Here's why, in the face of everything, I think Kamala Harris is likely to win in November:
My guess is that Trump's ceiling lies in his favorability rating: around 44-45%. Conversely, Harris's ceiling is everyone who doesn't view her unfavorably: around 52-53%.
My reasoning is simple: Trump is a very well-known quantity. The only people who will vote for him are those who actively approve of him. If you don't, or if you're still not sure after eight years, you just aren't going to vote for the guy.
Harris, conversely, is new on the scene for most people. Even if you're not sure you like her, it's a lightly held opinion. You might still vote for her.
This puts Harris ahead of Trump by 7-9 percentage points in potential support. I don't think Trump can overcome this in the next two weeks.
POSTSCRIPT: The big wildcard, in my opinion, is sexism. How many people, when they finally have to pull the lever for someone, will decide they don't trust a laughing, smiling, soft-hearted woman to drive a hard bargain with tough customers like Putin and Xi? This has at least the potential to seriously muck things up.
You are forgetting 2016:
Dr. Jill attacked The Hill
And carried Donnie's water
Hill fell down and lost the Crown
And Greens were scum thereafter.
And there are plenty of others as well: here in Washington we have three parties with "Socialist" or "Socialism" in their names, and three with "Freedom" (they do overlap). All this leakage of course won't matter in Washington, but it matters PAINFULLY in Michigan and Wisconsin.
And so far as the "soft-hearted woman" thing, I guess you've never heard of Ursula ven der Leyen? Not to mention The Iron Lady, Lady Thatcher.
"Thatcher Thatcher, Milk Snatcher".
That one.
The "Greens" have been scum since 2000.
And Kevin is really, really underestimating sexism.
I think this one is like 2012.
I did not think Obama could win due to racism.
And the racist bent over backward to prove me wrong.
With Trump falling apart, I believe the sexists are going to bend over backward to prove something again this year, and Harris will win by a huge, healthy margin.
(Translate to dude's worriying about having to sleep on the couch all winter.)
The Bradley Effect was the attempt to use racism explain Tom Bradley's loss when he ran for CA governor when polls said he'd win. The idea is that people didn't want to reveal their racism to pollsters but it affected their vote. Later there was the "reverse Bradley effect" offered as an explanation of Obama's success -- the idea being that fear of expressing anti-racism would affect response to polls but not voting.
The upshot is that polling is far from an exact science, and is as affected by just-so theorizing as anything else involving human behavior.
Shrug. There are much simpler reasons to expect Harris to lose.
https://triblive.com/news/politics-election/kamala-harris-reportedly-tells-hecklers-they-are-at-wrong-rally/
How many votes do you think Harris will lose in Pennsylvania because she apparently thinks that people who yell "Jesus is Lord" should be at one of Trump's rallies instead of hers? Probably not many, but Pennsylvania in 2024 may end up like Florida in 2000, decided by tens to hundreds of votes, and that one bad joke may be one of the many deciding factors in her loss if, indeed, she loses.
And the odds are "Jesus is Lord" was shouted to show opposition to Harris' position on abortion, etc.
To me, that's blasphemy. Using the name of God as a weapon of attack.
It doesn't bother me a bit that she told him he was at the wrong rally.
I guess we all know with 100% certainty that a group of people who show up to a Harris speech and yell "Jesus is Lord" in an attempt to drown her out are good, church-going Christians.
Who support Donald J. Trump, irregular church-goer, serial adulterer and divorcer, who thought "2 Corinthians" meant "Two Corinthians," over Kamala Harris, a regular church-goer still on her first husband.
Surely the press should sit down with Harris' pastor from back when she lived in San Francisco, and with Trump's when he lived in New York City, and talk with them both about how they were as congregation members. Except they can't because they'd have nobody to talk to on Trump's behalf.
I do recall someone at some point suggested that "by their fruits you shall know them," not whether they claim to be true to God or not. But that was probably some godless Commie.
I tend to agree with you and Kevin. Trump has never cracked 47% of the popular vote, and I don't see him doing it this year. Probably less. His campaign antics and evident insanity are embarrassing to at least some R and Indie voters. Some may stay home, if not vote for Harris. Trump's Supreme Court has angered a lot of women. Restricting women's choice has never won in an election where it was an issue.
Thus spake Zaphod.
Dobbs has always seemed to me like it would be the hidden dynamic in plain sight and it's been consistently astounding to me that it hasn't gotten serious attention, as far as I know, from either the MSM or the polling organizations.
The fact that its overall effect is unknown doesn't mean it isn't there, just that they don't have a good idea how it will play out. Which means they should have been trying very hard for these past two years to discuss it, and to figure out its effects, respectively.
As for misogyny in general and suspicion that women are too "soft" to be president (held apparently by surprising numbers of women): Indira Gandhi and Golda Meir were called many things, but "cupcake" was never among them. Nor Merkel, more recently, in addition to other contemporaries mentioned. This is an Anglophone North American thing, imho.
I tend to agree with you and Kevin. Trump has never cracked 47% of the popular vote, and I don't see him doing it this year.
I doubt he'll crack 47% by a big margin, if he does at all. But could he go a bit higher than that? Could we see an election that shakes out 50% Harris vs. 48.3% Trump? (Which would likely mean a Trump EC victory).
I think that's very plausible, because the fundamentals are better for Trump than in either 2016 0r 2020. The "It's Harris's to lose" case seems wrong to me. Incumbents are hard-pressed in all democracies these days, and Harris carries the incumbency brand.
My head tells me it's a tossup. My queasy stomach tells me Trump is likely on his way to victory.
What I'm really hoping for is polling error that for a change benefits Democrats.
They've definitely been scum since 2000 when they failed to create a coalition, and actively worked against it.
Kevin, did you not watch Kamala's interview with that Fox "News" guy? Kamala's strong heart vanquished his soft brain.
I think the "soft-hearted woman" thing was Kevin suggesting how ‘undecided’ voters may think about the decision…
The Harris campaign needs to bring back the joy and patriotism of the convention, and contrast that with Trump's hellscape vision.
That's the sort of thing that convinced you/me/other informed voters who might have been concered about the Dems swapping candidates over the summer. It's not the sort of thing that will convince the evaporating pool of undecideds.
The message that Trump is an incompetent wannabe fascist who will usher in a hellscape/thinks the US is a hellscape empirically hasn't worked with undecideds/low-information folks. Trying to reach those people by going on a variety of platforms and talking about specific policy proposals might, and that's what Harris is doing.
Policies need to be presented as an investment in the American people because they are the greatest workers on Earth.
And Trump needs to be ridiculed. Trump's toadies will carry out Project 2025 while he sways to the music.
While I would put Trump's ceiling somewhat above his favorability (note that the unfavorables add up to almost exactly 100%), in principle I agree completely. I'd love to see a poll comparing how someone voted in 2020 with how they intend to vote this year, but I'd predict a correlation of close to 1. There might be a few Trump voters who won't vote for him this year, but I can't conceive of more than a trivial number of Biden voters switching to Trump. "Undecided" voters are mostly anything but. So it all comes down to turnout. If Harris gets all the Biden voters to come out, she wins. It's that simple.
".. but I can't conceive of more than a trivial number of Biden voters switching to Trump"
Look up "misogyny".
Racism not helpful either.
Most of those voters are already in the Trump column. This is an election driven mainly by dislike of the other candidate. My prediction is that the final votes will be 100-unfavorable for both candidates.
If you don't think that there are any Biden voters who might also be rascist/sexist, you might be scratching your head right now wondering how Biden pulled 51.3% of the vote while Harris has plateaued at about 48.5% in the polls.
The poll numbers don't add up to 100% so both candidates are going to get more than their poll numbers. Sure there are racist/sexist people who voted for Biden, but not very many. There are also people who voted for Trump in 2020 but won't this time. I expect those to pretty much cancel each other out. I stand by my prediction. This election is driven by dislike of the other candidate. Final totals will be 100-unfavorable.
None of this really matters. All that really matters is:
WI + MI + PA = 270.
The polling is broken.
I think there aren't enough of them, can't hire enough people to man the phones.
What makes you say that? Won't we have to wait until after the election to know if they were broken?
The polling was extremely accurate in 2022.
I wish. listen to Sarah longwell's The Focus Group.
Unfortunately Biden to Trump switchers are not rare.
I wish. listen to Sarah longwell's The Focus Group. Unfortunately Biden to Trump switchers are not rare.
Yep. The uninformed hopium one sees in comments threads like this is epic.
Now, to be fair, Trump=>Harris voters aren't rare, either, most especially because of abortion and January 6th. It remains to be seen which candidate benefits on net from "switchers." I doubt anyone knows the answer to that question.
Never underestimate the ignorance or misogyny of the American voter.
👍👍👍👍😒
Women: Can't live without 'em, can't live with 'em in the White House.
I'm too on-pins-and-needles to allow myself to believe, but even if she wins, its still going to be a mess post-election. And in the hierarchy of need, it will be a blessing if she wins, but we'll probably still have to cope with the R's mucking up the Senate.
Don't count out Tester. He's ALWAYS behind in the polls, but somehow pulls out a win on election day.
was he polling similarly six years ago?
In 2018 (off-year election) he pretty much matched the polls. In 2012 (also an election year) the RCP average had him behind by 0.4% and he won by 3.7%.
In 2018 (off-year election) he pretty much matched the polls. In 2012 (also an election year) the RCP average had him behind by 0.4% and he won by 3.7%.
Those were both good cycles for Democrats. It remains to be seen if 2024 ends up being a good election for Democrats.. I say Tester loses if the election were held today. But fortunately there are still two weeks left to go. So fingers crossed.
Not this far behind. And Montana has changed radically since then. It was fiercely independent before, and has, with the Dakotas, the worst climate in the United States. You had to be TOUGH to want to live there.
But in the past decade, and especially in the wake of the Pandemic, a hundred thousand people have moved there, mostly from pretty rich California suburbs, and they've brought their crazy Reactionary mindset with them. John Tester doesn't have a chance with them. The last time he ran was in 2018 when the Democrats were sweeping everything in sight because of Trump's chaos.
It wasn't so long ago that Montana had a Democratic governor and TWO Democratic Senators, even while voting regularly for Republican Presidential candidates. They were an enigma, but that's clearly changed. Tester is more likely than not going to lose, but I wouldn't count him out just yet. The most recent polls are from early October and he's historically finished strong.
But in the past decade, and especially in the wake of the Pandemic, a hundred thousand people have moved there
I find this general topic of considerable interest. Not that long ago—certainly we saw this trend going strong in the 90s through, say, to the early 2010s—fast-growing states tended to be growing bluer. We saw this originally (and spectacularly) with California. And then Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Virginia, Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia. But the process now seems stalled. The states that are growing fastest now might be getting bluer (Texas is a good example—statewide elections there in recent cycles have often been fairly modest wins for the GOP) but in general progress now seems sluggish or stalled. Florida has grown a bit redder, for example. And it remains to be seen what North Carolina will do. And Tennessee, South Carolina, Utah, Idaho and a number of others appear to be years away from flipping (and Texas, too, may not flip anytime soon).
I wish the only people who will vote for Trump are the people who actively approve of him.
if I believed that I would not be so worried.
IMHO the fundamental question in the primary contest between Obama and Clinton was which was more powerful, racism or misogyny.
Even with the Civil War, misogyny won hands down.
Oh come on. Obama is a great speaker, an inspiring generational talent. Clinton for all her virtues was not that.
this time around Harris is a great
speaker, a great political talent. If she doesn't win I won't ascribe it to misogyny. Trump is drawing latent authoritarians (many former Democrats) out of the woodwork.
That said, Harris, like Clinton, would win if getting the most votes counted, as it does in all sanely structured democracies.
"IMHO the fundamental question in the primary contest between Obama and Clinton was which was more powerful, racism or misogyny."
That's ridiculously reductive, and totally ignores the reality that Obama is a much, much better politician than Clinton (hell, either Clinton) ever was.
I used to think that, too, and I still admire President Obama greatly for the extremely high quality of people he attracted and chose. He ran an almost perfect Administration. He also has solid "centrist" credentials.
But he is far too unwilling to "spend his political capital". He punted on too many topics while he was President, preferring to keep too much rather than spend it when he HAD the Bully Pulpit.
What's he going to spend it on now? His global National Parks? That's great, but it doesn't help the people he claims to care about.
Well, he spent a lot of political capital on one big thing.
Appealing to GOP congresscritters who would never ever vote for his obamacare legislation?
Yep that’s exactly what he wasted his political capital on.
The Affordable Care Act has proven to be durable and popular. But did Obama actually spend a lot of political capital on it? Not as much as did the Democrats in the House and Senate.
Remember that it took 60 votes for the "debate" against it to be ended? There was roughly a month and a half after Al Franken's election was decided that the Dems has 60 votes in the Senate, until Ted Kennedy died. In the next election the Republicans won six formerly Democratic seats. The House flipped. It was a wipeout, but Barack Obama was still President and actually won re-election two years later.
He had the Republicans over a barrel with the expiring Bush tax cuts and he gave them a hand up by agreeing to keep all of the cuts except for a minor recission for the very wealthy. They've never even said "Thanks!"
He could have said, "We can all pay a bit more taxes to move toward the time of balanced budgets just a decade ago." After all, he was "surging" in Iraq and still fighting in Afghanistan.
Being a talented politician means you have what it takes to win.
Being a talented politician does not mean you are great in office.
Obama was a better politician than president, Biden is a better president than politician.
BTW I'm not saying Obama wasn't a good president, he was. And an extraordinary politician.
yep. Always a bad idea to ignore candidate quality.
A much, much better politician who was taken to the very last primary by Sec. Clinton before finally winning the nomination.
Yes yes. I don't know why he bothered--he barely beat her!
IMHO the fundamental question in the primary contest between Obama and Clinton was which was more powerful, racism or misogyny. Even with the Civil War, misogyny won hands down.
Sorry, but this is just fucking stupid.
Obama won first and foremost because Hillary Clinton voted for the invasion of Iraq, and wide swaths of the Democratic primary base therefore went with her opponent. Understandably so: that war was an absolute disaster, and in 2008 it was ongoing.
Obama was also the more sure-footed, able campaigner and had a better managed campaign (David Axelrod that year gave an absolute master class on how to win a nomination).
And I write the above as a person who voted for Clinton in the 2008 primary. And the 2016 primary. And the 2016 general election. I like and admire Hillary Clinton, but she was beaten fair and square by Barack Obama in 2008, partly because of her own baggage, and partly because of a flawed primary strategy. It had approximately nothing to do with sexism.
"The big wildcard, in my opinion, is sexism. How many people, when they finally have to pull the lever for someone, will decide they don't trust a laughing, smiling, soft-hearted woman to drive a hard bargain with tough customers like Putin and Xi?"
There is sexism and there is SEXISM. Trying to embarrass your female opponent by waxing forth on Arnold Palmer's package is sexism of the second kind. Will some sexists of the first kind be sufficiently turned off by the second kind of sexism?
Those who say a woman can't drive a hard bargain have never been married!
There are no undecideds at this point. Everyone who claims to be is either a Trump voter too embarrassed to admit it or so supernaturally dense they'll end up doing everyone a favor and not vote at all.
The whole thing is going to be de-motivating the other side and motivating your side.
And, I've never had the impression Kamala was all that soft-hearted. She seemed really happy when she was stomping on Trump's little nutsack. I hope to see more of this in the future.
"stomping on Trump's little nutsack"
A phrase for the decades to come.
Wingnut defending Trumps' tale of Arnold Palmers' magical junk,
https://www.rawstory.com/hogan-gidley-trump-arnold-palmer/
"I'm sure the golf community cares a lot about that topic," Gidley insisted.
Is there something about golf I've been missing all these years? Or is it just Republicans who golf?
Am I no longer in the swing of it?
"Am I no longer in the swing of it?"
I see what you did there.
Whey swing both ways at the Clubhouse.....
What these numbers suggest to me is that, if Harris does win, then four years from now when people know her better, she'll be in big trouble.
Since Trump would absolutely NOT be the Republican candidate in four years, the only one as bad would be JD. And that might come to pass; but that's four years from now and Things Can Happen in the meantime.
Ridiculous to speculate at this point.
Yep. His health may not hold out, or he may be behind bars. But if neither of these things is true in 2028 following a Harris win next month, Trump getting the nomination yet again at minimum seems at least plausible.
He's got an absolute iron grip on maybe 60% of the GOP base, and that super majority may be all it takes.
(No, not guaranteed. Maybe the GOP will come to it senses. The future is hard to predict. But he's their God-Emporer. To millions of people, Trump is not just a politician).
Anyone who thinks Harris is soft-hearted forgets she was a prosecutor.
"The big wildcard, in my opinion, is sexism."
Oh FFS, Kevin. THIS, this is the reason you and your party deserve to lose, this insistence, EVERY TIME anyone disagrees with you about anything, whether it's tax policy or foreign policy or housing policy or whatever, that it has to be about "racism" and "sexism".
If you people, even someone as moderate as yourself, are unwilling to actually engage with others who disagree with you, and are unwilling to learn from mistakes (just insist that every failure is actually the failure of others because they're all sexist and racist) you damn well don't deserve to win, not even against as awful a human being as Trump.
Nah you’re just fucking stupid.
You're reading an awful lot into Kevin's simple observation of the existence of sexism, and his speculation as to how it could potentially impact the vote.
no, name99 is right--the mere fact that Kevin said the word "sexism" means that Trump deserves to win.
After all, the biggest threat to this country is not an incompetent moron with autocratic dreams winning the presidency, but that some people on a blog occasionally muse about bias.
I hope Kevin is correct.
For me, I look at the Realclearpolitics average of polls, and Trump has a small lead in ALL the swing state, plus the polls undercounted Trump support in 16 and 20.
I wish this election was not so close....
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/
You should look at other aggregators also. FiveThirtyEight has them even in the swing states except Georgia, and even in NC!
KenSchulz I look at 538 and Nate Silver as well. The real unknown, how accurate are the polls? I am concerned...
I average five of them: RCP, 538, Silver, Guardian and The Economist. I don't really trust RCP's methodology, but I like to include them to be extra careful not to give in to Democratic hopium.
I'll probably do my calculations again mid week to see where we are. But heading into this weekend, Harris was up by 2.5 points—a half point down where she was on October first, but the exact same place she was October 9th (and about a half point above where she was on the 23rd of September). My sense is Trump has had a decent October, poll-wise, but the bulk of his gains came in the first third of October.
But I'll know more a few days from now.
The one good thing is that there seems to be a big upswing in Kamala's "Approval", especially since the Fox interview. She came ready to throw punches, and basically mauled Baier.
Sure, she deflected on a bunch of "gotcha" questions. I wish she had been big enough to say "Yes, we were wrong to accept the consensus view that in the absence of the Pandemic health restrictions Asylum seekers had to be let into the country on parole. We have since that time determined through Judicial review that there is sufficient Executive authority to limit crossings even in its absence, so we have done that. We follow the law but it isn't always clear in instances not even remotely envisioned when it was written in 1957."
Yes, it's a complicated "word salad" that 95% of MAGAts couldn't understand, but at least it would not look like evading the question.
Meh. Trump is less unfavorable this year than he was in either 2016 or 2020. And has a higher favorabity rating than he did on the eve of the other two eleections. Harris's lead in favorability over Trump is about the same as Clinton's and far less than Biden's.
Part of the problem is that someone can say they're both favorable or both unfavoable. But if they choose to vote, they have to pick between them. It's possible, for example, that those who see them both as unfavorable, view Trump as less unfavorble than Harris and will end up voting for him. Leading him to win. I hope that won't happen but this isn't good date to decide who's going to win the election.
Just be right. Whatever else you do or say, just this one time, please be right.
I have long believed Harris would lose one or two percentage points in an election because she's a woman, and another one or two because she's Black. If this is correct, it only remains to be seen whether the prejudices are spread evenly across the country, or concentrated mainly in red states which no Democrat was going to win anyway.
I largely agree with Drum's take here except that Trump's favorability in his last two elections was closer to 43% and he got 46% in both elections. That suggests his ceiling is more like 47%, which not coincidentally is the number that doesn't disapprove of him. It means that the election turns on how many of the 53% vote for Harris. I do tend to agree that few people will go third party given the threat of a Trump election.
In fact of all of the ads that I have seen run so far the most effective for driving voters to Harris is one in which footage is played of the announcement that Trump won the election in 2016. I would think that commercial could scare a lot of people into voting for Harris. Oddly it is Trump who pays to air that ad.
I would think that commercial could scare a lot of people into voting for Harris. Oddly it is Trump who pays to air that ad.
A lot of the pro-Trump forces seem to be invested in the notion that if they scare anti-Trump voters enough, they'll be...uh, demoralized? Won't bother to vote?
But yes, such a strategy seems odd: I reckon a scared pro-Harris electorate is one that will be sure to get to the polls. Democrats already have a turnout advantage. A lot of the GOP/MAGA efforts seem aimed (unknowingly, to be sure) at increasing that advantage.
I put more faith in the massive disparity in GOTV operations.
Trump, constantly lacking money during his entire campaign, outsourced GOTV to SuperPACs. SuperPACs, like Musk's, outsourced it to contractors. Contractors outsourced it to flaky people and have had a horrible time tracking their efforts. They can't fill their openings and don't pay enough to tackle their core constituency, rural and small communities. Because they're not centralized, there's no single app for people to use to track. With so many cooks in the kitchen, they all have different methods in carrying out their GOTV operations.
Bottom line: Trump's GOTV is a clusterfuck, and I'm betting that, with his low ratings, the folks who would vote for Trump but hate his guts, aren't being pushed to get off the couch and vote. Sweep of all the battleground states, thanks to Trump's grifting and outsourcing a key part of elections.
Please, Majestic Universe, let this be the case.
Ben Winkler, head of Wisconsin's democratic party, said on Pod Save America that he's asked volunteers if they've seen Trump canvassers and they've said no, and that Musk's SuperPAC is barely visible.
Musk's using "fuck you" money, but it turns out he's the one getting fucked.
"Compassionate" is not the same as "soft-hearted". I suppose some may think it so, though.
"Compassion is a sharp blade." Death, in many of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels.
Didn’t read all the comments so someone may have said this. But he doesn’t care if he loses. The storm he will start with a flick of his finger could hand the ball election to the states. Ie he wins. Please tell me I’m wrong (seriously).
Well, if he has given up, what he might have given up on is being president again. It's a demanding job, even the way he did it.
I'm not a mind reader, but he seems less interested in being president, and more interested in hanging out with a bunch of people who like him.
And you know, on that score, I kind of agree with him.
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