Telegraph predicts Trump, 270 to 268

[Mick1]

The Telegraph predicts Trump 270, Harris 268. They think Trump’s support is noticeably hardening in Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina and they note that Harris’ leads in Michigan and Wisconsin have dropped from 2% to less than 1%.d no single swing state has a polling gap larger than one point.

Who will win the presidential election? Our experts predict the race (msn.com)

The five closest presidential races throughout history. 2000 was the closest:

The 5 Closest Elections in US Presidential History | HISTORY

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[johnnyo53]

I find it hard to believe it will be that close. Harris is a moron with no track record of success in anything she’s touched. I think the American people can see through her and are tired of the Biden/Harris BS.  At least, I hope so…

“I remember that one fateful day when Coach took me aside. I knew what was coming. "You don't have to tell me," I said. "I'm off the team, aren't I?" "Well," said Coach, "you never were really ON the team. You made that uniform you're wearing out of rags and towels, and your helmet is a toy space helmet. You show up at practice and then either steal the ball and make us chase you to get it back, or you try to tackle people at inappropriate times." It was all true what he was saying. And yet, I

[Legend]

While I will be the first to admit I don’t know what’s real anymore, it sure does look like Kamala is imploding before our eyes, and Trump is hitting a lot of really effective populist notes.

Kamala may be the worst candidate for national office in the history of the country.

____________________________________________________________
Sic transit gloria mundi (so shut up and get back to work)

[Mick1]

So since you brought that up…I received in my email the following Nate Silver post re: 24 reasons Trump could win. I could add 1/2 dozen myself that he didn’t include. If there’s “30 reasons Trump could win” and I can’t think of too many reasons that Kamala should win…I think he’ll probably win.

 

24 reasons that Trump could win If there’s a second Trump term, we won’t lack for explanations. Nate Silver <time datetime=”2024-10-20T15:32:51.049Z”>Oct 20</time> READ IN APP This election remains extremely close, but Donald Trump has been gaining ground. One of my pet peeves is with the idea that this is Kamala Harris’s election to lose. I could articulate some critiques of her campaign, but if you study the factors that have historically determined elections, you’ll see that she’s battling difficult circumstances. So, today’s newsletter simply aims to provide a laundry list of factors that favor Trump, with many links to evidence in previous Silver Bulletin posts and elsewhere. These are in no particular order. Upgrade to paid Harris is the favorite to win the popular vote, but The Electoral College bias favors Republicans by about 2 percentage points. In an era of intense partisanship and close elections, this is inherently difficult for Democrats to overcome. Inflation hit a peak of 9.1 percentage points in June 2022. It has abated now, but prices remain much higher than when Biden took office, and voters are historically highly sensitive to inflation. Democrats can also plausibly be blamed for it given intensive increases in government spending during COVID recovery efforts. Though the reasons for this are much debated, voter perceptions about the economy lag substantially behind objective data, and growth in take-home income has been sluggish for many years for the working class amid rising corporate profits. Incumbent parties worldwide are doing very poorly, and the historical incumbency advantage has diminished to the point where it may now be an incumbency handicap instead amid perpetually negative perceptions about the direction of the country. Populism is often a highly effective strategy, and many Trump voters are indeed “deplorable” in the Hillary Clinton sense of the term. Illegal/unauthorized immigration increased substantially during the first few years of the Biden/Harris administration amid a rising global backlash to immigration. Harris ran far to her left in 2019, adopting many unpopular positions, and doesn’t really have a viable strategy for explaining her changing stances. The cultural vibes are shifting to the right, and the left continues to pay a price for the excesses of 2020 on COVID, crime, “wokeness,” and other issues. Voters have nostalgia for the relatively strong economic performance in the first three years of Trump’s term and associate the problems of 2020 with Democrats, even though they weren’t in charge at the time. Democrats’ dominance among Black voters and other racial and ethnic minority groups is slipping. It may be unfortunate timing: the memory of the Civil Rights Era is fading. Educational polarization, which implies deteriorating Democratic performance among working-class voters of all races, may also be coming to dominate other factors. It’s possible this works out well for Democrats if Harris makes corresponding gains among white voters, who pack more leverage in the Electoral College, but there’s no guarantee. Many men, especially young men, feel lost amidst declining college enrollment, contributing to a rightward shift and a growing gender gap. Joe Biden sought to be president until he was 86. Voters had extremely reasonable objections to this, and it neuters what should have been one of Harris’s best issues about Trump’s age and cognitive fitness. Share Harris also got a late start to her race, inheriting most of the staff from the poorly-run Biden campaign. She’s proven to be a good candidate in many respects, but it’s always a big leap when the understudy is suddenly thrust into the spotlight. Harris is seeking to become the first woman president. In the only previous attempt, undecideds broke heavily against Hillary Clinton, and she underperformed her polls. Trust in media continues to fall to abysmal levels. One can debate how to attribute blame for this between longstanding conservative efforts to discredit the media, a secular decline in trust in institutions, and various overreaching and hypocrisy in the press. But it’s hard for even legitimate Trump critiques to penetrate the mass public. Trump’s conviction on a series of felony charges hardly made any difference, for instance. Trump has traits of a classic con man, but con artistry is often effective, and Trump is skilled at convincing voters that he’s on their side even if his election would not be in their best interest. Furthermore, Trump presents Democrats with a Three Stooges Syndrome problem: a range of plausible attacks so vast that they tend to cancel one another out. Democrats’ college-educated consultant class has poor instincts for how to appeal to the mass public, while Trump has done more to cultivate support among “weird” marginal voting groups. Democrats’ argument that Trump is a critical threat to democracy is valid and important, given January 6 and Trump’s broad disrespect for the rule of law. But it’s a tough sell: ultimately, January 6 was a near-miss — it could very, very easily have been much, much worse — and Democrats hold the White House, the Senate, and many key governorships now. It isn’t intuitive to voters that democracy is threatened and Democrats may have staked too many chips on this line of attack. Foreign policy might not matter much to voters, but the world has become more unstable under Biden’s tenure. There has been a decline in democracy worldwide and an increase in interstate conflict, crises in the Middle East and Ukraine, deteriorating US-China relations, increasing immigration flows because of global instability, and a pullout from Afghanistan that negatively impacted Biden’s popularity. The Israel-Hamas war split the Democratic base in a way no comparable issue has split the GOP base. There are more left-leaning third-party candidates than right-leaning ones, and the former leading third-party candidate (RFK Jr.) endorsed Trump and undermined Harris’s post-convention momentum. The richest man in the world, Elon Musk, has become a huge Trump stan and is doing everything in his power to tip the election to him. Twitter/X remains an influential platform among journalists but has shifted far to the right. Elon and Silicon Valley have also created a permission structure for other wealthy elites to advocate for Trump explicitly and provided a new base of money and cultural influence. Trump was very nearly killed in an assassination attempt, and then there was a second one against him. The first attempt was closely correlated with an increase in favorability ratings for Trump, and polling shows he’s considerably more popular and sympathetic than in 2016 or 2020. Harris has been running on vibes and has failed to articulate a clear vision for the country. It might have been a good strategy if the “fundamentals” favored her, but they don’t. Silver Bulletin is a reader-supported publica

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[Mick1]

By Nate Silver, 24 reasons Trump could win:

1. Harris is the favorite to win the popular vote, but The Electoral College bias favors Republicans by about 2 percentage points. In an era of intense partisanship and close elections, this is inherently difficult for Democrats to overcome.
2. Inflation hit a peak of 9.1 percentagepoints in June 2022. It has abated now, but prices remain much higher than when Biden took office, and voters are historically highly sensitive to inflation. Democrats can also plausibly be blamed for it given intensive increases in government spending during COVID recovery efforts.
3. Though the reasons for this are much debated, voter perceptions about the economy lag substantially behind objective data, and growth in take-home income has been sluggish for many years for the working classamid rising corporate profits.
4. Incumbent parties worldwide are doing very poorly, and the historical incumbency advantage has diminishedto the point where it may now be an incumbency handicap instead amid perpetually negative perceptions about the direction of the country.
5. Populism is often a highly effective strategy, and many Trump voters are indeed “deplorable” in the Hillary Clinton sense of the term.
6. Illegal/unauthorized immigration increased substantially during the first few years of the Biden/Harris administrationamid a rising global backlash to immigration.
7. Harris ran far to her left in 2019, adopting many unpopular positions, and doesn’t really have a viable strategyfor explaining her changing stances.
8. The cultural vibes are shifting to the right, and the left continues to pay a price for the excesses of 2020on COVID, crime, “wokeness,” and other issues.
9. Voters have nostalgia for the relatively strong economic performancein the first three years of Trump’s term and associate the problems of 2020 with Democrats, even though they weren’t in charge at the time.
10. Democrats’ dominance among Black votersand other racial and ethnic minority groupsis slipping. It may be unfortunate timing: the memory of the Civil Rights Era is fading. Educational polarization, which implies deteriorating Democratic performance among working-class voters of all races, may also be coming to dominate other factors. It’s possible this works out well for Democrats if Harris makes corresponding gains among white voters, who pack more leverage in the Electoral College, but there’s no guarantee.
11. Many men, especially young men, feel lost amidst declining college enrollment, contributing to a rightward shiftand a growing gender gap.
12. Joe Biden sought to be president until he was 86. Voters had extremely reasonable objections to this, and it neuters what should have been one of Harris’s best issuesabout Trump’s age and cognitive fitness.

13. got a late start to her race, inheriting most of the stafffrom the poorly-runBiden campaign. She’s proven to be a good candidate in many respects, but it’s always a big leap when the understudy is suddenly thrust into the spotlight.
14. Harris is seeking to become the first woman president. In the only previous attempt, undecideds broke heavily against Hillary Clinton, and she underperformed her polls.
15. Trust in media continues to fallto abysmal levels. One can debate how to attribute blame for this between longstanding conservative efforts to discredit the media, a secular decline in trust in institutions, and various overreaching and hypocrisyin the press. But it’s hard for even legitimate Trump critiques to penetrate the mass public. Trump’s conviction on a series of felony charges hardly made any difference, for instance.
16. Trump has traits of a classic con man, but con artistry is often effective, and Trump is skilled at convincing voters that he’s on their sideeven if his election would not be in their best interest. Furthermore, Trump presents Democrats with a Three Stooges Syndrome problem: a range of plausible attacks so vast that they tend to cancel one another out.
17. Democrats’ college-educated consultant class has poor instinctsfor how to appeal to the mass public, while Trump has done more to cultivate support among “weird” marginal voting groups.
18. Democrats’ argument that Trump is a critical threat to democracy is valid and important, given January 6 and Trump’s broad disrespect for the rule of law. But it’s a tough sell: ultimately, January 6 was a near-miss— it could very, very easily have been much, much worse— and Democrats hold the White House, the Senate, and many key governorships now. It isn’t intuitive to voters that democracy is threatened and Democrats may have staked too many chips on this line of attack.
19. Foreign policy might not matter much to voters, but the world has become more unstable under Biden’s tenure. There has been a declinein democracy worldwide and an increase in interstate conflict, crises in the Middle East and Ukraine, deteriorating US-China relations, increasing immigration flows because of global instability, and a pullout from Afghanistan that negatively impacted Biden’s popularity.
20. The Israel-Hamas war split the Democratic basein a way no comparable issue has split the GOP base.
21. There are more left-leaning third-party candidates than right-leaning ones, and the former leading third-party candidate (RFK Jr.) endorsed Trump and undermined Harris’s post-convention momentum.
22. The richest man in the world, Elon Musk, has become a huge Trump stanand is doing everything in his power to tip the election to him. Twitter/X remains an influential platform among journalists but has shifted far to the right. Elon and Silicon Valley have also created a permission structure for other wealthy elites to advocate for Trump explicitlyand provided a new base of money and cultural influence.
23. Trump was very nearly killedin an assassination attempt, and then there was a second oneagainst him. The first attempt was closely correlated with an increase in favorability ratings for Trump, and polling shows he’s considerably more popular and sympathetic than in 2016 or 2020.
24. Harris has been running on vibesand has failed to articulate a clear vision for the country. It might have been a good strategy if the “fundamentals” favored her, but they don’t.

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