Election Predictions

America is Sure to Lose

Predicting the results of elections can be a fool’s errand. So many experts have been proven wrong.

The last eight years have taught us that election predictions should be made with humility.

It has to be said there is a certain fog of war over events and no one knows for sure. This election will be close. Everyone should be prepared for an outcome that’s the opposite of what they’re expecting. Polls are uncertain and there are variables that point in different directions.

Neither campaign has been flawless and both deserve. If Trump loses we’ll look at his campaign’s decision to open the Madison Square Garden rally by having an insult comic get up and mock Puerto Ricans, Hispanics, and Blacks as a poor decision. We’ll also look at his increasingly unhinged rants when he should have been talking about the issues that concerned the American people like inflation and immigration as major blunders. His pick of Senator JD Vance (R-OH) for VP and the way he plays to very online dude bros will be a big reason he lost.

For Kamala Harris, her decision to bail on a scheduled rally in Detroit to make a fluffy appearance on Saturday Night Live will look like a blunder if she loses Michigan. We’ll also look more generally at her pre-packaged vague campaign that failed to separate itself from the unpopular incumbent or give a reason for her presidency while avoiding major policy interviews for most of the campaign as a failure. Her decision to refuse to appear on Joe Rogan’s podcast as her opponent and his running mate did will also look like key failures. And if she loses Pennyslvania, picking Governor Tim Walk (D-MN) over Popular Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D-PA) will look like a failure.

That said, how do I think the election will play out.

I believe the seven big swing states will break mostly for Harris. Arizona will return to form. Nevada has been a bit of bellwether. Since 1908, it’s only failed to vote for the winner of the election twice. (1976 and 2016). However, the early vote which is 80%-90% of the final total shows a very high GOP turnout that I don’t think Democrats are going to overcome on election day. Here I think Nevada and Arizona are going red due to their proximity to the border and the way the border issue affects them every more directly than the rest of the country.

For the rest of the swing states, I think there’s a lot going on. Famed Iowa pollster Ann Selzer dropped a shock poll showing Harris leading Trump in Iowa by 3 when Trump won the state by 8.2% four years ago. Selzer is a gold standard for Iowa polling. I don’t think Trump wins Iowa, but if he wins it by only 3 (which would be in the poll’s margin of error), he’s in trouble. Iowa is very White. What this poll suggests is that Trump has lost key support from White voters particularly in the midwest.

Polls have been showing a consistent loss of standing with White voters and college-educated voters while Trump makes gains with minority voters. In Wisconsin, for example, there’s not going to be enough minority votes to make up for Trump’s loss of white voters if Selzer’s polling is anywhere near accurate.

North Carolina were both relatively close states in 2020, North Carolina went for Trump by 1.35%, and Georgia went for Biden by 0.23%. Both states have had a lot of in-migration and much of that comes from more upscale college-educate voters who Trump has been losing. In North Carolina, GOP turnout is weighed down by an unhinged gubenatorial nominee in Lt. Governor Mark Robinson (R-NC) who among a slew of other issues was revealed to have participated in a porn site where he labeled himself a Black Nazi. While Gubernatorial candidates don’t typically cost Presidential candidates the election, Robinson extends the crazy brand of the GOP and Vance praising Robinson certainly does little to help Trump.

Georgia is another matter. Governor Brian Kemp (R-GA) is popular and has a much-vaunted political organization which is helping Trump despite Trump attacking him and his wife personally. Nevertheless, Trump has created plenty of ill will within the State GOP, arguably costing the party two Senate elections in 2020 in the two Senate runoffs and in 2022 by pushing Herschel Walker to run a disastrous campaign that gave the Democrats a 51-49 Senate Majority.

Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan have all been trending blue in every election since 2016 including the 2022 Midterms including special elections and to bet Trump wins them is to bet on Trump winning enough minority voters to make up for the beating he’s going to take among suburban White Women.

I also expect Evangelical Christian turnout to be down significantly. There has been a strong panic among Christian right influencers about this, trying to whip up moral indignation and threaten who stay home or vote for Harris with hellfire and damnation. It underlies a key problem. Trump has surrendered on nearly every key issue that socially conservative voters care about particularly abortion where he’s functionally pro-choice. He hasn’t even offered a list of Supreme Court appointments to tout to supporters. The fear of Kamala will drive many to the polls, but I think the lack of positive incentive will keep a good number at home particularly in the five Eastern swing states.

This highlights a big problem for Trump. He has grown the Republican Party, but rather he has exchanged parts of the GOP base for the Democrats, giving up a lot of upscale college-educated high-propensity voters for less educated, lower propensity turnout voters. This problem is made worse by the GOP’s awful ground game. Essentially, Trump loyalists who bought into stop the Steal purged the RNC of those who dissented and replaced its ground game operations with “election integrity” efforts aimed at suing over election rules unfavorable to the GOP and contesting the election. Much of the ground game has been outsourced to Elon Musk’s America PAC and the anecdotal evidence has not been doing a great job.

One core element of my prediction is that people matter. Those personal interactions matter at getting out voters and bringing those undecided voters to the polls. If Trump wins, which he may very well due, it may mean that I was wrong and that appearing on big podcasts that reach low-propensity voters is just as good as a knock on the door which may mean a big change as to how we think about politics.

Senate:

Here’s where I’m going to really go out on the limb. I predict Republicans net 1 pick up in the U.S. as they capture Senator Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) open seat in Wast Virginia. So I’m predicting a 50-50 Senate.

Republicans could do much better than that, but I just don’t see any of their candidates making it over the hump in the current environment. Outside of Manchin and the open seat in Arizona, Republicans have to knock off incumbents. I just don’t see that happening in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin if they go for Harris. Ohio is close but most polls point to Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) holding a lead over Bernie Moreno (R). Three term incumbents don’t get tossed out for no reason.

Where I will break from many analysts is that I think that Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) is going to win re-election. I think the reason many voters have for thinking challenger Tim Sheehy is going to win is that Montana is a very red state. It voted for Trump by 16 points in 2020. The Neighboring Dakotas used to elect Democrats to the Senate while voting GOP for President, but it’s been twelve years since a Democrat won either state. Tester feels due to get kicked out.

However, I have the sincere pessimism of someone who grew up as a Montana Republican and saw guys like Former Senator Max Baucus and Tester continue to get re-elected. One analyst have said the polls have consistently shown Sheehy up. That’s true (to an extent) but the polling in Montana’s senate election has been very irregular compared to other states because Montana is very difficult to poll due to the rural nature of much of the state and the number of relatively small (100,000 or so voters) in multiple areas of it.

While polls at the start of October showed Sheehy up 8, there have only been two polls since October 8 according to 538. One from Montana State University in Billings showed the race tied. You can dismiss that if you like because it’s a poll of all adults (as opposed to Registered or Likely voters) and was conducted over more than two weeks. Then there was an Emerson poll showing Sheehy up 3 that came out October 25.

In addition, Sheehy has been in the news for alleged lies about military service. He claimed he was shot in Afghanistan while serving overseas but a Park ranger claims Sheehy accidentally shot himself in Yellowstone and Sheehy admitted has no medical records to back up his story.

Maybe he wins, but I’ve read too many pages of political almanacs for Montana where the story was, “The Republican led in the polls right up until the end but there was a late breaking scandal and the Democrats claimed to victory” to predict it.

House:

Democrats should do well in the U.S. House after the chaos of multiple speaker votes, Republicans outsting their Speaker, and still more multiple Speaker votes. Yet, the race for the House remains close.

In part, this is because Republican shenanigans actually led a lot of swing district Democrats to retire, either deciding to leave politics or to seek a more prominent and less aggravating job in the U.S. Senate or Governorships. Despite a huge Democratic fundraising advantage, the race for the House is a toss-up. The Cook Political Report has the GOP either safe, likely or leaning for 208 seats and the Democrats for 205.

I think Democrats may have a slight edge. Republicans haven’t done a good job protecting their members from swing districts from having to take votes that will anger their base. Fundraising may not definite in all cases, but the cash and organizational advantages might push the Democrats over the top.

In the end, I’ll predict a 218-217 House Majority, but that reflects this could go either way.

If I’m exactly right the Democrats will end up with a trifecta by a narrow Presidential Electoral vote majority, a 50-50 Senate with Vice-President Tim Walz as a tiebreaker, and a one-seat House Majority.