State of the Race - Halloween edition

In the latest RCP average of polls in the swing states, Kamala Harris has pulled back ahead of Donald Trump in Wisconsin and Michigan, while Trump has opened his lead further in a few of the other states. For any new readers, I don't go by a straight lift of the RCP data, as not all polls are created equal. I filter out polls that do not share their poll population, or where the polled population is too low to consider statistically significant. I also filter out polls that are more than 10 days old (this week I am lowering that to 7 days). Any poll with a margin of error greater than 3.5% is not reliable in my opinion either. Likely voters are a must but pretty much every poll now is only looking at likely voters rather than registered voters or all adults.

All of that has to be taken into consideration, without even getting into the crosstabs of who was polled. Many pollsters still, oversample Democrats and it skews their results.

Here is what I am seeing as of today, but I have a caveat to apply to my findings:

Trump has from the above as well as safe states, enough electoral college votes to secure a victory, winning all of the swing states, and the electoral college by 312 to 226. But Pennsylvania is a must in this scenario and frankly, I don't implicitly trust their vote counts. The three rust belt states (PA, WI and MI) appear to be within the grasp of Harris at the moment. Trump's leads are thin (1.96%, 0.36% and  0.69% respectively). That makes a 'steal' more possible for the Democrats. I don't like it. And in fact if they were trying to create a plausible scenario for a surprise Kamala 'victory', from a RCP viewpoint they have succeeds.

But here are my caveats on my own results; (1) I have not looked at the crosstabs of any of the individual polls, and more importantly (2) these polls that do meet my statistical standards, are mostly all conservative leaning or neutral pollsters.  The latter point means that while Trump leads, the may truly be razor thin leads, making a stolen election possible.

Where the Democrats seem to be conceding are states that do not matter.  They appear to have written off Georgia and Arizona.  Trump needs those, Kamala does not. The Harris campaign also has apparently pulled a bunch of ad buys from North Carolina.  Trump needs the state, Kamala does not. Nevada, does not matter to either candidate in the current calculus. The Rust Belt is what matters. Kamala needs all 3, Trump only needs one to win.

Despite the polymarket betting that Trump has a 2 out of 3 chance of winning, despite Trump apparently leading in the national vote total, and despite him leading in enough (or conceivably all) the swing states, if Harris wins Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, she wins 270-268. That still makes this race a nail biter.

My swing state view as of Oct 21

Here's what I see when I look at the polls and include only polls from the last 10 days, with only Likely Voters, only polls of 700 or more respondents, and with a margin of error less than or equal to 3.5%. Just like RCP, I'm seeing a swing state sweep for Trump.

This would equate to a significant electoral college sweep for Trump. There's good news and worrisome news in this.  Firstly, Georgia and Pennsylvania look like they are approaching outside of margin of error leads for Trump. The worrisome part, the other states are all tin to razor-thin leads. The momentum is in Trump's favor BUT...

The Kamala Harris honeymoon was almost certainly a product of media and push-pollster hype. The polls 100% had to move towards Trump because the Harris leads were pure vaporware wishful-thinking, pie-in-the-sky unicorns and fairy dust. Which means that the polls have in reality, probably moved very little towards Trump.  I don't doubt he's leading, but the margins may indeed be slim in these key battleground states. And if that's true, vote tabulation malfeasance is a risk.

State of the race: October 14th

 

Click to enlarge.

Taken from the RCP polls, and including only polls that are likely voters, with a sample size greater than 500 or more, and a margin of error less than or equal to 3.5% and polls taken on September 30th or later.

This map would lead to a Trump win with 306 electoral college votes, the same as in 2016.  I think this time around he may do better than this shows at the moment.

NOTE:  Applying the same logic to national polls, Kamala Harris appears to still be leading in the popular vote, but not by a great margin.

Hugh Hewitt on the horrible debate performance by Harris, and ABC

I thought the debate was a tie.  But after watching Hugh Hewitt's take, maybe Trump did win based on the horrible performance by ABC and the dodgeball answers from Harris. He might be right.

What's the deal with the Ohio ducks?

Um, here:

I honestly don't think anyone won that debate. Trump lost in the sense that he missed a number of knockout punch opportunities.  Harris came across as snotty. Post debate insta-polls showed no real shift.  The media is claiming Harris won. I guess by not being as bad as Let's Go Brandon, she looks better by comparison. But I really saw nothing worthwhile in that debate from either candidate that would cause a voter shift.

Oh you'll see one, the fabricated polls will show another fictitious Kamala bounce. But it's designed to lead opinion not reflect it.  

There will be more bumps in the road to come before November.

State of the race

Here's my latest take on the race, based on polls of likely voters within the past 14 days, with at least a 500 sample size. The only state with no valid polls based on my criteria, is Georgia.

Interestingly, outside of one poll in North Carolina, there are only two pollsters with polling that qualifies, and both tend to favor Republicans in their methodology.  Is it possible there's a bias in my selection? Yes, seeing as how the included polls are clearly right-leaning.  But the problem with that conclusion is that they are the most recent polls, they do have a reasonable sample size, and they are polling likely voters, which is more informative than registered voters or just all adults.

Without getting into the crosstabs of voters and whether the sample compositions are indicative of the electorate, it's a better quick and dirty than how RealClearPolitics just does a recency and non-duplicate pollster check. I trust my averages more than that of RCP. 

Further, check out The Peoples' Pundit on Benny Johnson, who explains some more details on why Trump is very likely winning right now.

Happy Labor Day

It's the unofficial end of summer, and I'm off to a slow blog start this month.  This after my busiest year of posting (so far) since 2011.  The next few weeks are likely to be a bit slower as I settle into a new role in my day job.  I'm hoping to have a decent reaction to the maybe happening Trump / Harris debate, but it will overall probably be a bit slower month for me.  By October, I'm hoping to be back in my regular swing of things.

In the meantime, Happy Labor Day. I hope everyone has a wonderful fall season, culminating in a big win in November.

Democrats vison for the future: " "

Democrats have no vision for the future, at least no vision they are willing to publicly share. Breitbart noticed this and pointed it out very effectively

The convention, objectively, was not so great.

...the convention itself failed to explain to the American people what Kamala Harris intended to do as president. There was no vision, no policy.

The constant, spontaneous refrain was: “We’re not going back.” But there was never an explanation of where Democrats are going to, or where Harris wants to take the country.

Until the last evening, when a string of speakers discussed foreign policy — all Ukraine, no Israel — the only policy discussed was abortion.

Harris’s speech was all about biography, and attacking the opposition. (The “special guest,” whom many had hoped would be Beyoncé, may as well have been President Donald Trump, whom Harris mentioned fifteen times in total.)

Trump’s acceptance speech was perhaps too long; Harris’s speech was too short. It showed no sense of leadership and never reached out to independent voters or wavering Republicans. (A cameo by Adam Kinzinger will not do the trick.)

There was little drama at the convention — by design.

Democrats arranged their primary to ensure President Joe Biden would not face a challenge, then allowed party insiders to pick Harris as his replacement. There were no dissenting blocs, save for the pro-Palestinian “Uncommitted” delegates, who were a tiny and sullen minority.

There weren’t even amendments offered when party leaders asked for a vote on a platform that does not have the word “Kamala” in it.

The truth is that Democrats aren’t feeling “joy.” The word “relief” might be more accurate — relief that they no longer have to pretend to support an ailing, and failing, Biden.

There is some genuine happiness at nominating the first black woman, or the first South Asian candidate. But many speeches betrayed a sense of anxiety.

Michelle Obama, of all people, spoke about “deep pit in my stomach, a palpable sense of dread about the future.” They know Trump can win.

The convention was the high point for Democrats, the end of a month in which Kamala could set the agenda and the media could protect her. Now it is up to Trump.

That last sentence is particularly salient. Trump, unlike Harris, has laid out a specific vision as well as policy positions.  The Democrats attacked; not Trump's policy positions but that of an unaffiliated proposal that they deceitfully tried to tag as Trump's. Trump has offered to debate, often.  Trump has faced the media and has taken plenty of questions from both the media and from influencers alike.  He's not afraid.

But there's something he needs to do that the Democrats have unsuccessfully tried to do as a mere soundbite. Trump needs to lay out his positive vision for the country in two distinct ways. 

1. He needs to state his positions and why they will help Americans succeed. His base gets it, he needs to do it in a way that will inspire 'joy' in centrists and even some left of center voters who may not be completely sold on Harris. The Democrats soundbites of joy are merely keywords, there is no underlying reasons for the joy they proclaim, because there are no policies undergirding the emotion.  Unless unfettered abortion is their reason for all this supposed pending joy.  It's like they left the lane open entirely for Trump. He needs to capitalize.
2. He needs to forgo, not completely but in large part, the personal attacks.  He will have opportunities to sprinkle those into debates and Q&A sessions with the media.  But he needs to focus on the positivity of the future, because it's clear, the only positivity Harris and the Democrats are offering is the word 'joy' itself. No plans, no ideas (except abortion and some ideas Harris stole or at least copied from Trump). It's an open buffet for Trump to dine at. Yes, an occasional snipe won't hurt, but leave that mainly to others. 

Democrats have zero vision for the future (or one they are unwilling to share openly) and Trump and Republicans do have a clear vision.  That contrast needs to be made abundantly clear.  If he does that, Trump cannot lose. 

Trump trolling Harris

Funny stuff:

Despair not

We are living in precarious times. Iran is threatening war with Israel on perhaps a Biblical level.  Russia continues to try to annex Ukraine. There's seemingly a global market crash either imminent or even in progress. Even every general election poll in RealClearPolitics taken in August has Harris beating Trump; the have ginned up phony momentum to the point that it may actually be having a real effect. None of this is good.

Despite the fact that things look frankly awful, do not despair. There was never going to be a cakewalk for Trump to the Whitehouse; the left would never stand for that. Russia is locked in it's latest version of Afghanistan in the Ukraine and is spending lives, treasure and time it cannot afford to spend. And in Israel, Iran will not be successful. The U.S. will not allow Iran to succeed. In fact, Russia is likely fomenting Iranian action in the hopes of diverting Western aid to Ukraine.  Not a bad strategy but not one that will be successful long term.

Remember, we are the good guys. God is on our side.

Blame Trump?????????????

Trying to blame Trump for the current stock market crash is as sound as trying to blame him for the Titanic's sinking. Democrats have no one else to blame but their own policies.

Pence destroyed Harris in the VP debate

 Another post where no additional words are needed: