Four More Years But For Whoah....Wait a Second. Final 2024 General Election Forecast.

I. Four Scenarios.

The race remains extremely close. The betting odds are close to even money. The forecasts are nearly tied. But in less than 48 hours, we will probably know the winner and almost certainly the narrative will be one of these four things:

1. For a third consecutive election, the polls underestimated Trump. In this scenario the popular vote is close and Trump wins enough of the battle ground states to become president again.

2. The pollsters underestimated Harris organization and ability to turn out voters. In this scenario, the Harris campaign turns out low propensity voters and people who are simply sick of Donald Trump and all of his baggage.

3. Chaos. There has been a lot of discussion about whether 2024 will be a repeat of 2016 (Trump surges to victory) or 2020 (America turns out Trump.)  But we have to consider a repeat of 2000. the polling in swing states have been so close that it's very possible we will not know who is going to be president until the courts weigh in. 

4. Harris Wins Big. The Des Moines Register poll of Iowa (conducted by Ann Selzer) has been the golden child of polling the last two cycles. They found Trump up big there in 2016. Not only were they right about that, but the shift was replicated in other midwestern states and Trump took down the "blue wall" that was supposed to save Hillary Clinton. In 2020 they had Trump up in Iowa again and Trump won Iowa easily for a second time. The result was echoed in other states,  and the election wound up being closer than expected.

Trump won Iowa by nine points in 2016 and by eight in 2020. Selzer had Trump winning Iowa by seven in both of those cycles. Two days ago the final Des Moines Register poll had Harris up by three. If this poll is once again extremely accurate, than Harris would flip a bunch of states that Biden lost last time. 

I do not expect this poll to be that accurate for a third time in a row. But I also don't expect the wider pool of pollsters to under estimate Trump for a third straight time. In short, I think Harris is going to win. But I think it will be close.

II. Seven Swing States and Two Stretches.

The election has been narrowed to seven states for some time now.  To win the election Harris needs 44 Electoral votes from these states. Trump needs 49. From most to least important, this is what I expect.

1. Pennsylvania (19 electoral votes). This is the dog fight. The candidate who wins this state is the heavy favorite to be the 47th president. Almost every recent poll has it within a point or two. But a lot of that polling has been from partisan Republican pollsters. And they only find Trump up by a point. That should be encouraging to Harris. I think she will win the state by a point or two. If we know that result by Wednesday morning, then we are probably avoiding the chaos scenario.

2. Georgia (16 EV) Harris won this state by 11,779 votes in 2020. The state also has elected two Democratic senators. It was also the place where Trump's attempts to steal the 2020 election were most blatantly corrupt. The states demographics are trending left and Harris has made a full court press to win this state. Recent polling here has been extremely close but I think Georgia is more likely than Pennsylvania to go Republican this time. I favor Trump slightly.

3. North Carolina (16 EV) Georgia and North Carolina are interchangeable for the electoral map. They each have sixteen electoral votes and they are both southern. It is the only closely contested state that Trump held on to last time. (He won by about 94K votes.) Most of the polls here have shown Trump with a slight lead but the final New York Times poll had Harris up by three.

NC was hit very hard by Hurricane Milton. The response by the federal government was extremely competent.  North Carolina also have a very popular Democratic governor and the Republican candidate to replace him is a full blown loon. I think that helps on the margins. 

One other piece of data worth mentioning is that inflation was relatively mild in North Carolina. Nate Silver has been talking about this a lot. It seems that the states that avoided really high inflation are going to swing more to the left than other states. (This could be significant for the House-New York and California were hit hard by inflation. That would change the presidential result but it could hurt Democrats in the House.)

So my pick in North Carolina is Kamala Harris. By about a point or two.

4. Michigan (15 EV) Michigan will be one of the most closely scrutinized states regardless of the results. Michigan is home to large Arab and Muslim populations and they are concentrated in specific cities. There are a lot of Muslim and Arab voters who feel they cannot vote for Harris because of Joe Biden's decision to support Israel's response to the attacks of October 7th. I am sympathetic to this argument but also very aware that Trump will be much worse for the people of Gaza than Kamala Harris.

I think the protest vote will be measurable and I think it will cut into Harris lead. But it won't be enough for Trump to win the state. Trump won Michigan by less than a quarter of a point in 2016 and Biden won it by three points last time. Harris will win Michigan again.

5. Arizona (11 EV)  This is a weird one for me. I think AZ is a tough state to poll. Several really smart people that I follow on Twitter think this state will stay in the Dem column. It's possible but I cant' ignore that it's been awhile since Harris lead in a poll there. I think Arizona flips back to red.

6. Wisconsin (10 EV) This is where I will be on election day. I have also done a good deal of phone banking for this state. The polls are close but the Wisconsin Democrats have a great organization. I think Harris will win Wisconsin.

7. Nevada (6 EV) Nevada is the state that Dems always worry about and then they win. Polling has been a bit scattered and the Republican party has done a pretty decent job of running up a lead in early voting. But if history holds, the Reid Machine will carry Kamala over the line. Harris will win a close one, but the state will probably not be called for several days. Hopefully this time it won't hold up the call of the national race because Harris will be declared winner in Pennsylvania by Wednesday or Thursday.

The Two Stretches:

1. Kind of small beer here, but I think Harris might win Maine's 2nd congressional district. The Selzer poll of Iowa suggests that Harris is doing better with white voters than some expected. This could be a nice bonus but it won't affect the outcome anywhere.

2. The Selzer poll means we have to consider Iowa competitive. She has been accurate within a point or two the last two times and she has a reputation for letting the data speak for her. I admire that. Iowa passed an abortion ban that only took effect recently. It seems to have shifted the state left. One fun wrinkle of the Selzer poll is that it had RFK junior getting three percent of the vote. I don't think he will be much of a factor anywhere, but weird old Iowa might be the one place it matter.  

I'm keeping Iowa red on my map, but I think it will be close. Let's say Trump by two.

The only changes from my last forecast are moving NC and ME-2 blue. Here is what my map looks like now:

III. A Quick Word About Why You Should Vote For Harris.

I did my last round of phone banking today. A point of emphasis was to encourage people to tell their friends and loved ones to vote for Harris. It's unlikely that you are undecided voter if you're reading this but maybe you know an undecided voter or two. Feel free to share with them my top seven reasons to vote for Kamala Harris.

1. Trump threw a riot to steal the last election. He really did. And he has said openly that he will pardon the people who were convicted of crimes committed on his behalf that day. It will be the first order of business if he wins tomorrow. As an undecided voter, you're probably sick of being told that this election is especially important but this is the kind of stuff that ends democracies.

2. Harris will work to keep abortion legal.  Women have died because of the state bans that Trump made possible by appointing three justice who overturned Roe vs. Wade. If he regains the presidency, our government will do more and more to treat abortion as a crime. Harris probably can't fix this problem over night if the Democrats don't control the senate. But she'll work in the right direction. And rejecting Trumpism will send the message that we do not want women to die or doctors to be prosecuted for performing abortions.

3. Trump will align the United States of America with dictatorships and authoritarians. Trump does not care about democracy. He admires dictators and has PROMISED to be one, at least on his first day in office. We Americans might treat that statement like a joke, but it's not. In his heart he is an authoritarian. He will use the next four years to settle scores and to do favors to the people that he thinks helped him. This has some very real effects.

Ukraine will have to surrender a lot of territory to Russia. Trump won't give them any additional aide and he will want to take credit for brokering "peace." But this kind of appeasement will not be peace. It will give Russia permission to try to grow its boundaries. He will not stop with taking 20 percent of Ukraine. His goal and the goal of his successors is quite simply to restore the Russian and Soviet Empires. Trump will green light that.

NATO will be compromised. Trump doesn't think it is in the interests of the United States for NATO to survive because he thinks America is a fortress and we can get along with Putin and the Chinese Communist Party because we should not care about human rights or treaty obligations.

4. Trumps tariffs will wreak havoc on our economy. Donald Trump's single major economic idea is to impose large tariffs on all imported goods. He think the United States can survive as an insular economy. It can't. And the price of your smart phone and your clothes and your cars will go up immediately.

5. If Donald Trump wins, he will run rampant. He will likely have both chambers of congress. He will have an extremely sympathetic six to three majority on the Supreme Court. His first act will be stop the Department of Justice from prosecuting the crimes he committed during his first term. He will not be restrained by the cabinet members and generals who were there to put some roadblocks in his way. Moreover, he will have just been told by the American people that we don't care about the excesses of his first term. He will take a victory as a mandate for revenge. He will govern like a king who is immune from prosecution for anything that he can call an "official act."  He will have the Supreme Court he appointed and the voters he conned to thank for that. But he won't bother to be grateful.  He will be too busy, building his wall, deporting hard working people regardless of whether they are married to or the parents of American citizens. He will, as he promised, act like a dictator on day one. And who exactly is going to make him stop on on day two?

If Harris wins she will probably have control of the House but not the Senate. The Supreme Court will be hostile if she tries to do anything ambitious without congressional assent. In short, voting for Harris is to vote for moderate, restrained policy within the checks and balance of our system. Voting for Trump is voting to empower a lunatic as he passes into his eighties. Oh. and his running mate is a goober that's been in the senate for 20 months. 

IV. Just One More Thing.

 It's time to elect a woman president. Harris has avoided making this plea, and that's probably a smart decision. Hillary Clinton's campaign suffered from leaning into this bit of history a little too much. It rubbed some people the wrong way. But I'm not Kamala Harris or a woman. So I can tell you-I want a woman president. This is the ninth presidential election that I have voted in. At 51 years old, I might not vote in nine more. 

When Barack Obama was elected my friend showed his then three year old daughter one of those place mats with all the presidents. He was curious whether she would notice something different about the last face on the paper.  He went through all 44 pictures and told her just a little about each one. When he was done, she had two questions. "Why are they all boys? "And "Why were so many of then named James?"  She is in college now. I assume she has learned why all the presidents have been boys so far. I doubt she likes the answer. 

Donald Trump is in obvious mental and physical decline. He is a convicted felon and serial sexual pest. He recently told a crowd at a rally that Arnold Palmer had a large penis. He laughs when he talks about Nancy Pelosi's octogenarian husband being hit in the head with a hammer. If you want four more years of that, well you've got the company of about 45 percent of your countrymen.  

The American economy is in exceptionally strong health. We are no longer at war.  Crime is falling and we've even reduced our dependence on fossil fuels. The current administration has been a success. 

Kamala Harris is a good and bright person. She has run an excellent, moderate campaign. She is someone that will make the country proud.  If she wins, she will be proof that the American Experiment is alive and well.  You should vote for her. 

V. Putting My Predictions Out There.

Presidency:

Electoral College Harris 293, Trump 245

Popular Vote: Harris 51.03%, Trump 47.16%

Swing States:

Pennsylvania: Harris by 1

Georgia:  Trump by 0.3

North Carolina: Harris by 1.1

Michigan: Harris by 2.4

Arizona: Trump by 1.6

Wisconsin: Harris by 2.1

Nevada: Harris by 0.8

Stretch States:

Iowa: Trump by 2.4

Maine 2nd: Harris by 0.02

Florida: Trump by 2.9

Texas: Trump by 3.3

New Hampshire: Harris by 5

Virginia: Harris by 4.8

Other Big States:

New York: Harris by 20.4

California: Harris by 27.9

Illinois:  Harris by 17.4

Ohio: Trump by 6.7

The House: 
Democrats 223, Republican 212

I have paid very little attention to the house this cycle. The seats to watch are in Iowa. If people are really motivated by the abortion ban, the Dems will win one or two seats there. But control of the House will be determined by New York and California. 

The Senate:

Republicans 51, Democrats 49

Key Senate Races:

Ohio  Brown (D) by 1.8

Montana Sheehy (R) by 3.9  (Republican pick up)

Wisconsin Baldwin (D) by 3.2

Nebraska Fischer (R) by 5.7

Texas Cruz (R) by 2.3

Florida Scott (R) by 3

Arizona Gallego (D) by 5

Michigan Slotkin (D) by 4.1

Pennsylvania McCormick (D) by 3.5

West Virginia Justice (R) by 34 (Republican pick up)

Nevada Rosen (D) by 4.1

This would mean the incumbent party retaining 32 out of 34 races. But more importantly, the senate would flip to Republican control.