History Will Be Made: Harris VS Trump

Back in early July, in the aftermath of a disastrous debate for President Joe Biden, I came out of retirement from writing about public opinion and wrote about the fact we were, barring something dramatically shifting the political environment, sleepwalking towards another Trump presidency. Well, something dramatically did shift the political environment – President Biden became the first president since LBJ to sit out a re-election campaign; guaranteeing us the first back-to-back one term presidencies since Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. In his place, Democrats have nominated Vice President Kamala Harris, making her only the second woman  nominated by one of the two major political parties for “the highest office in the land.” And overnight, the race went from what I’d term as a Leans/Likely R race to what I now believe to be a Tossup/Tilts D race.

Forty years after Geraldine Ferraro became the first woman on a major party ticket, the Vice President, the first woman VP in our country’s history, is attempting to break the glass ceiling Hillary Clinton came oh so close from breaking, and becoming the first ever president that will be addressed as “Madame”. She’d also be the first president to have Asian-Indian heritage; and get this, she’d actually be the first ever Democratic president to come from the state of California. She’d also be, if I did my research right, only the third president to have been a prosecutor (Polk and McKinley were the others). And for all the misogynistic snickering about her never having biological children she’d be the fifth president to never have them (Washington, Jackson, Polk, and Buchanan being in that club according to my research).

But the chase for history hasn’t ended for former President Donald Trump either. Not only is he trying to win office after becoming a convicted felon, he’s also trying to become the first president to win two non-consecutive terms since Grover Cleveland won a close election in 1884, lost re-election thanks to an electoral college misfire in 1888, and then won a re-match in 1892 that featured a third party candidate hurting the incumbent – that last one sound familiar? He could also go down as the man who kept two women from making history, and if he were to win again thanks to an electoral college misfire he’d pull off getting two terms between three popular vote losses. His victory would also assure us three straight one term presidencies for the first time in over a century – and this after three straight two term presidencies.

One way or another, history will be made this November; but who will make it? At this point in 2020 I was super bullish that we were likely headed towards a Biden victory. In comparison, almost four months ago I was super bullish we were likely headed towards a Trump victory. So where are we with about a month and a half to go? As I already stated earlier, I think this is currently a Tossup/Tilts D race. In other words I’d rather be Kamala, but the race is close enough that a 2016-type win for Trump is absolutely plausible. I wish I could be more definitive, but the fact is the data at the moment isn’t giving us as large an advantage for Democrats as 2020 polling did; but at the same time Harris is hitting higher shares in polling than Clinton was back in 2016. Unless Harris really starts to pull away in the coming weeks (Which could very well still happen) or she has a total meltdown (Again, not impossible), I’d prepare for the possibility of either candidate being the 47th president.

But you likely already knew that the race was close enough that either choice could win by varying margins. So I decided to run through all the potential signals that favor either side. Frankly I found more signals that favored Harris than Trump, a reversal from my last piece in which Trump had an overwhelming number of advantages, but there’s still silver linings that both sides can look to headed into the final stretch. I’ll go one-by-one what those good signs are and separate them between the two candidates. I’ll also note some interesting tidbits to keep an eye on come November as results come in.

– ADVANTAGES FOR HARRIS

1. She’s The Current Forecasted Favorite: As we learned with the presidential race in 2016 and the battle for senate control in 2022, forecasts can “predict” the wrong winner if probability is tight enough. That said most forecasted winners do win; and as of today among the nearly 60 different presidential forecasts I have found, Harris is at 58%-60% odds on average to win, with the most bullish odds for her being in the ~70%+ range. Those aren’t amazing odds from a probabilistic standpoint, but it does tell us that the data says you’d rather be her with less than 50 days to go. I should note some of the best non-polls based history-based forecasts (Keys to the White House, Time for a Change model, etc) that were bullish on Trump in 2016, but bullish on Biden in 2020, are now bullish on Harris in 2024.

2. Signs Forecast/Polling Errors Might Not Favor Republicans This Year: The big elephant in the room of course is the fact forecasting and polling errors favored Trump in both 2016 and 2020. But pollsters have been still trying hard to account for the supposed “shy Trump voters”, to the point some are now wondering if they’re starting to overestimate Republicans like we saw in 2022. There’s also the fact that Trump’s polling shares in 2016 and 2020 tended to be in the low to mid forties, whereas now he’s polling consistently in the 46%-48% range. In other words, all those Trump voters that pollsters were having a hard time catching in 2016 and 2020 might be getting caught this time around. And keep in mind that Clinton was struggling in the mid-forties in her 2016 polling share, Harris is hitting 48%-50% in comparison. Oh, and it should be noted that it’s been a very long time since we saw three straight presidential cycles where the error favored the same party; so technically history says we should probably be expecting a Democratic overperformance.

3. The Electoral College Bias Is Shifting Left: In 2020, polling was hinting that Trump was faring better in the battlegrounds than he was nationally and that the electoral college bias was at R+3. This time around the polling is hinting that bias has gone down to R+2 depending on how you average the data. This would be in line with patterns we saw in 2022 which hinted at the bias shifting left. This is thanks to the continuing suburban shift left starting to counteract the rural shift right that helped Republicans in the last few cycles. So while Harris still could use a 3-4 point popular vote win for good insurance, she technically might still pull off a win even if she just wins the popular vote by around two points. Biden was not in that position four years ago.

4. She’s Winning The Favorability Battle: Yes, so was Hillary Clinton in 2016, but Clinton’s favorables were still historically bad for a presidential candidate. In 2020 Biden had net positive favorability compared to Trump’s net negatives. Earlier this year Biden’s favorability was behind Trump’s, even as poll respondents gave Biden better marks on personal qualities and had concerns about Trump’s legal hurdles. Harris in comparison has reached neutral status in favorability, with some polls or averages even showing her in the net positive range. Historically the better liked candidate tends to win and, unlike with Biden months ago, Trump is losing the favorability battle to the Vice President by a clear margin.

5. She’s Winning The Enthusiasm Battle: In 2016 and 2020 the enthusiasm for Trump was among his few strengths in those races. Most of his voters said they were voting for him rather than against Clinton or Biden. The polling we’ve gotten this time around shows something different. More and more Harris voters are saying they’re voting for her rather than against Trump. Most polling is starting to show Democrats with a slight edge on enthusiasm. The Vice President has also done something Clinton and Biden struggled to do in becoming popular with younger voters and on the pop culture side of things. There’s always a risk that celebrity endorsements can come off as “cringe” or as if they’re trying to force their beliefs onto others, but what I’m seeing with Harris feels more akin to what we saw with Obama where there was a “cool factor” that the celebrity endorsements seem to enhance. It’s not a be-all, end-all factor of course, but this is easily the most excited Democrats have been for their nominee since the Obama years.

6. She’s Winning The Fundraising Battle: Fundraising isn’t the deciding factor in a race, but it sure as hell helps to have more money. The Harris campaign is breaking records even the 2008 Obama campaign, steeped in the peak of Obamania, didn’t pull off. She has more cash-on-hand than Trump, and is out advertising him in all the key battlegrounds. She’s also investing heavily into having a digital ad presence that Trump’s team is not doing anything about. If the race ends up close enough, the Harris team having more ads out in every key state could prove to be super important.

7. She’s Winning The Ground Game Battle: This was a potential red flag for Trump even back in the days when his opponent was an unpopular Biden. Harris’ ground game is far outpacing Trump in all the key states and even in some reach states. Her team is knocking on doors, harvesting mail ballots, and making the calls. In comparison Trump’s ground game has become a source of worry for Republicans. There’s murmurs of outsourcing get-out-the-vote efforts to PACs with no real experience in those efforts, and there’s little communication between the RNC and those trying to run these regional campaigns. Don’t take my word for it, you can read pieces on the matter. If this turns out to be a super close race, the lack of ground game could end up fatal for the Trump campaign. It’s a reverse of 2020 when Democrats were struggling to build a ground game thanks to the pandemic.

8. Her VP Pick Does No Harm: In this modern era of hyper partisanship, the Vice Presidential picks can only help so much – but they can still hurt. Folks have forgotten that back in 2016 Pence actually had better favorables than Kaine; in 2020 Harris easily won the favorables battle against Pence. Your VP is to do no harm, and Tim Walz hasn’t hurt Harris. His favorability margins have remained positive, and he has drawn pretty big crowds even when Harris isn’t at his side during a particular campaign stop. Walz could end up being helpful in winning over enough white working class men, and his popularity in Minnesota could be helping Harris in western Wisconsin where some Minnesota markets bleed into. In comparison Trump’s pick in J.D Vance has been an outright disaster, posting worse favorable margins than Sarah Palin at the peak of her media meltdown and having tons of oppo-research provided by clips of him that allowed the Republican ticket to come off as misogynistic in ways that have creeped out potential swing female voters. Barring a dominant Vance performance in the upcoming VP debate, it seems Harris’ VP pick at worst was a neutral effect on the race whereas Vance was a net negative for Trump.

9. Economic Optimism Is Growing: On various levels the economy under Biden has been the best it’s been in a long while. So much so that the economic-based models have been bullish on a Democratic victory even when Biden was the nominee. But the fact is inflation has ripped through the wallets of Americans enough that there’s been what I and many others have called a “vibe-cession.” Regardless of the technical definition, many swing voters believe we’ve been fighting a recession under Biden and that the economy has been poor. However with inflation going down, recent interest rate cuts, and grocery and gas prices starting to go down, optimism in the economy is growing. Consumer sentiment is on the rise and may be a factor in Biden’s tiny bump in approvals of late. If this sentiment keeps growing by election day, it should be a net benefit to Harris.

10. She’s Cutting Into Trump’s Strengths: Which brings me to the next point – the Vice President is cutting into Trump’s’ polling strengths. Polls have shown she’s cut into his leads on the economy, immigration, crime, and being “the change candidate”. There’s even a few outliers that had her AHEAD in some or all of those metrics. This is a dramatic reversal with Biden when he was behind Trump on those issues by big to massive margins. She still has work to do to start taking more consistent leads on those polled issues, but it shows she’s making real headway with voters who were willing to toss aside their worries about Trump because of certain subjects that meant a lot to them. She’s also provided bigger leads than Biden had on abortion, healthcare, personal qualities, civil rights, preserving democracy, and “caring about people like you”.

11. People Are Now Expecting Her To Win: Historically one of the best indicators of who will win is the polling on who people expect will win, not who they say they’ll vote for. Which makes sense when you think about it, after all we’re the ones collectively deciding this thing. It hasn’t batted 100, but it’s done well enough that you want to keep an eye on it. For months Trump was best-ing on this question, but now Harris is starting to take more and more leads on this. It might be a sign that voters are seeing her as a winner whereas Trump might be starting to come off more like a loser.

12. Her Convention Had Better Ratings And “Vibes”: Harris did not really receive a convention bounce, but per the few polling on the matter most respondents thought the DNC was much better produced and presented than the RNC. Harris’ speech also had higher marks than Trump’s hour-long rambling. I also think the DNC likely helped to consolidate the base if anything, and build enthusiasm. The DNC also pulled off slightly better ratings than the RNC, with Harris’ speech ratings peaking higher than Trump’s did. And regardless of little to no bounce, Harris left the convention still ahead.

13. She Won The Debate – Going Away: If we did see a recent polling bounce, it’s been in the post-debate surveys. Harris has been seen as the winner of the debate in all the scientific polls I have found – even in outlier polls that had her tied or behind Trump in the horserace. It also likely helped Harris to define herself while the Trump camp has failed in that effort. In a close enough race Harris getting to tell voters who she is, rather than let her opposition do so, could make all the difference in winning over those late deciders. It also adds to that image of Trump being a loser, and Trump is at his weakest when he is seen as a loser.

14. Special Elections Point To A Blue Year: While not a perfect barometer, special election swings have helped signal what the next general election could look like. In the lead up to 2018 they were showing big Democratic gains. In the lead up to 2020 and 2022, they were hinting at closer races and no waves. This time they are hinting at a year that likely resembles 2020 if not maybe even slightly bluer. Given the electoral college bias has likely gone down, a 2020-like environment is probably more than enough of what Harris needs to win the election.

15. The Washington Top-Two Primary Points To A Blue Year: This is a recent trend noticed by us psephology nerds, but the Washington top-two primary has been a great barometer of the upcoming general election results; especially when looking at swings outside the Seattle area. In 2016 rurals shifted right by a significant margin, in 2018 they teased a big Democratic year, in 2020 and 2022 they warned no wave was coming and things would be competitive. This year Washington’s primary teased this will be a slightly bluer year than 2020. More importantly the rural areas in the state have actually swung left. I’ll link to a piece that better explains why this is such a good predictor of the general election, but it’s yet another signal that hints towards a Harris victory.

– ADVANTAGES FOR TRUMP

1. Not All Forecasts Are Bearish On Trump: The average forecast is tilting towards or pretty bullish on the Vice President, but that’s not to say they’re all unilaterally predicting a Harris victory. Election Graphs, a poll-based forecaster that’s been around since the 2008 election, has several versions of potential forecasts. It’s been finding that Trump is more favored in certain circumstances. Another forecast over at The Data Diary, has shown Harris behind until just recently and her odds are still barely above even. Nate Silver’s forecast has been incredibly swingy this cycle and found Harris as the underdog for a few weeks after the convention, though as of this writing she’s retaken the lead. There’s also the pretty historically accurate long-range model by professor Jay DeSart which predicted an electoral college misfire in favor of Trump – though the model’s findings haven’t been updated since Biden left the race. And in my personal forecast of the race there is still scenarios where Trump wins if the forecast’s error is just slightly in favor of Trump. Which brings us back to that elephant in the room…

2. The Question Of Forecast/Polling Errors Favoring Republicans Again: Even after the Democrats over-performed in 2022, even with Trump hitting his 2016/2020 vote share numbers in polling, even with the electoral college bias shifting left, the fear of a sizable forecast or polling error in favor of the former president will always be there up until the polls start to close in the key states. There just might be the slim possibility that we are due for a third straight presidential cycle that favors the same party. There just might be the slim possibility that Trump isn’t just ahead, but maybe even poised to win bigger than he did in 2016 – after all, that’s what polling was teasing back when Biden was still in the race. What if Harris’ entrance just lead to partisan non-response bias thanks to enthused democrats? I personally have slight doubts we’ll see a sizable error, and its near impossible to predict where that error will lean, but the race is close enough at the moment that you can’t completely not account for an upset blamed on yet another cycle of pollsters having a hard time catching Trump voters.

3. A 269-269 Tie Likely Means A Trump Win: Barring Republicans pulling off a late coup and changing the Nebraska system of dividing their electoral votes among congressional districts, the statistical likelihood of a 269-269 tie is very low. But there are plausible maps out there that make it a possibility. If that happens, the tie is broken by a vote in the house determined by the state delegations. There is a world democrats win enough state delegations while flipping the house, but it’s really slim. It’s very likely Republicans would have enough delegations to put Trump back in the White House, even if they didn’t have the most seats in the house. For the sake of the country, it’s thankfully extremely likely not to happen if you ask me (Even if the Nebraska rule change were to happen). Chances are the candidate that wins will win most of the swing states and avoid the dreaded 269-269 scenario. But if it happens, it’s an extra little path for Trump to pull off the victory.

4. He’s The Most Popular He’s Ever Been: In 2016 Trump broke records for unpopularity as a major party presidential candidate, even with Clinton’s historically low numbers. In 2020 he was in the double digit negatives by election day, but not as unpopular as he was in 2016. Now in 2024 he has seen some personal highs in favorability during the campaign. Granted, he remains unpopular overall and as of this writing is swinging back and forth from -8 to -10 favorable margins. But compared to 2016 and 2020, it’s clear less voters seem personally repulsed by him. My personal theory on this is that soft voters for him from 2016 and to a smaller extent from 2020, are now more willing to think positive of him than they did when they held their nose for him. There’s also of course the debate around whether he receives newfound sympathy for the recent assassination attempts. There’s also what I and others have referred to as “2019 nostalgia”, where then lower grocery prices make voters feel like Trump’s time in office was better than they felt it was during it. Regardless being at net negative favorables against an opponent who is more popular is not a good place to be; but given Trump has overcome his negative ratings before to win in 2016 and come close in 2020, one wonders if he’s in a better position now that his favorables are higher.

5. He’s Still More Trusted On The Top Issues: While his margins have collapsed from where they were in the summer, Trump remains (on average) most trusted in the top issues that concern voters this cycle. He is still seen as best for the economy, best for dealing with immigration, best for fighting crime, and as “the change candidate”. That’s not nothing, and this is with voters not liking the guy overall. This is still better for him than in 2020 when he was only seen as the best for the economy whereas Biden basically lead on everything else. If the race is tight enough, and he leads with enough persuadable voters on most of these issues come election day, it could be what decides the election.

6. Biden Remains Historically Unpopular: One major problem the Vice President has is that the sitting president from her own party is still historically unpopular. Biden’s approval jumped a point or two since he’s left the race, but he’s still posting worse favorables than Trump and his ratings are still that of a man who would have assuredly lost re-election had he stayed in the race. History tells us he should get more popular as we get closer to election day, but my guess is that won’t be dramatic enough a jump where he’s in the positive range come November. Historically in open seat races the White House party doesn’t win if the sitting president is unpopular. You have to go all the way back to the incredibly close and controversial election of 1876 to the last time a White House party candidate overcame an outgoing unpopular president of their own party. Though it should be noted that Humphrey came very close to pulling it off in 1968. If forecasts hold, Harris will go into election day favored to be part of an outlier in history. But given it would be an outlier event, I’d keep this in mind if Trump somehow still pulls this off.

7. Open Seat Races Favor The Party Out Of Power: Another event Harris is trying to trigger an outlier against is the fact open seat presidential races tend to go to the party out of power. The last time that wasn’t so was in 1988 when George H.W Bush came from behind by riding Reagan’s popularity and Dukakis’ meltdown to victory. On paper Trump should be the change candidate and the Vice President the status-quo candidate, but she’s been able to win the battle of defining herself as the change candidate and Trump’s status as a former president is costing him that typical advantage the challenging party has. Democrats have also not seen a sitting president get to pass the torch to a successor from their own party via election victory since 1836; every instance since then that Democrats were succeeded by their own has been through death. Democrats have recently come close to pulling it off though, both in 2000 and 2016 when they lost close races thanks to an electoral college misfire. But both of those times the outgoing Democratic presidents were popular whereas we’ve already noted Biden is not. Like with the stat on Biden’s unpopularity, Harris is so far seemingly overcoming the fact this should be a change election but historically it’s a fact that an open seat cycle should tease a Trump win.

– OTHER INTERESTING TIDBITS

1. Even If Harris Wins, She’s Very Likely To Lose A Biden 2020 State: This will be the 60th presidential election in U.S history. In those sixty results, I don’t believe one electoral college map has ever looked the same as another. Even all the presidents who won re-election never had an exact map between their multiple victories. Part of that has been the addition of states to the union, but in modern history I’ve noticed a trend of fluke wins for the victor. In hindsight we can probably surmise Clinton winning GA/CO/MT in 1992 or AZ in 1996, Bush winning NH in 2000 or NM in 2004, Obama winning IN/NC in 2008 or FL in 2012, and perhaps Trump winning MI in 2016 were all likely lucky wins. Recent polling seems to tease that Biden’s 2020 fluke win may have been AZ or GA which makes me think Harris might lose one or both of those states. It’s not to say they haven’t become more winnable for Democrats (They did after all get big wins there in 2022), but perhaps Biden flipped a state or two that will prove hard to win back on a presidential level for a couple more cycles. If Harris somehow pulls off the 2020 map again, I’d bet anything she probably also flips NC and thus her map will look slightly different than Biden’s.

2. If Trump Wins, He’s Very Likely To Win A Clinton 2016 State: Every time the White House has flipped parties, the party that flipped the presidency will win at least one state they didn’t win the last time they gained power. For example Clinton won states Carter did not win in 1976, Bush won states Reagan did not win in 1980, Obama won states Clinton did not win in 1992, Trump won states Bush did not win in 2000, and Biden won states Obama did not win in 2008. If Trump wins it is extremely likely he’ll win one 2016 Clinton state. All current data tells us that the only state that he could likely win which matches that criteria is Nevada. If it’s two in the morning on election night and things are tight, history tells us how Trump is looking in the silver state could be a crystal ball as to which way the election is likely to lean towards.

3. Whoever Wins The Presidency Will Very Likely Win The House: Split-ticketing is becoming a rarer and rarer thing, especially when Trump is on the ballot. In 2020 the close presidential results matched the close results for control of the house; I expect that to repeat in 2024. If Harris pulls of a tight win, I expect Democrats will likely flip the house by a close margin. If Trump manages to win, my guess is Republicans will likely just hold on to control. Granted if things are close enough we can see the parties trade wins, but all data tells me whoever wins the presidency very likely also wins control of the house.

4. Republicans Seem Poised To Flip The Senate, Even If Harris Wins: However the senate the map is horrible for Democrats. So much so that even though they are doing really well in the battleground states that Harris and Trump are fighting over, their automatic loss in West Virginia and their underdog status in states like Florida, Montana, and Texas puts them behind the eight ball. A scenario where Harris wins via overperforming the polls, and thus Democrats somehow find a path to keep the senate, isn’t completely impossible to see as potential reality.  But it’s very likely, as I write this, that even if Democrats continue to hold their own in key seats, and even if Harris wins, that Republicans will just barely flip control of the upper chamber.

5. This Won’t Be 2020: Because there isn’t a global pandemic affecting voting patterns this time around, expect mail voting to decrease and both early voting and election day voting to increase. I also suspect turnout will be slightly down from 2020 given we saw turnout go slightly down in 2022 compared to 2018. If I had to venture a guess I’d say we go from 66% in 2020 to 62% in 2024. We should also expect quicker calls in certain states that took really long to figure out in 2020. Granted you should still expect a long night, but we likely won’t have to wait days to figure out what’s happened in certain key states. The only major ones that could take days would be Arizona and Nevada. Though Georgia might join their ranks if an emerging court battle there determines they can continue with ridiculous plans for a hand-count of their ballots which could take weeks to months to tabulate. I’d also note there is a very real chance of a blue mirage this time around, rather than a red one. Certain battleground states have changed their vote tabulating processes in a way that would have made 2020 an earlier call than it was, but also gives us quicker early counts of Democratic friendly ballots than we got in 2020.