Final 2022 Midterm Predictions of Extremely Low Confidence

If you play this game, you have to go on the record. I do so in the Year of Our Lord 2022 with very little confidence. But making your best guess is important, especially if you remember to remain humble when that guess turns out correct.  (More or less.)

 1. The House Will Go Republican but By a Small Majority.

Current House: 221D, 214R.

Prediction:  228R, 207D.  (Republicans gain 14 seats.)

It will be hard for the incumbent party to hold on to a razor-thin majority.  A lot has to go right for the Democrats.  But I also do not see them getting blown out.  The Republican won almost every close race last time and while they probably benefitted modestly from reapportionment, I do not think they were able to add many seats from redistricting.

There also has been a modest uptick for the Democrats in tracking polls over the last few days. I think that momentum will keep a few close seats blue.

There are not very many compelling individual races in the House this year. Some of the worst Republicans are leaving this year because of retirement (Goehmert) or primary loss (Cawthorn).  Most of the other really bad ones (Greene, Gaetz) are in very safe seats. Lauren Boebert had a couple close polls but she too is a heavy favorite.

1. If you want a sign of how things might go for the rest of the country, Florida (13th) and Virginia (2nd) are two races to watch.  Both are currently held by Democrats but both have shifted right after redistricting. If the Dems win both of these races, it's a good sign for them. 

 2. Alaska at-large will be talked about a lot, especially if the Democratic incumbent clears 50% on the first round. (I think she will-just barely.) 

3. Every vote matters. The GOP caucus contains no shortage of people more interested in their brand then in governance. Kevin McCarthy won't be able to get much done if he's trying to ride herd over a 221 seat house. But as his caucus grows, then he can get away with letting them do more stupid things like impeaching Joe Biden to keep Donald Trump happy.  If he has 230 seats, they can probably scratch together 218 who are dumb enough to play that game. If he only has 221 or 222, then he probably can't do that or force a government shutdown that would tank America's credit rating. 

2. Dems Will Keep the Senate-Barely.

Current Senate: 50 (+1 VP) D, 50 R.

Prediction: 50D, 49R, with GA going to a runoff.

A. This Probably Comes Down to 4 Races. 

I don't think any of these races have a clear favorite but I'll list them in order of confidence.

1.Arizona: Dems win. Their incumbent is popular and normal and those people usually win. Let's call it Kelly 51, Masters47.

2. Georgia goes to a runoff.  Their incumbent is normal and relatively popular but it's a tough environment for Democrats in a state that is still 50-50.  The Republicans nominated a moron but that is not deterring the base at all.  On election night, Walker will have a small lead but come up short of 50.  Let's call it Walker 49, Warnock 48. 

Pennsylvania & Nevada are truly too close to call. I can see any combination happening here-2R, 2D, 1 of each with either party winning either race. But if I scrutinize the numbers, the polling history, the momentum and the candidate quality, this is where I land. (I think.)

3. Nevada: Cortez Masto 50, Laxalt 49

4. Pennsylvania Fetterman 49.5, Oz 49.1.

B. The Second Tier Races. 

There is a second tier of races here where one party is clearly favored but the other candidate has a reasonable chance of winning. (Reasonable chance defined as the odds of a #9 batter in an average baseball lineup getting a hit in any given at bat against an average pitcher.  (Something close to 20%.)

5. Wisconsin   Ron Johnson is odious. He is dishonest and shitty in several ways. But this state is evenly divided and the environment tilts to the right slightly. So I think that will be enough for Johnson to hold on. 

Johnson (R) 50.4, Barnes 48.6. Chance of an upset: 25%.

6.  Ohio.  J.D. Vance is a weak candidate. Tim Ryan is a pretty strong one but this is a red state and I think Vance will make it through.

Vance 51.4, Ryan 48.6.  Chance of an upset: 23%.

7.  North Carolina.  This race has barely been on my radar. Both candidates seem inoffensive, which I think favors the Republican in this environment.

Budd 51, Beasley 47. Chance of an upset: 21%.

8. New Hampshire.  Okay, this is the one to watch if you are a Republican.  I think their candidate should lose but if he wins or keeps it very close, that is a sign that the GOP is headed for a good night.

Hassan 51.1, Bolduc 47.5 Chance of an upset: 18%. 

C. Squint and You Can See an Upset.

Polls are sometimes wrong. In another universe, the Dems might be competing in Florida or Iowa. In the world of Trafalgar polling, the Republicans are competing in Washington and Colorado.  But I really don't think any of these races will shock anyone. 

What to Watch: 

1. Democrats probably need to win three of the Big Four Races. 

2. If the Dems  pull an upset in Ohio, Wisconsin or North Carolina, then they can survive with a split of the Big Four.  

3. If the Republicans win New Hampshire, they are probably on the way to a big night in both houses.

3. Governor Races: Treading Water, But Lookin at the Margin.

1. The Big States will stay in their lane.  The incumbent or incumbent party will win in all seven of the biggest states-CA, TX, FL, NY, IL, PA and OH. Those polls showing Hochul in a tight race a week or two ago will be fodder for jokes.

2.  Democrats gain Maryland and Massachusetts easily. They gain OK narrowly. They hold OR & WI very narrowly.

3. Republicans gain Kansas and Nevada. They will also probably hold Arizona, which just might have dire consequences on a lot of fronts.

I am most interested in seeing how some of these races go in comparison to the same state's senate races. I think a lot of voters might want to send the message that candidates matter.  The best way to do that is to vote for a competent normie but against flashy celebrity candidates or full-on crazies. 

IV. Summary.

A lot of these races are going to be very close and turn on silly things like weather or minor nuances in voting procedures. The results of these elections will affect the nation. Worst of all, the parties will extrapolate lessons from tiny wins and losses. Push the ball in the direction your prefer for this country. You have nothing better to do tomorrow.

Race	Result	Details/Margin
House of Rep.	GOP Wins.	A net of 14 seats. GOP 228, DEM 207
Senate	Dems Hold.	A net gain of 1 on Election Night. GA in a Run Off.
AZ Senate	Dem Hold	Kelly by 4
GA-Senate	Runoff	Walker by 1 but under 50%
NV Senate	Dem Hold	Cortez Masto by 1.
PA Senate	Dem Pickup	Fetterman by 0.4 points
WI Senate	GOP Hold	Johnson by 2
Ohio Senate	GOP Hold	Vance by 3
NC Senate	GOP Hold	Budd by 4
NH Senate	Dem Hold	Hassan by 3 and a half points
Governors	Dems Gain	Democrats Gain MD, MA, & OK, lose NV & KS.
KS-Gov	GOP Pickup
NV-Gov	GOP Pickup
OK-Gov	Dem Pickup
OR-Gov	Dem Hold
WI-Gov	Dem Hold	This will be very close.

.

One Week Out Official 2022 Midterm Non-Predictions

I have not written a political post in 15 months. One reason for that is that I have been generally satisfied with the Biden presidency. And my views on 2024 are pretty set-Biden and Trump will both run again. They will probably both be nominated and Biden will be favored to win the rematch.

But the midterms are now upon us and I feel obligated to make at least one post about my expectations. 

Frankly, and here's the party you are waiting for...I don't know what to expect. The strongest assumption going into a midterm is the natural historic tendency for the party in power to do poorly. With an 50/50 Senate and 221/214 House, that usually means the incumbent party will lose both houses by wide margins. But then came Dobbs.  The decision in June by the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade and allow states to make abortion a crime. Thirteen states have completely outlawed abortion and Georgia has implemented an absurd six-week cut off for abortions.

The thinking is that this decision and those laws will motivate young people and especially women to vote. Over the summer we had several special congressional elections and a statewide referendum in Kansas that confirmed this theory.

But the polls have undeniably shifted in the Republican direction over the last six weeks or so. I'm not going to ignore that fact. But I do think this is a hard year to poll. The environment is different than some recent midterms for a few reasons:

1. Biden is not very popular but he's also not viscerally hated by the opposing base in the way that Trump and Obama were.

2. Voting is different than it was even four years ago.  A lot of people are now comfortable voting early and by mail. But we're also no longer dealing with COVID in the same way we were in 2020, so I expect a lot of people are planning to vote on election day, as they did for most of their lives.

3. Dobbs should drive more women and young people to vote this time and there is at least some date in the voting registration and early voting numbers that suggest this is happening. But you never want to be relying on unreliable voters and that is where the Democrats find themselves in 2022.

4. Most of the recent polling has been done by Republican aligned pollsters. The Real Clear Politics average in particular includes a lot more Republican friendly pollsters than it should. Right now the generic hose averages for forecasters are further apart than they should be with just a week to go. 

Real Clear Politics: Republican +2.9.

FiveThrityEight.com: Republican +0.8

Split Ticket*: Democratic +0.4.

*Split Ticket does not include partisan polls.

The Polling Dilemma.

I am not a wonk. This is a hobby, at best. So let me just summarize the polling issue as I understand it, mostly from reading Tweets from actual wonks and (semi) professional election nerds. 

The non-partisan pollsters have the race as a dead heat and the Republican friendly pollsters have them winning by a few points. The explanation for this is that Republican pollsters believe their people are under-responding, so they include more of them in their poll.

The might be right. They also might be undercounting the young people and women who are motivated by Dobbs.  This morning Cygnal put out  a generic ballot poll out with an electorate that was less two percent Black.  Blacks usually make up about 12 percent of the voting. But even in this poll, the Republicans only lead by three points. 

It's also worth mentioning that the prediction markets are pretty favorable to Republican candidates in the senate. They seem to think a sweep of the major races is likely. I don't see that happening mostly because I think Kelly will win AZ and NV will be very close. But I've always referenced predictions markets in my forecasts and I want to acknowledge that I am diverging from them a bit this time out.

On to the Non-Predictions.

I am terming all of these as Non-Predictions because I have a low degree of confidence in everything I am about to write. But you can't play the election social media game without at least going on the record. So here is my best guess.

One theme that we may see is Dems doing better in traditional Red states but losing ground in blue states. I think Red State Dems will be more motivated by Dobbs than complacent ones in Illinois or New York. And if all of those ads about crime and inflation really do scare people, this could be a long night for the Democrats.  But I think something more modest is more likely.

1. The House Will Go Republican But By a Small Majority.

In a dead-even national vote, the Republicans probably take the House. They only need to flip four seats. I expect them to clear that bar. They'll probably gain between 12 and 25 seats. Just to keep in fun, I'll say they wind up picking up 16 seats nets. That makes the official prediction: GOP 230, DEM 205.

2. The Senate Will Be Determined By a Georgia Run-off. Again.

The current senate is 50 Dems and 50 Republican. Vice-President Harris provides the tie-breaker for the Dems. Control of this chamber probably comes down to four elections-PA, GA, AZ and NV. The Dems need to win three of them to keep the Senate.

I think the Dems win Arizona. Mark Kelly is just too good a guy, too centrist and likeable to lose to a nutter. But this is Arizona so it will probably be close. Let's call it 51-47.

Nevada could go either way but I think CCM is more likely to pull it out than not. Let's call it 50-49.

Pennsylvania will also be close but after the debate I am favoring Dr. Oz. This election should have been put away weeks ago and I think John Fetterman will go down in infamy if he doesn't win. He had plenty of time to announce that he needed to step aside for medical reasons. 

The limited polling information we have seen since the debate is less discouraging than I would have expected. But I still believe Oz will get over the finish line. Let's call that 49.9 to 49.2.

Georgia should not be competitive. Herschel Walker is a serial liar and he is to be blunt, quite stupid. He is unqualified by every meaning of that word. But the GOP is sticking with him the way they always do. I think he'll take first place on election day but I don't think he will quite get to 50 percent. So this will head to a run-off. Let's call it Walker 49, Warnock 48 on election night.

If my other predictions are right, that runoff will determine who controls the senate. But we should at least mention the chance of upsets elsewhere.

The GOP thinks they have a shot in NH, CO and even WA. They won't win any of those races but NH could be a close final tally.

The Dems have three states where an upset seems possible-NC, WI and OH.  NC is slowly trending blue but it doesn't seem to be in the hurry that VA was to get there. WI is an evenly divided state but I think Ron Johnson's incumbency will get him over the line. His ads attacking Barnes for Defund the Police stuff have also been pretty effective. 

Ohio is probably the wildest card to me. It's redder than any of the states we've mentioned so far. But the Dems nominated their best possible candidate and the Republicans nominated somebody terrible. I think this is about a three point race. But I'll call it Vance 51, Ryan 47. 

I will mention one other race here. Iowa. Chuck Grassley is too old to be a senator. He'll be 94 when his next term ends. I think some people will vote for Admiral Franken on that basis alone. But I don't think it will be enough to win. Grassley 53, Franken 47. 

So my bottom line for election night is GOP 50, Dems 49....with one run-off to determine control of the chamber.  

3. Governor Races-Look for the Splits.

I don't expect any major upsets here. Sorry folks but Kathy Hochul is not losing to Lee Zeldin. Get that thought out of your head head. Oregon and Oklahoma are both close, interesting races because the political alignments are unconventional. Oregon has essentially 2 Democrats on the ballot running against Nike's hand-picked Republican opponent. The Democratic Party of Oklahoma also did something smart in nominating a former Republican to run against an unpopular incumbent.

But the results in most governor races will be predictable. The really interesting part will be the margin of victory by comparison to the senate races in the same state.  If candidate quality matters, we're going to see some 10-15 point spreads between these races on election night.  I think the PA-Gov nominee will outperform John Fetterman by a lot. I think the same will happen for the Republican Governors of Ohio and Georgia.  

The most depressing race will be Arizona. The Democrat (Katie Hobbs) declined to debate the Republican nominee (Kari Lake) because Lake is "too extreme." And extreme she is. But a refusal to debate just looks week. Lake is a former newscaster and very polished on TV. Hobbs should have debate her early-late September of the first week of October, taken the polling hit and then beat up Lake for the last month for being a crazy person. Instead, Lake is probably going to win by 3 or 4 points and she will instantly become a serious contender to be Trump's running mate in 2024.  (She is, by the way, the only woman that I think Trump would consider on his ticket.)

Just to go on the record-the Dems will add MA, MD and OK. Republicans will probably add Kansas and Nevada. But again, none of these are "predictions." Because nobody knows what is happening a week from tonight. 

IV. Summary.

So there you have it. The House GOP gains sixteen. The Senate remains where it is for now and the Democrats net one governor's mansion. But the biggest takeaway from this is that I have very low confidence in almost everything I have written. Maybe Dobbs will save the Democrats. Maybe those ads about crime and inflation will scare people into turning over the keys to the Republicans. 

What's really sad though is that the events of the last election and its aftermath will have so little impact on anything. Just two years ago the losing candidate refused to conceded and attempted to overturn the result by whipping his base into violence. And the impact on the average voter is negligible. The Republican Party remains viable. It will likely control at least one chamber of congress after this election. It might control both. 

And their only agenda if they do is to cause governmental chaos. So that they can nominate that same sore loser to put all though the same nightmare again.

Updated Ranking of Best Pictures Winners

Back in January I ranked all 93 Best Picture winners. At least, I thought I did. (It turns out that I missed "The Sting.")  

As of an hour ago, we have a 94th Best Picture winner to consider. So I'm sliding that one into my list and adding The Sting too, for good measure. I guess I will do this every year.

In case you've already read the old list to save you a little time, The Sting is at #38 and CODA is at #72.

See below:

 Tier One: The Unassailable.

These are the movies that stand out to me not just for their quality but for some amount of personal resonance. 

1. The Godfather (1972)  50 years on, it is still the gold standard for cinematic story telling. 

2. The Godfather Part 2 (1974) There is a case for ranking 2 higher than 1. The scope is more ambitious and John Cazale's performance is the best in the history of cinema. But beat for beat, Part One is just too solid. 

3. Casablanca (1943) Pour out a little for Citizen Kane, which belongs up here with the Big Boys but lost to  "How Green Was My Walley."

4. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)  If you take anything from scrolling through this humble blog post, make it that you need to see this movie. You will not think about America in the aftermath of World War 2 the same way ever again.

5. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)   

6. Marty (1955)  A joy to watch. As light and life-affirming as anything on this list. 

7. Unforgiven (1992) 

8. Moonlight (2016)  Roger Ebert famously said that the best movies are machines that generate empathy.  The life of this movie's main character could not be more different than mine, but I felt every beat of his journey. 

9. Schindler's List (1993)  

10. A Man for All Seasons (1966) As history, this movie is bunk. But as drama, it will make you root for Saint Thomas Moore, even if you know all the terrible things he did in real life.

11. The Hurt Locker (2009)  Still the best examination of the wars we chose to fight in this century and how little the people back home bothered to think about them.

12. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) Already we have four movies about WW2 on this list. 

13. The Last Emperor (1987)  An underrated masterpiece. 

14. Rain Man (1988) Rain Man Focus Group

15.Annie Hall (1977)  Crimes and Misdemeanors is Woody's best film. Take the Money and Run might be his funniest and Midnight in Paris is probably his most entertaining. But Annie Hall is the template for everything else he did. 

16. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

17. No Country for Old Men (2007)

Tier Two: The Other Classics.

18. The King's Speech (2010)  The speech itself gets me every time.

19. The French Connection (1971)

20. Wings (1928)  Amazing achievement in film making. And a good story too. 

21. The Apartment (1960)

22. Patton (1970)

23. The Artist (2011)

24. 12 Years a Slave (2012)

25. Terms of Endearment (1983)

26. Birdman (2013)

27. In the Heat of the Night (1967)

28. Driving Miss Daisy (1989)

29. Chariots of Fire (1981)

30. Dances with Wolves (1990)

31. Argo (2012)

32. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) 

33. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Tier Three: The Very, Very Good.

These movies are not, in the main, universally loved. Some are popcorn movies unfairly maligned for not being serious enough to deserve the Oscar. Others are overly serious movies about war. and tragedy. But they are all well made if you take them as they were intended.

34. It Happened One Night (1934) 

35. On the Waterfront (1954)

36. How Green Was My Valley (1941)

37. Rocky (1976)

38. The Sting (1973)

39. Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

40. Forrest Gump (1994)

41. The Shape of Water (2017)

42. The Deer Hunter (1978)  The scenes in Vietnam are salacious and dumb. But the first half of the movie is great. I would have loved to see an edit of the movie that was just set on the wedding day.

43. Ordinary People (1980)

44. Amadeus (1984)

45. Braveheart (1995) and Titanic (1997)

This is my only tie. Braveheart and Titanic belong together on this list. They are both entertaining, both are overly long and each was made to resonate with one gender more than the other. But they both work, despite being riddled with on dimensional characters and cliches.

47. Nomadland (2020)

48. Chicago (2003)

49. Shakespeare in Love (1998)

Tier Four: The Good.

These are fine. But I don't need to watch them more than once.

50. Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)

51. The Gentleman's Agreement (1947)

52. The Lost Weekend (1945)

53. The English Patient (1996)

54. West Side Story (1961)

55. Midnight Cowboy (1969)

56. Parasite (2019)  This movie is enjoyable but let's be honest, it is a bit over rated.

57. Gandhi (1982)

58.  Around the World in 80 Days (1956)

Tier Five: Worthy But Flawed.

59. Green Book (2017)   This is the only recent winner that I had not seen before the awards ceremony. The field of nominees was weak that year. Black Panther was the popular favorite but I'm not shocked that the academy avoided giving its biggest prize to a Marvel movie. Roma was expected to win but did not for reasons that remain unclear.  There's a lot of tropes and it feels for stretches like a made for TV movie but the acting performances make it watchable.  

60. Mrs. Miniver (1942)

61. The Life of Emile Zola (1937)

62. The Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) 

63. All About Eve (1950)  Some people absolutely love this movie. I was bored at times but on a second watch, it was much better than I remembered.

64. A Beautiful Mind (2001)

65. Platoon (1986)

66. The Departed (2006) This movie being the one that finally got Martin Scorsese his Oscar is a bit like how Chuck Berry's only number one single is "My Ding-a-ling."

67. Grand Hotel (1932) 

Tier Six: Gone With the Wind.

68. Gone with the Wind (1939) This movie deserves its own consideration because it is very hard to judge in 2022.  I see all of its merits. The love story is great, if you overlook the scene of marital rape. And the heroine is easy to root for, if she wasn't trying to perpetuate her right to own human beings.

But I do not think this movie should be banished from the culture. You have to see this movie to understand American cinema and more importantly to appreciate the insane attitude this country had about the Civil War when most of the people who remembered it had died off.  

But this movie is not just sympathetic to the South or southerners. It is wistful for a lost way of life. That way of live is the right of rich white people to own black people and make them work their land without remuneration.  I can't pretend that this does not affect my reaction to the movie. 

Tier Seven: The Not Quite-Good.

69.  From Here to Eternity (1953)

70. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

71. Ben-Hur (1959)

72.  CODA (2021)  CODA is a nice movie. It has several very good acting performances. If I had an 11 to 15 year old child, I would want them to watch this movie. Its message and heart are in the the right place.  But it was born at the top of the cliché tree and it hits every branch on the way do

73. Cimarron (1931) 

74. American Beauty (1999)

75. Rebecca (1940) 

76. Spotlight (2015)

77. An American in Paris (1951)

78. Going My Way (1944)

79. The Great Ziegfeld (1936)  

80. The Sound of Music (1965)  Did I mention that I don't like musicals?  

81. All the King's Men (1949)

82. Oliver! (1968)

83. Cavalcade (1933) 

84. Tom Jones (1963)

85. Million Dollar Baby (2004)

86. The Broadway Melody of 1929 

Tier Eight: The Bad.

87. You Can't Take it With You (1938) 

88. Gladiator (2000)

89. Gigi (1958) 

90. My Fair Lady (1964) Audrey Hepburn is one of the most beautiful women who ever lived. But she was a lousy actress. They were smart enough to dub her singing parts but couldn't do that for her dialog, so here we are. 

91. Crash (2005)  If you have seen this movie, you're probably wondering why this movie is not DFL.  Read on, friends!

92. Out of Africa (1985) I fell asleep so many times during this movie that I forced myself to watch it a second time the next day, a decision I truly regret.

93. Hamlet (1948) Laurence Olivier must have been a marvel on the stage but in 1948 he had not yet learned to stop projecting his voice for the people in the last row of the 3rd balcony.

94. The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) Irony. 

Confess: A Review of Rob Halford's Memoir

 This book explores the predictable themes of sex, drugs, and rock & roll without being overly salacious, tedious, or catty. It is an honest telling of a life in a specific genre of music while living a love in a boozy closet and then of joyous sobriety.

I was relieved to see what this book is not. It is not a tell-all. Halford settles no scores and seeks no unjust credit for his success. He writes about his bandmates in respectful terms. He is obviously comfortable with his own talent and he is generous with praise of the other members of Judas Priest.  (I wish Keith Richards had taken this direction when he wrote his memoir.)

If there is one weakness of this book, it is that he writes about the other members of Priest in a style that is respectful but bland. They are not characters in this book and he clearly wants to avoid making any of them look bad, even when writing about some of the lineup changes and scandals that the band faced from time to time.

Let me explain that Judas Priest was my favorite band from the age of 12 to 14 or 15. They were my second concert. Over the years I grew away from Heavy Metal for the most part but the music you love when you are that age never really leaves you. Some of their songs hold up well and I've spent a fair amount of time listening to them even as an adult. But before this book I had not really read much about them since I stopped reading Hit Parader in 1989 other than a length GQ article from 1998 about the band after Rob had left it.

I. The Sex Parts.
As I read this book, it occurred to me that I had never read a memoir of a gay man before. I knew Rob was gay long before he came out publicly. People used to joke about it when I was a big Priest fan. That teasing was the only part that bothered me. I sort of assumed that the rest of the band knew all along too (they probably did) and that off-stage he could express himself freely. (He could not.)

Reading about his life in the closet was truly disturbing. He was 30 years old before he had a real relationship with a man. He writes about truck stops and glory holes, but not to be lurid or titillate the reader. This is what he had to resort to, even as a man of means. Even as someone living the ultimate rock and roll lifestyle. He eventually has some less than ideal relationships with men but spends most of his 30s pursing straight men who are not capable of loving him and one gets the sense that he probably didn't think he was worthy of being loved.

Rob is at pains not to blame the rest of the band for this fact but I have to say it disappointed me that they were also quiet about the subject. He attributes this to their working class north English stoicism but it's really hard to fathom. Eventually, of course he comes out, become a gay icon and meets the man of his dreams. His fans do not leave him when he does any of this, and that is the connective positivity that holds this story together.

II. The Drug Bits.
I don't usually like to read about the struggles of recovering addicts. The arc is predictable and the punchline is usually sanctimonious. But Rob describes his issues (primarily with alcohol, later with cocaine) in a way that is devoid of romance or machismo. This is the life of a sad alcoholic, not a party king. And the alcohol only makes the loneliness of the closet worse. Until he stops, rather suddenly. Once he does, he gets reengaged with is music.

III. The Metal of it All.
One really charming aspect of this book is how much Rob remains committed to the very specific field of heavy metal. He really is a zealot for it and he is unabashedly proudest of the music that is loudest and most intense. That is where I part way with him, albeit slightly.

You know when people ask you what celebrity would you most want to meet? I have at times said that mine is Rob Halford. And if I ever did meet him, it would be to ask him about one specific song, Dessert Plains.

Dessert Plains came out in 1981 and is on my favorite Judas Priest album, Point of Entry (1981). What I like about Dessert Plains is that it was the one song that even as a straight adolescent male, I just knew was written by a man singing about another man. I've pored over the lyrics and there's not an adjective or pronoun to give this away. It just feels like a song about a man. I've often wanted to tell Mr. Halford that this song made me understand that such feelings were as real to him as anything I could have felt for a girl or (later) a woman. It's an important song to my development for that exact reason.

Point of Entry is slightly softer than the bands that came just before and after it. Most Priest fans would probably say their favorite album was British Steel (1980) or Screaming for Vengenace (1982). But Point of Entry for me is the most delicate writing the band ever did. It's is poppy without being overly commercial and it is metal without the need to be faster than the other stuff on the market. Not every song works, but I sometimes day dream about a contemporary artist doing a song-for-song cover version of the album. Maybe this is the project that Lady Gaga and Rob can work on when they finally get together.

But Rob is not a big fan of Point of Entry. He thinks the band missed the mark and he dismisses Dessert Plains as one of the songs that is "just okay." Fair enough, Rob. But I do want you know that even when you missed the mark, you produced some really cool art. And I am glad that you are still here to be proud of all of it.

Blood in the Garden: A 5 Star Review of a Terrific Knicks History

The four teams I root for in each of North America's major professional sports, have won 17 championships in my lifetime. The Yankees have won seven, the Steelers six, the Islanders four consecutive. The Knicks however, have not won an NBA title since about six months before I was born. I grew up with the echo of those early 70s teams but I have never seen a ticker tape parade for an NBA team and I fear that when I do, it will be for the Brooklyn Nets.

But my most intense sports memories belong to the Knicks. I was in sixth grade when they won the Patrick Ewing lottery and a jaundiced adult when they traded him to Seattle 15 years later. This book is a loving and thoughtful record of the best of those teams. Chris Herring finds the right balance of the personal and the professional. He also give just the right amount of coverage to all of the personalities that made this team of contenders so beloved in a city famous for its obsession with winning.

Anthony Mason, John Starks, and Pat Riley are the biggest personalities associated with these teams and Herring gives great insight into each of them. Mason's death at 48 gives extra poignancy to his life but I like how Herring centers him as the only New Yorker on those teams. He's sort of a half-fan half-NBA star in this telling. Maybe sources felt a little more free to speak truthfully about him since he is the only character that won't read these accounts. But he comes across well on balance, despite some horrible misbehavior along the way.

Starks is easy to write about. He will always be the most beloved member of this team, his failings quickly forgiven by Knicks fans, even if they dominate his legacy among every other group. What I wouldn't give for the chance to watch him play in today's game.

The portrayal of Riley is some of the best stuff in this book. It will always frustrate me that Riley had so much success before and after his Knicks tenure. I've long thought that he should bare most of the blame for the losses in 1993 and 1994. How could a coach of his caliber trust Charles Smith to be on the floor in closing time while Charles Oakley was on the bench? And how could he not see that John Starks needed to be pulled in Houston when he had Rolando Blackman sitting right there?

The truth is that Riley in the 1990s was a bit of a poseur. A lot of his success with the Lakers came easy. He had Magic and Kareem for god sakes. As much as he projected the cool image of a handsome man in perfectly tailored suits, he was still a crank who could whine about not being reimbursed for $10,000 he gave to his players at a casino and to contemplate leaving his second best player off the playoff roster in a fit of pique. Herring does get across that Riley has since matured. I was touched to read that he has sent Blackman multiple handwritten notes over the years and that he eulogized Anthony Mason.

And then there is the other Pat. Patrick Ewing. (Did you read that in the voice of Mike Walczewski?) Much as Paris Hilton is famous for being famous, Ewing is famous for not being famous. At least not as famous as he should be as the centerpiece of a New York sports franchise for 15 years. Ewing is almost always short-changed in the memories of this team. His greatness had a quiet consistency that never raised eyebrows and is now most remembered perhaps for not winning a championship. But this team would have been nothing without him. And Herring does him justice-writing about the work ethic the principled stands he took for his teammates and coaches behind the scenes and the difficult years of his life as a Jamaican immigrant in Boston. 

I  was left wanting more of Patrick Ewing, but that is the way Ewing will always be. Herring interviewed 204 people for this book but Patrick Ewing's name is not among those listed in the very helpful post script about sources. I can't think of another athlete who is less interested in correcting the record about his legacy. 

So let me do a little bit of that. Some years ago a dipshit Celtics fan with a podcast coined a scurrilous phrase "The Patrick Ewing Theory" to explain the phenomenon when a team does better without its best player. This was supposedly inspired by the 8th seeded Knicks run to the NBA finals in 1999, which Ewing had to sit out with an injury. But the facts say otherwise. Ewing was a huge part of that run. He played heroically on an injured leg in game one of the Eastern Conference finals, stealing home court away from the Pacers. He had 16 points and 10 rebounds. The next game he left the game with an aggravated the injury and was not able to play the rest of the playoffs. Without him, the Knicks went just four and six. 

I'm not saying the Knicks would have won the finals with Patrick that year. But he would have been 2 points better than Chris Dudley in Game 5, and that series goes back to San Antonio for at least game six. The next season Patrick led the Knicks to the Eastern Conference finals. Then he was traded and the Knicks have stunk ever since. 

Some "theory", asshole. 

As you can tell, this team brings out my passions. And this book brought to life so many of their most important moments, both good and bad. Highly Recommended! 

OKAY, A LITTLE MORE GEEK STUFF

The history of the New York Knicks can easily be divided in to five eras.

I. 1946-1968. The Early Days. (22 Seasons) 

.466 winning percentage 

No NBA titles, 3 NBA Finals

9-13 in playoff series. 

II. 1968-1974 The Glory Years aka Red Holzman's first coaching tenure. (6 Seasons)

.650 winning percentage

2 NBA titles, 3 NBA Finals 

11-3 in playoff series.

III. 1974-1985 The Interregnum(11 seasons).

.476 winning percentage, 

0 NBA titles, 0 NBA Finals

3-5 in playoff series.

1985-200 Patrick Ewing (15 seasons)

.556 winning percentage

0 NBA titles, 2 NBA Finals

16-13 in playoff series

V. 2000 - Present Post-Patrick. (21 seasons)

.407 winning percentage

0 NBA titles, 0 NBA Finals 

1-6 in playoff series.

I guess you can see why people still love these never champion Knicks of the 1990s so much.

Every Best Picture Winner, Ranked

For years, I have been slowly making my way backwards through the movies that have won the Oscar for Best Picture. A few days ago I finally made my way to "Wings", the 1928 silent film that won the first such award. I then decided to rank them from best to worst. Because it is the style of this blog, I also separated them into tiers from truly great to downright terrible. 

Yes, there are a handful of terrible movies on this list. But even they have something to teach us about American taste at some specific point in time.  

Tier One: The Unassailable.

These are the movies that stand out to me not just for their quality but for some amount of personal resonance. 

1. The Godfather (1972)  50 years on, it is still the gold standard for cinematic story telling. 

2. The Godfather Part 2 (1974) There is a case for ranking 2 higher than 1. The scope is more ambitious and John Cazale's performance is the best in the history of cinema. But beat for beat, Part One is just too solid. 

3. Casablanca (1943) Pour out a little for Citizen Kane, which belongs up here with the Big Boys but lost to  "How Green Was My Walley."

4. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)  If you take anything from scrolling through this humble blog post, make it that you need to see this movie. You will not think about America in the aftermath of World War 2 the same way ever again.

5. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)   

6. Marty (1955)  A joy to watch. As light and life-affirming as anything on this list. 

7. Unforgiven (1992) 

8. Moonlight (2016)  Roger Ebert famously said that the best movies are machines that generate empathy.  The life of this movie's main character could not be more different than mine, but I felt every beat of his journey. 

9. Schindler's List (1993)  

10. A Man for All Seasons (1966) As history, this movie is bunk. But as drama, it will make you root for Saint Thomas Moore, even if you know all the terrible things he did in real life.

11. The Hurt Locker (2009)  Still the best examination of the wars we chose to fight in this century and how little the people back home bothered to think about them.

12. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) Already we have four movies about WW2 on this list. 

13. The Last Emperor (1987)  An underrated masterpiece. 

14. Rain Man (1988) Rain Man Focus Group

15.Annie Hall (1977)  Crimes and Misdemeanors is Woody's best film. Take the Money and Run might be his funniest and Midnight in Paris is probably his most entertaining. But Annie Hall is the template for everything else he did. 

16. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

17. No Country for Old Men (2007)

Tier Two: The Other Classics.

18. The King's Speech (2010)  The speech itself gets me every time.

19. The French Connection (1971)

20. Wings (1928)  Amazing achievement in film making. And a good story too. 

21. The Apartment (1960)

22. Patton (1970)

23. The Artist (2011)

24. 12 Years a Slave (2012)

25. Terms of Endearment (1983)

26. Birdman (2013)

27. In the Heat of the Night (1967)

28. Driving Miss Daisy (1989)

29. Chariots of Fire (1981)

30. Dances with Wolves (1990)

31. Argo (2012)

32. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) 

33. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Tier Three: The Very, Very Good.

These movies are not, in the main, universally loved. Some are popcorn movies unfairly maligned for not being serious enough to deserve the Oscar. Others are overly serious movies about war. and tragedy. But they are all well made if you take them as they were intended.

34. It Happened One Night (1934) 

35. On the Waterfront (1954)

36. How Green Was My Valley (1941)

37. Rocky (1976)

38. Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

39. Forrest Gump (1994)

40. The Shape of Water (2017)

41. The Deer Hunter (1978)  The scenes in Vietnam are salacious and dumb. But the first half of the movie is great. I would have loved to see an edit of the movie that was just set on the wedding day.

42. Ordinary People (1980)

43. Amadeus (1984)

44. Braveheart (1995) and Titanic (1997)

This is my only tie. Braveheart and Titanic belong together on this list. They are both entertaining, both are overly long and each was made to resonate with one gender more than the other. But they both work, despite being riddled with on dimensional characters and cliches.

46. Nomadland (2020)

47. Chicago (2003)

48. Shakespeare in Love (1998)

Tier Four: The Good.

These are fine. But I don't need to watch them more than once.

49. Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)

50. The Gentleman's Agreement (1947)

51. The Lost Weekend (1945)

52. The English Patient (1996)

53. West Side Story (1961)

54. Midnight Cowboy (1969)

55. Parasite (2019)  This movie is enjoyable but let's be honest, it is a bit over rated.

56. Gandhi (1982)

57.  Around the World in 80 Days (1956)

Tier Five: Worthy But Flawed.

58. Green Book (2017)   This is the only recent winner that I had not seen before the awards ceremony. The field of nominees was weak that year. Black Panther was the popular favorite but I'm not shocked that the academy avoided giving its biggest prize to a Marvel movie. Roma was expected to win but did not for reasons that remain unclear.  There's a lot of tropes and it feels for stretches like a made for TV movie but the acting performances make it watchable.  

59. Mrs. Miniver (1942)

60. The Life of Emile Zola (1937)

61. The Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) 

62. All About Eve (1950)  Some people absolutely love this movie. I was bored at times but on a second watch, it was much better than I remembered.

63. A Beautiful Mind (2001)

64. Platoon (1986)

65. The Departed (2006) This movie being the one that finally got Martin Scorsese his Oscar is a bit like how Chuck Berry's only number one single is "My Ding-a-ling."

66. Grand Hotel (1932) 

Tier Six: Gone With the Wind.

67. Gone with the Wind (1939) This movie deserves its own consideration because it is very hard to judge in 2022.  I see all of its merits. The love story is great, if you overlook the scene of marital rape. And the heroine is easy to root for, if she wasn't trying to perpetuate her right to own human beings.

But I do not think this movie should be banished from the culture. You have to see this movie to understand American cinema and more importantly to appreciate the insane attitude this country had about the Civil War when most of the people who remembered it had died off.  

But this movie is not just sympathetic to the South or southerners. It is wistful for a lost way of life. That way of live is the right of rich white people to own black people and make them work their land without remuneration.  I can't pretend that this does not affect my reaction to the movie. 

Tier Seven: The Not Quite-Good.

68.  From Here to Eternity (1953)

69. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

70. Ben-Hur (1959)

71. Cimarron (1931) 

72. American Beauty (1999)

73. Rebecca (1940) 

74. Spotlight (2015)

75. An American in Paris (1951)

76. Going My Way (1944)

77. The Great Ziegfeld (1936)  

78. The Sound of Music (1965)  Did I mention that I don't like musicals?  

79. All the King's Men (1949)

80. Oliver! (1968)

81. Cavalcade (1933) 

82. Tom Jones (1963)

83. Million Dollar Baby (2004)

84. The Broadway Melody of 1929 

Tier Eight: The Bad.

85. You Can't Take it With You (1938) 

86. Gladiator (2000)

87. Gigi (1958) 

88. My Fair Lady (1964) Audrey Hepburn is one of the most beautiful women who ever lived. But she was a lousy actress. They were smart enough to dub her singing parts but couldn't do that for her dialog, so here we are. 

89. Crash (2005)  If you have seen this movie, you're probably wondering why this movie is not DFL.  Read on, friends!

90. Out of Africa (1985) I fell asleep so many times during this movie that I forced myself to watch it a second time the next day, a decision I truly regret.

91. Hamlet (1948) Laurence Olivier must have been a marvel on the stage but in 1948 he had not yet learned to stop projecting his voice for the people in the last row of the 3rd balcony.

92. The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) Irony. 

A Framework for the 2024 Presidential Election

Don't call it a Morning Line. It is too early for that. But Joe Biden has been president for six full months. That is 1/8th of his term. That is 1/4 of the portion of his term before Republicans start declaring their intention to replace him and become the 47th President of the United States. 

And we have learned a few things about him and the state of politics in the Republican party to make some observations about what is likely to happen between now and three years from this month, when the parties are holding their conventions. 

This is a big-picture conceptualization of how 2024 might go. I want to lay down a few assumptions here and then get into some hypotheticals. A lot will change between now and then, but I think it's helpful to discuss a few fundamentals about the election at this stage. The short version is that I think the next election will feature the same candidates as last time and will have a similar result.  The long version follows below. 

 I. Joe Biden is very likely to be the Democratic nominee. 

Joe Biden will be in his 80s when his first term ends. A lot of people seem to think that he will not run for a second term. I find that highly unlikely, for the following reasons. 

A. Presidents like being president. You know who was the last president to be elected and then voluntarily decide not to run for a 2nd term? James K. Polk in 1848. Anyone ambitious and confident enough to run for president has a pretty solid ego. Winning only reinforces that instinct. And presidents are surrounded by people who tell them they are doing a great job. Every single one of them believes it. There is no reason to think Joe Biden will be the exception. He's going to run because the alternative is unthinkable. For God's sake Polk died three months after his term ended. Retirement is no substitute for being the President. 

B. Incumbency Helps. Being president helps with everything from fundraising to setting the narrative. There is no campaign plane as impressive as Air Force One and no rolodex like the one that would be on the Resolute Desk if people still used Rolodexes. One of the reasons the 2020 election was closer than the polls suggested it would be is that some unexpected voter blocks gave Trump the benefit of the doubt. This happens to just about every president. The thinking is that if we've survived one term with any given fella, we can probably survive two.  A distressing number of people felt that way about the previous president, no matter how terrible he was. 

Since World War 2, sitting presidents have won eight times and lost only four times. One of those four was Gerry Ford, who was appointed to the Vice-Presidency rather than elected. The presidents who lost a second term are remembered as some of the worst presidents we ever had. If Biden has any success at all, the institutional party will want to run him again and the causal voter will be inclined to choose him. 

C. He Probably Won't Face a Primary Challenger. Biden has managed to keep his centrist identity but has achieved a lot of progressive policy goals. The expanded income tax credit alone will probably be enough to make most of the left wing stay on the bench. Bernie Sanders is too old to run for a first term. AOC is too young. Any other plausible candidate knows that starting a serious campaign against an incumbent president is political suicide. They will sit this out. 

D. He is a better political option than Kamala Harris. I have talked to people who think that Biden is a caretaker president. Because of his age and the changing demographics of his party, he will step aside after one term and endorse his vice-president. But I don't see it happening. No one in the party will accept that endorsement as a coronation, which means a contested primary. That's a huge distraction and squanders the advantages of being the incumbent party. 

Vice-President Harris has not had a breakout moment to claim the spotlight. She is being a good and faithful Vice-President. She knows that she will be the heavy favorite for the nomination in 2028 and she can afford to be patient at her age. To be blunt about it-Donald Trump would much rather run against Kamala Harris than Joe Biden. She is not a great or even natural politician. She is serving her president well and that will probably be rewarded down the line. But it's not enough to jump the queue.

II. Donald Trump is EXTREMELY likely to be the Republican nominee. 

Donald Trump has spent the last six months perseverating of the result of the last election. He is actively involved with defending the rioters who tried to prevent the peaceful transition of power in our democracy. And he remains overwhelmingly the most popular figure in the Republican party. 

He is almost certain to be the Republican nominee, for the following reasons. 

 A. He's got nothing better to do. The first rule of thinking about Trump is to remember that it IS about Trump. And the common mistake that people make when thinking about presidential candidates is to pretend they are normal people. None of them are. They want power and glory in ways that very few people can relate to. 

A lot of people thought the loss of an election would cow Trump into a life away from the spotlight. Such people do not understand the brain of a true narcissist. Trump is incapable of believing he lost anything fair and square, so his brain has erected the defense mechanism needed to convince himself that he was robbed. This aggrieved act is based on certifiable nonsense and bullshit. But it is enough to keep his ego afloat., in part because the entire Republican apparatus in the media and in Congress has lined up behind his delusions.    

He is going to run because he loves attention and the only thing that can match the attention of running for president is being president. Donald Trump will happily run in a primary. He will have his center modicum for all the debates. All of the news outlets will go back to taking him seriously and give him the coverage he needs. Twitter and Facebook might even let him have his accounts back. 

B. He has cleared the field by emasculating all his rivals. 

For five years, the most important endorsement in Republican politics has been Donald J. Trump. The vast majority of Republican office holders have lived in fear of Trump turning on them. He has turned his back on anyone who does not share his belief that the last election was stolen. Even Mike Pence, as loyal a lap-dog #2 as the world have ever seen, is now persona non grata in Trumpland. The Rubios and Cruzes of the world have forfeit any attempt to credibly run against Trump in a primary. Nikki Haley, among others, has said she won't even run if Trump runs.

Of course, he will have primary opponents. There will be a nominal Never Trump candidate-Larry Hogan of Maryland will probably run. Maybe Liz Cheney will try to settle some scores if she loses next year's Republican primary for her House seat. And there will be a couple plausible candidates who at least put a toe in the water in the hopes that Trump doesn't run. Ted Cruz is so damn ambitious that he might just sign up for another round of humiliation. Like Trump, he has nothing better to do with the next 3 years of his life. But no one can beat Donald Trump in a Republican presidential primary. Off the top of my head, this is what the 2024 Iowa Cacuses might look like. Trump 53%, Cruz 19%, Hogan 14%, Cheney 4%. Rubio and Haley and a few other dumb-dumbs can fight for the scraps. If Donald Trump runs for the nomination, and doesn't die in the first half of 2024, he will be the Republican nominee for president in 2024. 

C. Beating Donald Trump in a Republican Primary is a Booby Prize.

Let's pretend that Donald Trump is somehow chastened by his loss to Joe Biden. That he has some scintilla of reluctance to run again. Maybe he dawdles for another year-never declaring his candidacy and letting some others explore their options in Iowa and New Hampshire.  Maybe he even in fit of pique says that he will not run or may not run.

So the field fills up. The Hogans and Cruz' and maybe a Kasich or two decide to run. The filed takes shape. Polls start to be taken and DeSantis or Cruz looks strong.  Trump has some personal distractions-an indictment or a divorce or a fun new project somewhere. All of a sudden, people are talking about DeSantis as the better candidate.  So Trump waits and waits. The first debate happens and he's not on stage. That will be enough to snap him back into it.

He can't resist the attentions. He can't let the Republican party love someone else they way they once loved him.  So he declares after all. Maybe right before Iowa. By then a lot of talent has signed up in other camps. Cruz and DeSantis are both pros-they raise a lot of money.  Somehow, some way, they deprive Trump of a majority of delegates and agree to run together in order to lock down the nomination.

How do you think Trump reacts to that? Graciously?  Please. He will whine and bitch like the whiny bitch that always has been.  He may or may not run third party but he definitely spends the summer and fall shitting on the people who beat him. The people who conspired against him. 

Maybe he runs third party and turns the legitimate nominee into Taft '12. Or maybe he just sits on the sidelines and his minions stay out of the rigged election, this time for good. 

Trump is going to be the Republican nominee because he is the only person that controls enough Republican voters to affect the general election outcome and enough spite to use them against the Republican party.  The party is his possession. 

Now that my assumptions are on the table, let's turn to some probabilities. 

III. Democratic Primary Probabilities.

Event	Probability
Joe Biden Will Run for a 2nd Term	96%
Joe Biden will be Nominated again.	90%
Kamala Harris will be the Nominee	5%
Neither Biden nor Harris will be the nominee.	5%

    

Caveats & Context: 

Only a health problem will prevent Joe Biden from running. At his age, that is a non-negligible probability. But he is tall and trim and has no history of alcohol or tobacco use. The actuary charts like his chances of making it well beyond 2024 and even 2028.  But things happen. If Biden doesn't run, it could mean that Kamala Harris is the incumbent. At minimum, she will be the heavy favorite and presumptive heir.  

If Biden were to simply decline to run, than Harris would still be the favorite for the nomination. But she would face a competitive primary. Andrew Cuomo would run. Sherrod Brown could make a strong run. People will talk up AOC, but I think she's too smart to do that now. (She turns 35 in 2024.)

IV. Republican Primary Probabilities.

Event	Probability
Donald Trump Will Run for a 2nd Term	95%
Donald Trump Will Be Nominated Again	94%
Ron DeSantis Will Be The Nominee	3%
Neither Trump nor DeSantis will be the Nominee	3%

Caveats & Context:

Trump will run if he is physically capable. I know some people fantasize about him being prosecuted and incarcerated and therefor unable to run. But that is very unlikely. 

The Trump organization was recently indicted along with its Chief Financial Officer, Allen Weisselberg. Some have speculated that Wesselberg could flip on Trump and cooperate with the Feds. That certainly is possible. But even if that happened tomorrow, it would take time for Trump to be indicted. An indictment is not goin to prevent Donald Trump from running for president. It would just be a fundraising message for him.  And the sort of crimes that Trump would be accused of are not easy to prove. It would require a lengthy trial.  I do no think there is enough time for Trump to be indicted, tried, convicted and incarcerated before the Iowa caucus. It's just not going to happen.  (And for the record, I think it's unlikely he will ever be prosecuted for a crime. This one prediction, I will be quite happy to get wrong.)

If Trump doesn't run, Ron DeSantis is the obvious front-runner for the Republicans. He appeals to every large swatch of the party and he manages to sound Trumpian without being an obvious moron. He has the Yale/Harvard pedigree of Cruz and Hawley, but none of the childish need to impress the faculty lounge. Assuming he is re-elected in 2022, he would be the obvious Trump successor.

There is no obvious third choice for the Republican nomination. Pence probably alienated too much of the base by you know, believing in democracy for one day.  There will be plenty of runners, but I am inclined to believe that the nominee will be a white male. The only scenario where I see that not happening is some sort of crazy brokered convention where the grown-ups settle on Tim Scott or Nikki Haley. But the party of "Build that Wall!" chants is not going to fall in love with any brown candidates. That just will not happen.

So I think DeSantis is the obvious nominee if Trump doesn't run. The only way I do not see that happen is if something disastrous happens and he is not re-elected next year. Or maybe he wins but the election is close and that puts doubts in the minds of the party establishment. That could happen, so I leave room for the field. But just three percent.

V. General Election Probabilities.

General Election Probabilities	Probability
The Democrat Wins	60%
The Republican Wins	40%
Biden Beats Trump	51%
Trump Beats Biden	34%
Biden Beats DeSantis	8%
DeSantis Beats Biden	5%
Not-Biden beats Not-Trump	1.3%
Not Trump beats Not-Biden	0.7%

Caveats & Context:

Red states netted three electoral votes from the 2020 Census. If the 2024 election has the same exact result as 2020, the Democrats would win 303-235 instead of 306-232. But it's hard to come up with a scenario where these changes put either party over 270.  A lot of the changes cancel each other out.  (Montana's gain is West Virginia's loss, Oregon's gain is Illinoi's loss, etc.) 

The only changes among really competitive states are that MI and PA each lost one and NC gained one. 

Even starting with the dreadful 2016 result as a baseline, the Dems path remains unchanged. They start with 230 and need PA (19) Michigan (15) to get them to 264. They then need one more state to win- Wisconsin, Arizona or Georgia being most likely. 

I favor the Dems because incumbency is helpful and I think the Donald Trump shtick will have worn pretty thing on the average independent/moderate voter by the time that circus gets geared up again.

But nothing is in the bag.

Let's have some fun with specific head to head match-up.

VI. Head to Head Match-ups.

a. Biden vs. Trump. There is about an 85% of this being the match-up.

Biden's polling has been solid but not spectacular. The new wave of COVID cases is not helping, even though this wave is largely caused by people refusing to get vaccinated.  I am an optimistic person, so I think the vaccines will beat the new variants and by 2024 COVID-19 will be a marginal problem. But that's not guaranteed. Biden is also vulnerable if inflation stays high (most economists don't think it will), if the homicide rate climbs (it might) or if we enter 2024 in a recession. (Too soon to tell.)

That said, I favor Biden over Trump, comfortably. The result won't be radically different than 2020 but I think the margin will be a little wider as Biden benefits from being the incumbent and Trump's shtick wears thin on the marginal voters. 

Probability:  Biden wins 67% of the time.

Official, way to early prediction: Biden wins 319-209.  He picks up NC but loses WI, in part because Trump has replaced Pence with Scott Walker.

b. Biden vs. DeSantis.  

This is an interesting possibility. DeSantis being the nominee means that he was re-elected governor of Florida in 2022 and he probably won by a clear margin.  That might make the Democrats skip Florida all together. So both parties would be free to spend a lot more money in the places that can actually decide the election. DeSantis will also have the advantage of not being in his eighties. 

This would be a very close election, assuming that Donald Trump is either dead or has given DeSantis his full-throated endorsement. 

Probability:  Biden wins 55% of the time.

Official, way to early prediction: Biden wins 267-262. DeSantis claws back GA and AZ, but the northern wall holds for the Democrats. Trump begins saying "They should have nominated Ivanka."

c. Biden vs. Generic Republican.

Generic Republican might seem formidable now but any Republican who isn't Trump or DeSantis is probably a relative newcomer to the scene.  Cruz would get crushed. Rubio isn't up for it. The Haley or Tim Scott scenarios are far-fetched to me.

Probability:  Biden wins 60% of the time.

Official, way to early prediction: Biden wins 319-219. North Carolina goes blue.

The Harris scenarios are hard to handicap. Her being the nominee either means that she is the president or that Joe Biden has decided not to run for a second term. For today's purposes, we will assume she is running as an incumbent, because I thin that is more likely than Biden deciding not to run.

d. Harris vs. Trump:

Kamala Harris ran a bad campaign in 2020. She raised a lot of money and didn't even make it to Iowa. Nothing about her performance as vice-president has particularly helped or hurt her chances. 

But I think Trump would, for the 2nd time, benefit from the sexism that exists among a frightening percentage of voters. And he will not be shy about using her racial identity against her either. He could over play that, but sadly, he seems to know how to play those games better than most. I fear this scenario.

Probability:  Trump wins 55% of the time.

Official, way to early prediction: Trump wins 291-247.  Trump reassembles his 2016 map, save Michigan. President Trump then announce plans to sell Detroit to Canada.

e. Harris vs. Desantis.

DeSantis on paper is a better candidate than Trump. But we don't yet know if he will motivate the casual Trump voter to turn out on election day. I am guessing he would get enough of them out to win, but this would also be a close race.

Probability:  DeSantis wins 58% of the time.

Official, way to early prediction: DeSantis wins 312-226. DeSantis reconstitutes the Trump map and adds Nevada for good measure.

f. Harris vs. Generic Republican.

Well, a lot has to go wrong for this scenario to play out. But I think this means the GOP had to go with their 3rd choice, and that's not good.

Probability:  Harris wins 57% of the time.

Official, way to early prediction: Harris wins 292-246.

g.  The Field.

Something terrible will have to happen for the Democrats to nominate someone other than Biden or Harris. That sort of means that Biden dies in the next year or so and then Harris has such a bad run as president that some shit head like Andrew Cuomo comes in and beats her in a primary.  

This is too remote to think about now. So I won't put numbers on it yet.