Despite the recent return of Democratic optimism associated with the Harris-Walz ticket, there are a few stubborn fears that keep partisans awake at night. Here’s a review of four of them that I wrote at New York:
Democrats are in a vastly better state of mind today than they were a couple of months ago, when Joe Biden was their presidential candidate and his advocates were spending half their time trying to convince voters they were wrong about the economy and the other half reminding people about how bad life was under President Trump. While it’s possible this would have worked in the end when swing voters and disgruntled Democrats alike took a long look at Trump 2.0, confidence in Biden’s success in November was low.
Now that the Biden-Harris ticket has morphed into Harris-Walz, there’s all sorts of evidence from polls, donor accounts, and the ranks of volunteers that Democrats can indeed win the 2024 election. But at the same time, as Barack Obama and others warned during the Democratic National Convention, the idea that Kamala Harris can simply float on a wave of joy and memes to victory is misguided. She did not get much, if any, polling bounce from a successful convention, and there are abundant signs the Harris-Trump contest is settling into a genuine nail-biter.
While the September 10 debate and other campaign events could change the trajectory of the race, it’s more likely to remain a toss-up to the bitter end. And many fear, for various reasons, that in this scenario, Trump is likelier to prevail. Here’s a look at which of these concerns are legitimate, and which we can chalk up to superstition and the long tradition of Democratic defeatism.
One reason a lot of Democrats favor abolition of the Electoral College is their belief that the system inherently favors a GOP that has a lock on overrepresented rural states. That certainly seemed to be the case in the two 21st-century elections in which Republicans won the presidency while losing the national popular vote (George W. Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016). And in 2020, Joe Biden won the popular vote by a robust 4.5 percent but barely scraped by in the Electoral College (a shift of just 44,000 votes in three states could have produced a tie in electoral votes).
However, any bias in the Electoral College is the product not of some national tilt, but of a landscape in which the very closest states are more Republican or Democratic than the country as a whole. In 2000, 2016, and 2020, that helped Republicans, but as recently as 2012 there was a distinct Electoral College bias favoring Democrats.
To make a very long story short, there will probably again be an Electoral College bias favoring Trump; one bit of evidence is that Harris is leading in the national polling averages, but is in a dead heat in the seven battleground states that will decide the election. However, it’s entirely unclear how large it will be. In any event, it helps explain why Democrats won’t feel the least bit comfortable with anything less than a solid national polling advantage for Harris going into the home stretch, and why staring at state polls may be a good idea.
For reasons that remain a subject of great controversy, pollsters underestimated Donald Trump’s support in both 2016 and in 2020. But the two elections should not be conflated. In 2016, national polls actually came reasonably close to reflecting Hillary Clinton’s national popular-vote advantage over Trump (in the final RealClearPolitics polling averages, Clinton led by 3.2 percent; she actually won by 2.1 percent). But far less abundant 2016 state polling missed Trump’s wafer-thin upset wins in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, largely due to an under-sampling of white non-college-educated voters. The legend of massive 2016 polling error is probably based on how many highly confident forecasts of a Clinton win were published, which is a different animal altogether.
There’s no question, however, that both national and state polling were off in 2020, which is why the narrow Biden win surprised so many people. Two very different explanations for the 2020 polling error have been batted around: One is that the COVID pandemic skewed polling significantly, with Democrats more likely to be self-isolated at home and responding to pollsters; the other is that the supposed anti-Trump bias of 2020 polls simply intensified. The fact that polls in the 2018 and 2022 midterm elections were quite accurate is consistent with either interpretation.
So we really don’t know if polling error is a given in 2024, or which candidate will do better than expected. A FiveThirtyEight analysis of polling error since 1998 shows a very small overestimation of the Democratic vote across 12 election cycles. It might be prudent, then, to expect that Trump might exceed his polling numbers by a bit, but not necessarily by a lot.
A lot of election forecasts (or model-based projections) incorporate, to varying degrees, what are known as “fundamentals,” i.e., objective factors that are highly correlated historically with particular outcomes. There are models circulating in political-science circles that project presidential-election results based mostly or even entirely on macroeconomic indicators like GDP or unemployment rates. Others take into account presidential approval ratings, the positive or negative implications of incumbency, or historical patterns.
While forecasts vary in how to combine “fundamentals” with polling data, most include them to some extent, and for the most part in 2024 these factors have favored Trump. Obviously the substitution of Harris for Biden has called into question some of these dynamics — particularly those based on Biden’s status as an unpopular incumbent at a time of great unhappiness with the economy — but they still affect perceptions of how late-deciding voters will “break” in November.
A final source of wracked Democratic nerves is the very real possibility — even a likelihood — that if defeated, Trump will again reject and seek to overturn the results. Indeed, some MAGA folk seem determined to interfere with vote-counting on and beyond Election Night in a manner that may make it difficult to know who won in the first place. Having a plan B that extends into an election overtime is a unique advantage for Trump; for all his endless talk about Democrats “rigging” and “stealing” elections, you don’t hear Harris or her supporters talking about refusing to acknowledge state-certified results (or indeed, large batches of ballots) as illegitimate. It’s yet another reason Democrats won’t be satisfied with anything other than a very big Harris lead in national and battleground-state polls as November 5 grows nigh.
Are you spamming Paul?
Not too much sence in your comment.
Regards,
Steeveguy
It’s very pleasant to find wise words here.
Good job, Paul!
Paul
The latest headlines are about terrorism and so that is what we are concerned about at the moment regarding Kerry’s abilities in that area. I completely agree with both Joe and Paul C–this fight will be about national security AND the economy. We cannot afford to cede either.
I see two conflicting strains in polling. Kerry has lost 6 points in the Rasmussen Reports tracking poll in the last 2 days. He’s down by four from being up by two. However individual state polling by this group shows Kerry with narrow leads in Ohio, Florida, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Can someone explain?
I think the war is an issue because it is all Bush has. Therefore all of us need to be assertive truth squad members in every way we can. i really hope that anyone who has not signed the MOveon censure petition yet wil do so quickly. Also write to your Congressional delegation to get their support. Even if the censure doesn’t pass Congress the debate itself will help spread the truth about the war. Also Moveon is a good place to send money since they are willing and able to put ads out there that are much more clearly expressed and to the point than what Kerry is going to present.
I am frustrated by the Democrats who continue to pussyfoot around the war afraid to say anything. my Congressman and one of my Senators are in this wimp catagory and, even after the exposure of Bush’s lies, are still unwilling to speak up. The Democrats have not yet cured themselves of moral cowardice.
I’m afraid I completely disagree. Presidential elections are almost always decided on economic issues. Jobs will mean a lot more to a swing voter in Ohio or Missouri than vague feelings about a terrorist threat. I think the electoral judo should be the opposite — use Kerry’s status as a war veteran and hero to neutralize Bush’s status in national security (actually a Republican advantage, not Bush’s personal advantage) and pound him on the economy.
This also helps with the “October Surprise” (which may be happening as I type this.) If we do capture bin Laden between now and the election, people can breath a sigh of relief, declare the worst part of the war to be over, and turn to someone who can manage the economy. We can and should start to argue right now that the best way to remain safe and secure is for our economy to boom, create good jobs at home and reduce or eliminate our dependence on foreign oil. If we make the election turn on national security, we lose our best trump card and make ourselves hostage to Rove’s manipulation of world events.
I second Joe. My guess (completely unsupported by facts, of course) is that national security is threshold issue for swing voters.
It’s like judo — use your opponent’s strength against him. National security is Bush’s greatest strength with voters. Kerry and his supporters should keep criticizing Bush for failing to pursue the fight against Al Qaeda and terrorism. If the facts and the message get through, Bush loses.
(I want to throw up every time a right-winger argues that if Bush loses, Osama wins. Please. Bush won’t even mention Osama’s name.)
I went over the numbers in the Gallup survey and I see big problems for John Kerry. What came through to me was that voters believe George Bush is doing an OK job of protecting America from terrorist acts and that he’s a focused and strong leader.
Kerry’s problem is that those views trump all of the negagtive perceptions about Bush and the economy, the deficit, his tax policies and his handling of health care and social security.
Bush is talking about national security because he knows that issue is his trump card and that he can win with it, even though he has put the economy and our future in the ditch.
Kerry will need to fight on that national security terrain because the economy and all the other issues that would seem to favor him aren’t going to move appreciably one way or the other between now and election day so as to weaken Bush any further. In fact they could move in the direction of helping Bush, although that doesn’t seem likely.
Simply put, Kerry needs to do three things: first, he should name his choice for Veep as soon as possible to rebut Cheney on national security. That means it needs to be someone credible; say Wesley Clark or Bob Graham. Second, he needs to be speaking about homeland security every day in ways that the American people can relate to. He needs to demonstrate that our security could be enhanced under a President Kerry. Third, he needs to dispatch surrogates with national security credentials into all of the major media markets for the duration of the campaign to point out Bush’s mistakes and Kerry’s obviously superior plan of agressively fighting terrorism.
Events between now and election day will have a greater bearing on the outcome of the contest than any voter attitudes on social and economic policies. Kerry has gained all the benefit from those issues that he will ever get. The trick for Kerry is to position himself to mitigate losses on security events and leverage gain from those events that can be seen as helpful.
It’s astonishing how many people out there believe that it’s all the Democrats fault that the economy isn’t doing better, or that the Democrats are lying and if people can’t find work it’s because they are lazy bums.
People are going to be bullied into voting based on hatred of gays and based on terrorism. Rove was bragging about this yesterday. Those are the 2 big issues and he says they are already getting more and more popular. And he’s right. Just look at the glee in the media over Kerry’s “foreign leaders” flap. Or the federal government banning any anti-discrimination laws for gay employees. Or the Tenn. county which is going to keep gays out of their town.
I don’t know about the large number of independents, but the large preponderence of Bush voters is probably due to people misreporting their 2000 presidential votes. People like to vote for winners, and after any election the percentage of people who *claim* to have voted for the winning candidate is higher than the percentage that actually voted for him/her.
I don’t know whether these people are lying or just remembering incorrectly. I suspect both.
Could you please comment as someone who knows about polling what it means when the number of Republicans in the poll is @386 and the number of Dems is less at @368 and the number of independents seems enormous at @441. (This is from memory)
Second, when asked about their 2000 votes, the percentage of Bush voters at 375 WAS SIGNIFICANTLY HIGHER THAN THE GORE VOTERS AT 27%. What impact does that have on the preference breakdown for 2004. Is there some weighting thing to make up for that?
Given the preponderance of Bush to Gore voters does it seem significant that Bush is polling below his 2000 numbers?
Why are the Nader numbers so high? And how high were they in 2002.