civic education.
I think that if Republicans were in a similar position, they would talk about this kind of news non-stop.
To be clear up front, I agree with you. But the problem is that it's really hard to craft a message that says, "No, actually things are going really great, but you just don't realize it." The voters you are trying to reach may think you are calling them stupid, and cognitive dissonance may set in in a big way.
It is doubly hard because our media keeps telling us the economy is bad but I still think the Dems have to take this head on. As Paul Krugman has pointed out numerous times we've never had such a big discrepency between what people tell the polls about how they're doing (pretty good) and how they think the economy as a whole is doing (pretty bad). Moreover as Kevin and others have also pointed out the public's behavior as reflected in things like consumer spending is also at odds with the idea that the economy is bad.
The great strength that Trump has as he bellows on about the living hell we're supposedly in is that he doesn't give a rat's ass if it's true and he just ignores any coverage that suggests it isn't. I think Harris and Walz need to take him on directly with the same level of bravado. Keep reminding people that in fact the economy is strong, unemployment is very low, inflation has come down steadily over the past two years and is now low, GDP has been strong and the US economy is outperforming most countries in the world. I think the way to frame it politically is not to tell people they are wrong but to tell them that Donald Trump is wrong and explain why. It is not an easy task but perhaps if they keep hammering on it they will force the Ny Times and the Washington Post and everyone else to come down on the Dem side of the facts.
The Construction needs to pick up its game. Seriously, will it take full on fascism to get the majority to rise and up and throw off this archaic system?
This week's Flashback quiz at the NY Times notes an event from a different era in our politics:
Spoiler: the year was 1969.
Imagine a country with strong bipartisan support for a pro-democracy measure to correct a historical anomaly. We had it once.
(The once-fringe group that abandoned the D party over civil rights landed in the GOP and has since taken complete control of it. That's the story of our politics the last 3/4 of a century, and any ideas about the parties being equal now or Dems becoming the radicals is sheer nonsense.)
“Harris needs to pick up her game.”
I wonder why she’s waiting all this time to grow a penis and/or bleach her skin white? /s
“Black women are just so lazy” is the implicit message behind “Harris needs to pick up her game.” Black women always gotta do four times as much to get half the credit.
+1
The "game" is mostly in the hands of the media. The right-wing outlets are 100% for Trump but the MSM insist on bothsiderism in news sections, treating Trump and Vance as just ordinary candidates.
The media are supposed to present the truth, not just be stenographers, and important aspects of the truth are that the economy is good and crime rates are down. It's the media which are failing to get the message of truth across.
As a matter of strict probability and gut instinct due to shifting winds, I would dare say that Kamala wins the EC with a 2% popular vote win. But because of the vagaries inherent in the system, it is possible that she loses the EC while winning the popular vote by 5%, and for that matter she could lose the popular, as unlikely as that sounds, and win the EC. The joys of the Electoral College.
I keep thinking about what an incredibly slithering toilet snake personality Vance turns out to be.
This guy is the real shit. Exactly what you would expect to see in a Nazi.
He lies constantly and fluently, while still projecting sincerity.
I understand now why Wall Street is behind him.
Like a more pleasant Joseph Goebbels?