In 2020 I updated my forecast sixteen times. This is just my fifth in 2024 and I don't expect to do another one.
1. The State of the Race.
The race is too close to call. Extremely so.
There are only seven states that are being contested. The polls in all seven states are well within the margin of error. The most likely outcome is that one of the two candidates will sweep all seven. There are 128 permutations of the seven swing states. According to Nate silver, there is a 25% chance that Trump will win all seven and a 15% chance that Harris will win all seven.
In this situation, complicated electoral college map is pretty useless. Flip a coin seven times and you'll be in as full command of the facts as any pollster or pundit. So I'm not going to do that today. I'm going to talk about why this race could go either way.
2. Reasons for Trump to be Optimistic.
a. The American people have not disqualified him. By now I expected enough people to have ruled out voting for for more years of that amoral aspiring tyrant. I thought he would be stuck around 45 or 46 in the polls. He isn't. He's mostly between 47 and 49. He probably wins at 49. He probably loses at 48 and will lose at 47. It's that close.
b. The forecasts and betting markets have shifted towards him in the past few weeks. The FiveThirtyEight.com model gives Trump a 53.9% chance of winning. Nate Silver gives him a 54.4% chance of winning.
The betting markets now lean in Trump's direction slightly more. Predictit has him as a four to three favorite. Polymarket is about 2 to 1 in his favor, although some of that is due to some distortion by Crypto Bros who want to shape the narrative that Trump is inevitible.
c. He is eager to cheat and a lot of his party is willing to go along with that. Whatever dirty trick they can pull, it shall be pulled. Trump has long assumed that this race will be won or lost in the courts because he has convinced himself that the courts cheated him out of victory in 2020. (They didn't. He's an idiot.)
3. Reasons for Harris to be Optimistic.
a. Women hate Donald Trump. The world has been unkind to incumbent parties since COVID-19. But the United States has one issue that makes our election different. Donald Trump appointed three justices to the Supreme Court and they all voted to give states the authority to criminalize abortion. Red states have not been shy about exercising that authority. Women have noticed.
b. Kamala Harris is more popular than Hillary Clinton was in 2016. Hillary was less hated than Trump in 2016 but they were both unpopular. Harris's personal approval ratings are roughly neutral. Trump is still unpopular generally.
c. The Democrats have raised more money and have a much better ground operation than Team Trump.
d. Trump's age is really showing. He is tired and he rambles even more than he did in his previous runs. He is old and the people have noticed. I think in the end, this will make the difference.
4. Things to Ignore.
People are naturally trying to divine the meaning of early voting patterns. There are some theories that bolster Trump (especially in Nevada) and others that bolster Harris (especially with gender differences and the numbers in Pennsylvania). But I am going to hold off on putting too much stock in any of that because 2020 was such an outlier for early and mail voting. Four years ago we were in a pandemic. One campaign acknowledged that and the other actively discouraged people from voting before election day. The situation is different now. The overall numbers will be lower but I don't think they will be as lopsided in favor Democrats either.
5. My Updated Forecast.
This race is going to be very close. For the past few weeks Trump seemed to have a slight bit of momentum behind him. I think that has petered out. In the home stretch he looks tired and frail.
Harris has run a good campaign. I don't think she's a great retail politician but she has run well. She's done the appropriate mix of interviews, rallies and advertising. She's focused on the right issues and I think she is more likely to close this deal than not.
With one week to go, I think this is where the probabilities of each swing state stand:
1. Michigan (Harris 67%)
2. Wisconsin (Harris 60%)
3. Nevada (Harris 55%)
4. Pennsylvania (Harris 53%)
5. North Carolina (Trump 51%)
6. Georgia (Trump 55%)
7. Arizona (Trump 60%)
But there are 128 permutations for how 7 coin flips can go. Next week all 128 are possible. This is the one I find most likely:
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