Campaign Scratchpad: Known Unknowns
Right now Nate Silver’s models modestly favor Trump, while more blue-friendly G. Elliot Morris’s model… also modestly favors Trump (at the time of this writing). My overall view of these forecasters is that, except when people were using them to convince Joe Biden not to drop out of the race, they can be safely ignored. The election is too close (and polling too inexact) for them to be useful. The main use they have is making the outcome a known unknown to anyone that isn’t very motivated in their thinking. There’s a lot of motivated thinking out there, though.
There’s a projection out there that when polls are favorable to Democrats then Republicans become defiant, while when the polls are favorable to Republicans then Democrats become extremely anxious. I think both of these reactions make a good deal of sense. For Republicans, if Trump is behind there is almost nothing anybody can do about it. Trump isn’t going to change his strategy or his tune. It’s just not going to happen. All you can do is hope for the best, and there are some strategic advantages to projected confidence. Not the least of which it will provide you with an excuse later to disregard the results, if you are so inclined (and they appear very inclined). On the other hand, Democrats have a less obstinate candidate in Kamala Harris and if polls aren’t favorable she can and will tune her message or change her strategy by doing things like, say, going on Fox News.
We’re approaching the point, however, where the election is basically set and there isn’t time for Harris to change what she’s doing. We could be passing that corridor as we speak, in fact. At that point, it probably does start to make more sense to project confidence whether you feel it or not or whether it’s supported by the data or not. Make no mistake, though: It’s not supported by the data. For my part, gun to head, I believe that Harris is going to win but when Mom asks I still tell her it’s a 50/50 race. In my gut I believe more optimistically that Harris will win, much as I believed Hillary Clinton would 8 years ago.
Nate Silver has 24 reasons that Harris might win, which I recommend reading if you don’t genuinely think that Trump could win or just don’t understand how he possibly could given… everything.
Notably most of these reasons actually have little to do with Harris herself. I count three that involve decisions she’s made and two or three that she is specifically hurt by more than another candidate would be, but that are out of her control. There are a handful more that could qualify but I’ll put in the “Joe Biden” basket instead. Which is to say this list argues forcefully that whatever challenges Harris faces, it would be harder with Biden. It also argues that replacing Biden with someone else may have been a better move, though my view was and is that it was never going to be anyone but Biden and Harris.
By and large I’ve been reasonably pleased with Harris’s campaign. I thought she would be a power in 2020 but crashed on take-off. When she was selected for VP, I shrugged and thought she was tomorrow’s problem. Perhaps it was motivated thinking because I was anxious to dump Biden after the debate1, but I presented something of an optimistic case for Harris. She might not be a strong candidate in general, but she was well suited for an abbreviated campaign against Donald J Trump where she didn’t have enough freedom to set her own tone.
My appraisal ended up being wrong. However much she spent 2019 and 2020 stepping on rakes, she completely understood the assignment, had a very clear eye of what went wrong in 2016 and in her own 2020 campaign, and was able to strike her own tone very quickly. She didn’t use the prosecutor voice that I thought was a good fit, but instead took a “looking forward” posture that worked even better. None of this is to say that I think she has run the perfect campaign (I liked her disavowal of 2020 posture but she never came up with an answer to an answerable question) or that she is a great candidate (she’s not great off-the-cuff), but she is a solid “B” or maybe even “B+” when I was expecting a C. And the public really does seem more comfortable with Trump than I was hoping. Unfortunately, it’s also the case that she is facing some stronger headwinds than I had hoped she would. I was never confident that she would win, though. Only that Biden was almost certain to lose.
Will it be enough? I don’t know. I feel about Harris the same way I did about Biden in 2020. He wasn’t my first choice, or my second, but he was the best of the viable options. Biden had to go. There was never any way you were going to skip past the Vice President (and even if they had been she was very adept at consolidating party support). In the end, you go with what you got.
- Disclosure: My view up to the debate was that Biden’s age was a liability but one voters would get over when it came down to it and it was still preferable to the only alternative, Harris. I could have overlooked the debate but the campaign’s response to it indicated to me that there were hard limits on his ability to campaign and be president at the same time. I had assumed up to that point that Biden would kick campaigning into high gear as the election neared, but as Team Biden talked about earlier bedtimes as the best solution, I came to the determination that the public’s concerns actually had foundation. If the debate were a one-off the public would likely get past it, but the campaign’s response convinced me that it wasn’t and that the public perception wouldn’t change because… it was accurate.
1. Trump could win.
2. I think the GOP are much better at flooding the zone with sh@t from bad pollsters and the aggregators like 538 and Silver are not as good at discounting the sh@t as they say they are.
2a. Not all the flooders get labeled as partisan Republican. Trafalgar Group does (currently has +3 for Trump in PA which seems risible) but other groups like TIPP Insights and Atlas Intel and RMG Research do not but it takes approximately 2 minutes or less of Googling to find their elephant undies. TIPP Insight is filled with MAGA style clickbait on their website. Atlas Intel is connected a right-libertarian think tank that has been around since 1946. RMG Research is Rammussen’s new gig. Patriot Polling is two college aged Republicans I don’t know why these groups do not get discounted more.
3. Marist College (6 on 538’s pollster rankings) had a poll with Harris up 5 out on October 16th. I have not seen this mentioned by the Times, 538, or Silver.
4. Early voting is going well for the Democrats where it needs to go well. This could change or it could you know, actually be something but if something is good for the Democrats, the rule is that it must be discounted or denied seemingly: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/early-voteReport
I’ve been seeing non-GOP polls moving in the wrong direction. I will share them as they arrive if that will help.
According to Elliot Morris of 538 (who generally spins left), if you take out the partisan polls and the “zone-flooders” the trends don’t change:
https://x.com/gelliottmorris/status/1847384546129695223
OTOH, Morris now does have Harris as the slight favorite at the moment. Still close to 50/50.Report
It is a coin toss.Report
You can’t defend against accusations f liberal bias by reporting accurately on the political fortunes of liberals. Everyone knows this.Report
I look at the landscape and I have no idea what’s going on.
Ohio’s Sharrod Brown is running an ad talking about how he’s willing to work with Trump.
Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin is running an ad talking about how Trump signed her Made in America bill.
Michigan’s Elissa Slotkin is running an ad talking about how she wrote a law that Trump signed.
How do you read that? My immediate guess is that they’ve looked at the internals and concluded that Trump is going to win and it’s better to hedge than to lose.
But there is so much static and so much churn that that seems like… I don’t know. We knew that Trump was going to lose all the way back in August, right?
Silver talked about how Biden was on track to lose the Popular Vote by more than a couple of points by the time that he dropped out and how that would be a challenge to overcome for a seasoned politician, no matter who they were, if they stepped in and took over.
But Trump is Trump, right? He’s got one hell of a hard, low, ceiling.
What irritates me is that, no matter who wins, the post-mortem will be the easiest thing in the world to write. “Well, of course (insert name here) lost! Let’s list the reasons!”
And the reasons just come naturally.Report
Trump is almost certainly going to win Ohio. The other two are being moronsReport
That’s probably a comforting thought.Report
Or it is correct? I remember when everyone panicked in 2022 and it was wrongReport
If it gives you endorphins, “correct” should not be your first conclusion.Report
“Anything that confirms all your priors should be immediately suspect” – Scott AlexanderReport
Not necessarily moronic- even if Harris wins the Trump positivish adds help those Senate candidates appeal to squishy Trump voters. In WI and OH especially playing to that bunch is smart even if it gives us highly engaged leftier voters a sad. At the same time I don’t think it indicates that either candidate necessarily thinks Trump is going to win- just that saying vaguely nicish things about some aspects of him is a way to play for votes and good for them for doing so.Report
I think “he is an existential threat to democracy but I can work with him” is a very mixed message but your mileage may vary.
Everyone is ignoring early voting dataReport
Harris believed Biden’s accusers back in 2020.
It’s the way game is played.Report
I don’t think of it as ignoring early voting data as being un-reassured by it. And, frankly, since Complacency is one of the two great plagues of Democrats along with its vile twin Purity, I’m not worried about us leftists being anxious about the outcome. Anxiety is good. Go vote. Go encourage some low engagement acquaintance to vote. I’ve done several myself.
As for the Senators- I don’t give one flat fart what somewhat nice things they say the great Pumpkin so long as they end up in the Senate and neither should you.Report
I don’t think anyone is being complacent but I don’t think I need to take pollsters word for it at partisan polls flooding the zone having no effect because all they do is say it. They don’t quite show their work.
Quantus turns out to be for Rs as well
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/
Activote does their polling via app and that just seems like a bad system.
Garbage In, Garbage Out is a thing.
Anxiety is good to an extent but it also looks like silly season and there is nothing wrong with a little steel and confidence tooReport
I have no idea how it’s actually going to turn out. The polls are too close. The squishier indicators look nice but they looked fine in ’16 too. And on top of it I’m going to be on a cruise on election day with spotty internet access. It’s going to be a unique election for me to watch, that is for sure.
I’m still predicting and hoping for a Harris win and for the Dems to run the table but after ’16 I simply can’t have any strong confidence about it.
One thought tho: Harris has a lavishly funded ground game and my understanding is Trump simply doesn’t. Will this be a good election for us to measure if that element actually makes a difference or if it’s pure election industry grift?Report
I think we may learn a lot in this election about campaigning and turnout.Report
“I’m going to be on a cruise on election day”
Hey, we are too! I’ll bring my OT monocle so you can recognize me if we’re on the same ship.Report
Small world! I’m cruising out of LA to Baja Mexico for a friends 50th birthday. I’ll keep an eye out for you. I hope your cruise goes very well.Report
I’m making my best effort not to pay attention to any of the polling at this point. Early in person voting opens here next week. I”ve set aside time to go cast my ballot. After that I will have done all I personally can do and the outcome will be what it will be.Report
The most important thing that we do know at this point is that no matter which way the election goes, nothing will be resolved.
The outcome will be razor tight hinging on a few regions in a few states, and the losing side can plausibly claim that next time, with just a little more effort, they could win.
Andcsecond, the positions and issues are binary with no room for negotiation or compromise: Reproductive rights, the status of queer people in society, the rights of immigrants legal or otherwise- these don’t have any room for creative negotiation or triangulation.
So buckle up, we are in for a bumpy decade or three.Report
Twitter user VB Knives had a pretty interesting insight:
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One would think that the thermostatic trends will be against whoever wins but I don’t know that you could call the result pyrrhic. It’s still 4 years holding the most powerful office on the planet.Report
Someone pointed out (so don’t blame me if it’s wrong though I can’t think of any counter-examples) that this could be the first time since 1988 that a president comes into office without their party effectively controlling both houses of congress.Report
I remember the late 90’s somewhat fondly (ah, to be a newlywed in the post-cold-war era…) and I remember 2015 and 2016 somewhat fondly (ah, to be a blogger on the internet right before the most important election of our lifetimes…) and there are worse things than Gridlock.
I mean, I remember the early 80’s fondly too, but a lot of that is merely being an adolescent.Report