How I See It, How Trump Should See It.

 Well, it has been a week. Six days ago, Kamala Harris dominated her first (and probably only) debate with Donald Trump. She was great on a lot of levels but my favorite part of her performance was how she reminded people just how tiring Donald Trump's whole shtick is. She baited him repeatedly and he walked into it every single time.  Because he's a baby. 

Since then he has spent his time insisting that he won the debate, doubling down on racist lies about Haitian refugees eating pets and refusing to do a second debate. (Probably his best decision in quite awhile.)

The post-debate polls have been generally good for Harris. As for my official prediction, I'm sticking with Harris 292, Trump 246. I think the popular vote result will be similar to 2020 and there will not be many changes in the electoral college either.

I. How I See It.

A. Swing Stones Leaning Blue

I am reasonably confident that Kamala Harris will win Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada. I also think she is more likely than not to win Pennsylvania. These states will get her over the finish line with 276 votes.

B. True Toss-ups

The polls in Arizona, Georgia and Arizona have been close. I can imagine any of these states going either way. If Trump sweeps them, the election will be close and he will try like hell to steal it. Every state that Harris wins here will make it harder for Trump to do another insurrection. (It's so sad that we have to think this way, but we do.)

II. How Trump Should See It.

In my previous post, I divided the swing states into three northern states and four "southern." That was because Harris needs to sweep the three northern states (WI, MI, PA) to get to exactly 270 votes and win the election.  For any northern state that she loses, she has to make up the equivalent number in the four southern states.

For Trump the math and the geography work a little differently.  Trump should win at least 219 electoral votes. To get to 270, he needs 51 more.  The easiest path there is to sweep Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia. So for today's purposes, we'll call those three states The Eastern Swing States. 

For ever electoral vote Trump loses in the east, he has to make up for them in the four "western" states.

Here are the combinations that put Trump in the White House. Because GA and NC are both worth exactly 16 votes, they are interchangeable in these scenarios.

IIII. How Forecasters And Markets See It.

I think Harris is about a two to one favorite now. Let's call it 66% chance of her winning. Harris has run a very good campaign and Trump continues to step on rakes. Harris has a fundraising advantage and unlike last time the Democrats will be out knocking on doors this fall. 

Trump is going to lose the popular vote but he can still win enough swing states to get to 270. His biggest problem right now is that a lot more voters have made up their mind against voting for him than have made up their mind against voting for his opponent.

Almost all of the forecasters like Harris better today than the did a week ago.  Even Nate Silver has her chances up by a full five percent from right before the debate.

Nate Silver and his former baby, 538.com  are still 17 points apart because they moved in the same direction this week.  But like Harris about five percent more than they did before the debate.

As for betting markets, Predictit.com favors Harris 57 to 47 and Poly Market has the race must closer with Harris leading 50% to 48%.

Harris could not have asked for a better week. She continues to do well, the public is warming to her and her opponent continues to be a decrepit whiner.  

Seven weeks to go, citiens.

A Fortnight's Sleep (The Road to 270, Take 14)

My first map of 2020.

Two weeks from tonight I will sit down at this desk and type out my final election prediction for 2020. Then I will go to bed and be hit with a wave of nervous anticipation that I have not felt since my last Santa Claus Christmas. 

For now, Joe Biden leads by nine or ten points. He has leads in the pivotal states and has a few routes to running up the score. Ohio and Georgia, two states that Biden does not need to win, are true coin-flips. 

There is only one debate remaining. Perhaps most importantly, President Trump seems to be incapable of changing his course. He lives in the Fox News Bubble and he seems determined to campaign there as well. The election is more likely to be ugly and scary than it is to be close.

But this project is a commitment, so I crunched the numbers again. There was some modest movement towards Donald Trump in some of the betting markets for individual states. But the polling data remains pretty stable. Biden's numbers improved slightly in Arizona  and North Carolina, but remained where they were last week in most other places.

 I.  The Taxonomy Down the Stretch.

Last week I introduced a new way of thinking about the election, dividing all of the remotely competitive states into six categories. I'll walk through each of those tiers here.  The chart this week includes changes from last week for the prediction market prices and the 538.com forecast. 

A. The Nightmare scenario: The States Biden Defends.

There is no sign that NH, MN or NV have become competitive in the polling data. Nate Silver has all three of these states trending towards Biden. It must be noted that the betting markets for these states have drifted slightly toward Trump.  I think that is mostly profit-taking. People sold their shares in the 80s to buy more competitive states in order to collect more on election night.  

B. The Tight Scenario: The Rust Belt Hillary Killer States.

Very little movement in these states. Trump got one good poll from a Republican pollster called Trafalgar that had him up by one.  The other polls this week had Biden winning by at least eight points.

Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Nebraska-2nd congressional district are basically unchanged from last week.

There was some Trump movement in the prediction markets here, but less pronounced than in the long-shot states.

C. The Good Scenario: Sun Belt States.

Here is a certified quirk of October. Florida's in-person early voting began today. About 50 of the 67 counties released data on the party affiliation of ballots returned. It was just about a draw, with the Republicans netting about 4K votes. That margin was more than made up for in today's vote by mail numbers. Most importantly, Miami-Dade did not release numbers by party affiliation but will do so tomorrow.  Today, the betting markets moved to Trump by about seven points, based on this data. But I expect we will see a correction tomorrow when the Miami numbers are released. 

Arizona and North Carolina have both trended towards Biden this week, but not dramatically.

I still like Biden to run the table up to this point. That would get him up to 334 Electoral Votes.

D. The Great Scenario: The Map Expands.

Georgia and Ohio remain true toss-ups. For most of the week Nate favored Biden slightly in GA and Trump slightly in OH. But neither is more than a 52/48 proposition. We are expecting a high-quality New York Times poll of Ohio tomorrow. I expect it will be very close, and that is consistent with my overall theme-if Ohio is close, Joe Biden is winning the election.

I am starting to think of Ohio and Iowa as a 7-10 split for Biden. He probably can't win both so he might as well focus on winning one of them. With two competitive senate races, Georgia is the logical place to put more resources. To be sporting, I'm moving Georgia into Biden's column tonight. But it is a true coin toss.

Trump remains a modest favorite in Iowa.

E. The Dream Scenario: A Blue Texas

Fun little data point here. In both the Economist and FiveThirtyEight models, the most common EV total for Joe Biden is 413.  That means running the table in all of the above states plus adding Texas.

But don't get carried away. It's "the mode" but it only happens 3.8% of the time. There are a lot of combinations in a race that has 56 jurisdictions A lot has to go right for Biden to get to this point. I think it's unlikely. 

This week, Texas moved slightly to the left in the models and slightly to the right on Predictit.com. The fundamentals are this-Trump is the favorite but Biden doesn't need to win there.

F. The Blow Out Scenario.

Biden has remote shots of winning Alaska, South Carolina and Montana.  You can probably add Kansas to that list, but none of these states will decide the election and the movement this week was modestly towards Donald Trump. 

All margins and prices are for Biden/Democrat. Changes from last week are shown in parenthesis.)

State	Elect Votes	2016 Margin	Predictit Price	538 Margin	538 %
New Hampshire	4	0.37%	77 (-3)	10.3 (+1)	87 (+3)
Nevada	6	2.42%	75 (-5)	7.1 (None)	88 (+1)
Minnesota	6	1.51%	75 (-5)	8.6 (+0.2)	92 (+1)
Michigan	16	-0.22	69 (-7)	8 (-3.9)	92 (None)
Pennsylvania	20	-0.72%	68 (-2)	6.1 (-0.4)	87 (None)
Wisconsin	10	-0.76%	68 (-5)	6.7 (+0.2)	87 (+2)
Nebraska-2	1	-2.00%	N/a	5.2 (+0.4)	79 (+3)
Florida	29	-1.19%	52 (-6)	3.2 (-0.6)	71 (None)
Arizona	11	-3.50%	57 (+3)	3.1 (+0.2)	69 (+2)
North Carolina	15	-3.66%	51 (-5)	2.6 (+0.5)	68 (+5)
Georgia	16	-5.10%	41 (-2)	-0.1 (+0.5)	50 (+4)
Ohio	18	-8.07%	37 (-5)	-0.1 (-0.6)	49(-4)
Iowa	6	-9.41%	35 (-6)	-1.2 (-0.3)	43 (-2)
Maine-2	1	-10.29%	N/a	0.4 (+1.1)	52 (+5)
Texas	38	-8.98%	27 (-3)	-2.6 (+0.6)	33 (+2)
Alaska	3	-14.73%	17 (-3)	-6.9 (-0.1)	22 (-1)
South Carolina	3	-14.27%	11 (-5)	-7.9 (-1.2)	11 (-5)
Montana	3	-20.23%	10 (-3)	-9.9 (+0.4)	11 (None)

II. The Forecasts.

1. FiveThirtyEight. Biden is at 88 percent, up slightly from 87 percent a week ago. 

2. The Economist. The most aggressive forecast in the field inches up again-moving Biden up to 92% from 91% a week ago. He seems to be determined to stay one step ahead of Nate Silver so he can yell "First!" when the networks call Florida or Pennsylvania on Election Night. His tally right now is Biden 350, Trump 188, which means that like me he moved Georgia into Biden's column this week. 

3. Sabato Crystal Ball. Biden 290, Trump 163, Toss-up 85. No changes from last week. 

4. 270toWin. Biden 290, Trump 163. Toss-up 85.  No changes from last week.

I think Sabato and 270 are both being too conservative with their toss-ups. Biden leads in FL and NC. Trump leads in IA. OH and GA are the only true toss-ups at the moment.

5. JHK Forecasts. Biden 88.3%, up slightly from 87.7%  They have Biden slightly favored in Georgia and Iowa with Ohio as close to a dead-heat as possible. They give Trump the edge there, 50.1% to 49.9%. That makes 357 Biden, 181 Trump. 

They are a little bullish on Biden in Texas, with him winning there 38.8% of the time. 

6. Plural Vote. Biden has a 73.1% chance of of winning, down slightly from 74% last week.

But they have Biden 332, Trump 206, which is up from 323 to 215 last week.  And they are even more bullish on Texas, giving Biden a 44% chance of winning there.

Right now this forecast feels the shakiest. They give Biden the lowest chance of winning the election but the best chance of achieving a blowout. 

7. Betting Markets. Predictit.com gives Biden 61.9%, up slightly from last week's 61.1%. That is consistent with other betting markets, that give Biden a slightly better than 3 to 2 chance of winning.

There was state-level movement toward Trump this week but that hasn't moved the big board. It also didn't change any states in their overall forecast, which remains Biden 334, Trump 204.

8. Spider Stumbled.

I remain confident but the state-level betting markets have me slightly more concerned than I was the last two weeks. I will move Biden from 91% down to 89%.  He was at 91% two weeks in a row.

He didn't have a bad polling week, but he did have a stable polling week, after several consecutive weeks of gains. 

But I do move Georgia into his column-by an inch.  That leaves my official prediction at Biden 351, Trump 187. 

And as I started last week, I will take a crack at the popular vote totals again. 

Biden 52.36%  (-0.19)

Trump 45.02%  (+0.17)

Jorgenson (Libertarian) 1.76%  (+0.1)

Hawkins (Green Party) 0.65%

Others: 0.2%  (+0.1)

Looking at all of the date-polls, forecasts, betting markets, there is simply no reason to doubt that Joe Biden remains on a path to 270 and beyond.  We got this week and then next week. Then it will be Monday. Then it will be game day.

Keep the faith.

Debatable, Barely

 I. Analysis.

The President is an ignorant, racist, deadbeat. These traits were on full display last night. He did absolutely nothing to persuade anyone that he has matured in office or that he is capable of being civil. 

Vice-President Biden was slightly overwhelmed by the reality of sharing a stage with such a rude, vituperative person for the first 15 or 20 minutes. He didn't have a great night, but he spoke cogently and avoided any terrible gaffes or unforced errors that will sting.

Biden went in with a substantial lead and he came out of it with what is likely to be a slightly larger lead in the days ahead. The instant polls indicate that he won the debate and even some of Trump's media talking heads, like Rick Santorum and Chris Christie, acknowledged that Trump hurt his own cause.

Presidential debates are usually remembered for moment and I think there are three that will be the focus of conversation this week.

1. Donald Trump refused to renounce white supremacists. He started to, but either got distracted or lost his nerve, and wound up giving a rallying cry to an obnoxious gang of racist louts. So far today his team is trying to spin this, but he has not rushed out to clarify or change the impression he made.  

2. Joe Biden invoked the military service of his deceased son Beau.  The President responded by taunting him with comments about the substance abuse issues of Biden's surviving son. Imagine responding to someone bragging about his dead son who won the Bronze Star by bringing up the fact that that person's other son had a drug problem. It is unfathomable.

3. Biden called the President of the United States a clown. He also told him "Shut up, man." These moments struck me as appropriate responses to Trump's rudeness, but I don't doubt that there are some voters who were turned off by that. Of course, people who care about decorum are unlikely to be voting for Trump, unless they are full of shit about why they are voting for that clown.

Oh and Chris Wallace is catching hell for losing control of the ship last night. He did start poorly but I think he reacted well, under the circumstances. He wasn't great, but I don't think anyone else would have done much better. 

II. A Little Bit of News.

It was easy to miss but there were at least 2 news worthy items in the ether of last night's circus.

First, President Donald Trump appeared to suggest that he is open to having the vote on Judge Coney-Barrett's nomination after the election.  He said there was "plenty of time" to do it after the election. I think that means the Republicans have read the polling on this point and are having some doubts about the wisdom of cramming this through. (I still think they will, but it was an interesting comment. I also think they will hold the vote no matter what the outcome of the election is.)

Secondly, Biden seemed to say that the Private Option of his healthcare plan would only be available to people eligible for Medicaid. I hope that reporters ask him to clarify that, but the news will probably focus on other things for the next few days. 

III. Early Signs of Movement.

I don't put a lot of stock in instant polls. The one done by CBS had Biden winning 48 percent to 41 percent. That mirrors almost perfectly the pre-debate polling average. The CNN poll had Biden winning 60 percent to 28 percent.  But only 25% of respondents were Republican, so that's probably a bad sample.

But there is one data point that has to encourage the Biden campaign this morning.  The betting markets have moved, noticeably toward Biden over night. On Predictit.com, both North Carolina and Florida have flipped from Trump to Biden. (By small margins, it must be said.)  States like Ohio and Georgia have also moved toward the Democrats. Biden's chances of winning the election have gone up by about a nickel.

IV. What Happens Next.

One of the most striking impressions last night was that Donald Trump knows that he is losing this race. I assumed that he knew that but it was really evident during the portion of the debate on election security. Trump needs to change minds. Last night was his best chance to do so, but he could not help himself. He is a rude, obnoxious jerk. That works very well with 40% of the country. That's not enough to win.

The next event is the Vice-Presidential debate. This is usually a snooze fest and I think this year will not be an exception to that. Kamala Harris had some good moments in the early primary debates but she is less deft at counter-punching.  

Mike Pence did well against Tim Kaine and I think he will hold his own against Senator Harris. The secret to his success is that he is the ability to lie with great confidence. If he gets asked to defend something absurd that Donald Trump believes, he will just start with "Of course the President does not believe that. The President is an honest, decent man.....etc, etc." The lies do not stop.

The contrast from last night will be telling. Pence might be able to make some coherent arguments that will make some voters say, "See, they're not so bad if you ignore the crazy pants way the Boss talks." But I don't think the needle will move much after a Veep debate.

The next presidential debate is a town hall forum. I think both candidates will do better in that setting. Biden is a natural retail politician and he will look more comfortable addressing regular voters than President Trump. But I also think Trump will benefit from the change in format. Trump knows he can be rude to Biden. His people expect it. He also knows he can be rude to the moderator. That's all in the game. But he has to hold back a little bit when regular old voters ask him a question. I wish the voters had a chance to ask follow-ups in this forum. That tripped up Trump in his last ABC town hall. But they usually do not allow such questions at the Town Hall debate, so we may not get to see how he does when someone tries to hold him to answering the question. 

Fun fact-the next debate will be moderated by Steve Scully, the incredibly patient and poker-faced C-SPAN host who has to listen to all those crazy morning callers. Good practice for listening to Trump's tantrums.

As I write this, the President has just appeared on the White House lawn to try to undo the damage of his Proud Boys answer last night.  His words were less than convincing but the important thing is that he seems to understand that he had a bad night and had to try to put this fire out.

He will probably be more sedate at the next debate. It would be hard not to. But by the third debate his polling situation might be so dire that he comes completely unhinged.