I'm going to give my take on the Presidential Election at this point, a little under 12 weeks out. Understand that I am trying to set aside ideology and what I *WANT* to happen and focus solely on what I think *WILL* happen and the political-strategic factors at play at this point.
First a couple things. Note that Biden's catastrophic debate performance didn't actually move the polls all that much. Then, when Biden was removed in favor of Harris, that didn't move the polls all that much either. Trump got a slight bump from Biden's debate performance thus building a slight lead then Harris got a slight bump from taking over. The polls I'm seeing right now are showing a Harris lead of anywhere from about 3-6%. A couple things about that:
- That is within or REALLY close to the margin of error.
- Given the current underlying situation, Trump would almost certainly win the EC if he tied in the popular vote and would probably win it even with a 2% loss in the popular vote. Note that in 2016 Trump lost the popular vote by 2.1% and won the EC 304-227. In 2020 Biden won the popular vote by 4.5% and won the EC 406-232. Thus, my back-of-the-envelope math is that Trump wins if he is within 2%. Harris wins if she wins by 4% and if Harris wins the popular vote by 2-4% the EC will be REALLY, EXTREMELY close.
- Harris' 3-6% current lead is definitely within the margin of error when taking into account the above.
The fact that Trump only gained a little after Biden's catastrophic debate performance and only slipped a little after Harris replaced Biden, I think, reflects some things about the candidates and then some things about us, the electorate:
Candidate issues:
- Trump is possibly the least likely Republican to win.
- Biden was almost certainly the least likely Democrat to win.
- Harris is only marginally better than Biden/Trump.
It is like the parties are trying to lose. I honestly think that DeSantis would have a near double-digit lead right now if he were the R nominee and if there had been a Democratic Primary I am near certain that Harris wouldn't have won and the Democratic winner of that primary would have a much more secure lead right now over Trump.
As I said, this also says a lot about us, the electorate. It is pretty clear that we are so polarized that there isn't much of anything that will change the situation all that much. If there were are lot of truly undecided voters out there, Trump's lead would have soared after Biden's debate performance and then cratered when Biden got replaced. That didn't happen because at this point quite frankly:
- The majority of R leaning voters are going to vote R no matter what and
- The majority of D leaning voters are going to vote D no matter what.
As I see it, there are two things working against the Democrats right now:
- The economy is slowing down, and
- Harris simply isn't very "likable".
I'll go into a bit more detail on both of those but the underlying point is that I see this as analogous to the end of a football game where the team with the lead is in a really bad situation and just trying to run out the clock. Ie, if you moved the election up two months to September 5 I'd consider it nearly a Democratic lock and if you pushed it back two months to January 5, I'd consider it nearly a Republican lock.
I don't want to spend a lot of time here on the economy, it is covered in
our thread on that. Suffice to say that it is slowing down. However, it isn't crashing. This isn't a situation like 2008 where the economy seemed great one day and the next day it was a catastrophic mess. Instead, this is a gradual slowdown. This obviously works against the D's because voters tend to hold the President responsible good or bad (regardless of whether or not that is logical). The more the economy slows down, the more that hurts Biden and by extension Harris. The saving grace for the D's here is that the slowdown isn't sudden. If it were, I think Harris would be cooked. It isn't so she holds a lead and just might be able to run out the clock and win.
My impression is that when Harris entered the Democratic Primary in 2020 she seemed like a great candidate then faltered as she participated in actual primary elections where she just didn't resonate well with actual voters. Once again, this isn't an ideological criticism, it is simply a strategic commentary. There are plenty of "likable" Democrats "unlikable" Republicans. I'm just saying that Harris hasn't done well with actual voters outside of California (which is obviously not representative).
My projection based on the above is that Harris' lead likely either already has or will soon peak. Then as voters see more of her and the economy continues to slow down Trump will gain. Then it is just a time question. Can Harris run out the clock? Does Trump have enough time to make up the gap? In this context, early voting REALLY helps the Democrats.
