Is the Logjam About to Break?

Joe Mabel, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

The presidential election has so far been characterized by a very close race that has been a tossup in the Electoral College. Even when Biden remained in the race, national polling was close and the election could have gone either way, although Donald Trump held an edge and seemed to be gaining ground. Since Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee, she has gained ground and built up a small lead, but the outcome of the swing states – and thus the Electoral College – remains a tossup.

But now, there are signs that the deadlock may be about to break. Harris has built up a two-point lead in the Real Clear Polling average. Although this is a national polling average rather than state by state, a good rule of them is that the Democrat needs to outperform the Republican by two to three points in the popular vote to overcome the Republican advantage in the Electoral College. Even though the average is only two points, quite a few recent polls show Harris up by more than three, but the most recent poll, from NYT/Siena, showed a tie. The FiveThirtyEight average gives Harris a slightly larger lead of almost three percent.

But the swing states are where it’s at. I last looked at swing state polling in late August. Let’s take another look now and see how things have changed in the past three weeks using the RCP averages.

Arizona – Trump led by about half a point. The current average favors Trump by 1.5 points, but that’s largely due to an August poll that had him up by five. More recent polling has favored Trump by about one point. He may have gained a little ground, but it’s still a margin of error race.

Georgia – Trump has gained a little ground here as well. In August, he led by an average of one point and current polling shows a Trump lead of two points. The two most recent polls show Trump with a three-point lead.

Michigan- Harris led in Michigan by about two points. That is virtually unchanged at 1.7 points.

Nevada – Nevada has shifted from a 1.4-point Trump lead to a 0.2-point Harris lead. It’s a tossup but there has been a move towards Harris. 

North Carolina – Last time, Trump led by less than a point. Now his lead is 0.1 points. It’s another tossup and can’t get any closer. In the two most recent polls, Harris and Trump each led by one point.

Pennsylvania – Pennsylvania is a big prize this year and the situation is confused. Trump led by 0.2 in August, and now Harris leads by one point. The caveat is that the last four polls have either shown a Trump lead or a tie.

Wisconsin- In Wisconsin, Harris has maintained a lead of about one point, but this is another tossup, especially since Trump led the most recent poll by one point.

If we take the polls at face value while acknowledging that many states could go either way, Harris wins the Electoral College narrowly by 284-254. However, the shift of any one of several states could be enough to change the outcome. An additional caveat is that numbers change if third-party candidates are included. For example, Harris leads Pennsylvania by 2.8 points in the full, multi candidate polling average.

And that’s not the full story. There are shifts going on elsewhere as well. A new Des Moines Register poll showed Harris only trailing Trump by four points in Iowa. This was considered safe Republican territory since the only previous poll showed Biden losing by 18 points. With no other polling, we have to wonder whether this is an accurate representation of the race. If so, that leads to the question of what other safe areas might see Trump’s support eroding.

The nature of state election polling is that the battlegrounds get the most attention. States that are perceived to be safe for one party or the other don’t get polled much. For example, Ohio has had only two polls since July and Florida only one. These all showed comfortable Trump leads, but a lot has changed in the past few weeks. Even recent polling in Texasshows Trump’s lead within five points, sharply down from a few weeks or months ago.

The Iowa poll should set off GOP alarm bells. They will probably want to spend more money in this and other red wall states to prevent further erosion of support. This means that money can’t be spent in the battlegrounds. The shift to defensive spending by the Trump campaign could end up giving Harris a much needed advantage in places like North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

The Trump campaign also has a disadvantage in that Donald Trump’s behavior is becoming more erratic. This is a YUGE problem at this stage because it’s the phase of the election when undecided voters are starting to pay attention.

For example, Trump’s embrace of the false claims of immigrants eating pets is well known, and he put this craziness on display for the country at the debate. Shortly after the debate, Trump declared war on one of America’s most popular entertainers, posting “I hate Taylor Swift” in a Truth Social post. For the record, Swift has a similar favorability rating to Trump and much lower unfavorable rating. Trump seems to have little to gain by attacking such a popular figure.

And it’s not just Trump. A new scandal broke for Mark Robinson, the Republican gubernatorial candidate in North Carolina on Thursday. CNN reported that Robinson, who has a history of controversial statements, had referred to himself as a “black Nazi” on internet porn sites. Robinson’s problems may make Trump’s own difficulties in North Carolina even worse.

But Harris’s debate victory and Trump’s meltdowns haven’t decisively tipped the race. A big weakness for Harris seems to be that many people still don’t know what she stands for. The debate was a missed chance to showcase her policy proposals, and the vacuum of positive ideas has allowed Republicans to define her as a radical.

Harris also missed an easy layup with her non-answer to the question about whether Americans were better off today than four years ago. A good response would have been that four years ago we were stacking dead bodies in refrigerator trucks, hoarding toilet paper, and watching the economy melt down. Today, we are winning the fight against post-pandemic inflation, winning the wars against Russian and Palestinian terrorist aggression, and doing it all while avoiding a recession.

And speaking of inflation, the news that the Fed is cutting interest rates by half a point will be a boon to the economy and the incumbent. Overnight, cars and homes became more affordable and the stock market surged on the news. If there’s any doubt that the rate cut is positive development for Harris, just watch the MAGA crowd at a Vance rally booing the news that interest rates are going lower.

The election is still very close, but polling and structural factors as well as Donald Trump’s inability to stay serious favor Kamala Harris. Trump will almost certainly lose the popular vote but has a better chance of winning the Electoral College. That may change as undecided voters get off the fence.

Trump’s popular vote problem underscores a very real problem for Republicans. Regardless of whether Trump wins the election, Republican presidential candidates will have won the popular vote only once since 1988. George Herbert Walker Bush won that year and his son, George W. Bush, won it again in 2004. Republicans won the White House two other times, in 2000 and 2016, while losing the popular vote.

This is evidence of a fundamental unpopularity of Republican candidates. As the party introspectively determined in an “autopsy” after Mitt Romney’s loss in 2012, the Republican Party needs to make serious changes to broaden its appeal. 

If Trump wins, the GOP won’t have a mandate to enact radical right-wing policies, but that’s exactly what they will do. In that sense, a Trump victory will make the Republican Party even less popular than it is today and will likely continue the country on a path towards rejection of conservative ideas.

For conservatives, the best outcome is a repudiation of Trump with a Harris victory. Hopefully, Republicans will finally break free of the Trump trance and unite around traditional conservative and constitutional ideas. 

After all this time under Trump, that will be a long shot. With MAGA populists ingrained in the party, we need a conservative Reformation. I hope that some of the Republicans who avoided getting on the Trump Train are working on their 95 Theses.