Yup. And, if I recall correctly, 538’s model started to slip from “about 80% chance of Clinton winning” (still dangerously low, but not worth losing entire nights of sleep over) to “about 75% chance” (apallingly low, liable to induce serious depression).
(And yet, when Clinton in fact lost, many accused 538 of “getting it wrong” – that they had “called the election for Hillary.” Sigh.)
More like 90% dropping to 70%. That’s a big shift. 80 to 75 doesn’t feel qualitatively different to me. If you’re losing sleep over 75%, you’re losing sleep over 80.
Thanks for the correction. I must have been remembering just the last few days in October in particular.
Here’s a relevant article I just came across:
The unexpected dynamic that could decide the Trump-Biden rematch
It might have helped to have nominated a Black Supreme Court Justice, except Biden ruined it by pledging in advance to do just that. Biden has to show he cares about people of color without pandering. It’s not easy.
As for non-White voters learning more about Trump, this is the most well-known individual in the world. I think a lot of his support comes from non-verbal fear of the national direction. Issues do not matter except as after the fact rationalizations. If the economy continues to improve, and wars are less in the headlines, there will be less fear, and, I think, Biden wins.
The difference between reality and perception on the economy is insane.
Outside of the US, the headlines are all about how impressive the boom in the American economy has been, and what other countries can do to try to emulate it.
How astonishing it is that instead of the predicted recession, the American economy continues to skyrocket, with a record-breaking stock market, record-breaking low unemployment, lower inflation than has been seen elsewhere, and GDP growth beyond what an economy of this size can normally target.
And yet, within America, Democrats’ fingers are crossed in the hope that this continues long enough for voters to stop blaming Biden for a disastrous economy and just maybe give him some credit. Let alone the economy hitting any bumps, which would probably toast his chances.
Here’s a paywalled NY Times article that states the seriousness of the problem. Short answer: NO , the economy is NOT good— for many, many Americans.
Nobody cares about professors of economics who talk about GDP and stock market prices. People care about the one and most important thing: their rent and their mortgage.
https://www-nytimes-com.translate.goog/2024/03/29/business/arizona-housing-economy.html?
Some quotes from the paywalled article:
[quote]“Most people making $45,000 to $90,000 a year can’t afford to buy a house, and that makes people feel like the economy is crummy,” said Nathan Claiborn, an agent at Carin Nguyen Real Estate in the Phoenix area. “Housing affordability is a psychological drain for everyone.”
Even wealthy people … have undermined their faith in the economic system…
Together, he and Ms. McDaniel earns roughly $200,000 a year. They figured they could afford to pay as much as $550,000 for a home,…
they struggled to make sense of their situation.
“We have great jobs,” Ms. McDaniel said. “We’re doing exactly what we were told to do, and it doesn’t work.”[/quote]
If everybody needs to be doing well for an economy to merely be considered good, then there has never been a good economy.
This is about as close as we’ve ever come to one though.
How about employment figures or average salaries (which have outpaced inflation)?
Also note that many ordinary people’s retirements depend on the stock market, so it is not some nebulous “professor of economics” thing.
A lack of affordable homes is a problem across the western world, and has been in the US, in specific areas, for a long time now. The US is still doing a lot better than the rest of the world though. The price to earnings ratio is increasing, but was increasing under Trump too, and during Obama’s terms. It’s a real problem, but a strange basis on which to claim the economy is doing poorly now.
I think that, for most everyday people, they really don’t pay attention to that kind of macro-economic information, as they probably don’t understand how it directly connects to what they are experiencing. They don’t care much about the fact that the U.S. economy is doing better than Europe; what they care about is:
Now, it undoubtedly doesn’t help that rising interest rates, inflation numbers, food prices, etc. get a lot of news coverage, and may be convincing voters that things aren’t improving – to be fair, inflation is slowing, interest rates are coming down, etc. But, the perception, for people and their personal economic situation, is that things are still “bad” in the absolute, especially when compared to when Biden first took office.
Yes, compared to historical averages, mortgage and interest rates are still not bad at all, but most people don’t remember back that far (I’m old enough to remember the crazy-high rates in the late '70s and early '80s, but then, I’m old in the absolute 
). All people know is that, compared to three or four years ago, they feel that their buying power is lessened, and things that were once affordable aren’t anymore.
But they do largely give trump credit for a good economy through his first 3 years.
This is what I mean about the messaging wars; the economy “really was” better under Trump (and he’s just given a pass for the fourth year, in a way a Democrat president never would be) and it’s just “economic stats” only of interest to “professors of economics” when it’s Biden.
And for example, from one of your cites:
Who criticizes Trump for rental growth during his tenure?
Some of the other things from your links are simply evidence of a growing economy.
This is not to say that there aren’t problems, but you can always find problems. Overall it’s objectively a fantastic economy right now.
Like I say, it’s mind-boggling how well republicans have won this messaging war, but in fairness, they’ve been at it for decades. “Republicans are good with the economy, Democrats are irresponsible spenders” is a meme that has been sewed successfully into everyone’s perception of the economy.
I think it was Fareen Zakaria on Colbert who said that if the UK joined the US as the 51st state, its economy would also be the 51st…even worse than Mississippi. I was rather shocked by that.
I managed to buy a crappy little 2 bedroom house from the 40s in the Reagan years. I was 31. My daughter and her husband bought a house before they were 30. In the middle here. And no ridiculous Reagan era 16% mortgage.
My son is on the East coast and he is having more trouble, it will be some years before they buy a house. His in laws own the one he lives in. So it may be difficult in parts of the country. But not in the Midwest and here in the plains.
What independent is going to say “oh, I’ll vote for Trump and trickle down will bring home prices down in 4 years so I can buy one.” What mechanism is there between taxes for millionaires and mortgage rates for those making under 100 000?
I don’t think that’s the thought process. It’s likely the thinking is more in the form of “what have you done for me lately”. Or maybe “I’ve forgotten how Trump was screwing me over because that was four years ago, but Biden is screwing me over today”.
With the irony being that Biden isn’t screwing them over, it’s not just a great economy with record-breaking employment figures, but Biden has done a lot for the ordinary American from reducing prescription drug costs to waiving student debt to infrastructure projects all around the country that Republicans are trying to steal credit for.
Someone said it best. A 30% chance of losing would be akin to as if someone put three bullets into a revolver with a 10-chamber cylinder, spun the cylinder, and was about to pull the trigger once with the gun pointed at your head…you wouldn’t like the odds.
I am not buying that Biden is slowly gaining momentum, I still think he has always been ahead.
RealClear Polling added the latest Morning Consult poll to their average this morning – over 6,000 registered voters, margin of error of 1.0%.
Biden leads Trump: Biden leads Trump by 2 percentage points (44% to 42%). The presumptive Republican nominee has rarely led Biden since the Super Tuesday primary contests, compared with consistent advantages he enjoyed throughout January and February. However, the race remains incredibly close, with 8% of voters threatening to vote third party and 5% undecided.
Biden improves with independents: Trump and Biden are tied among independents in the latest survey, 34% to 34%. It’s the first time since late November that Trump has not led Biden among this key group.
Biden regains popularity edge: For the first time since mid-January, Biden’s net favorability rating (6 points underwater) is slightly better than Trump’s (8 points underwater). This edge comes as Biden’s advantage over Trump on net buzz — the share of voters who heard something positive about each candidate minus the share who heard something negative — ticked up to 21 points, which is the largest margin since mid-November.
Battleground momentum: Our swing-state surveys with Bloomberg News show Biden narrowing the gap with Trump in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, and pulling ahead in Wisconsin. Read more here: Biden Takes Lead from Trump in Wisconsin as 2024 Campaign Kicks Into Gear.
Thought this was interesting – not predictive, but interesting.
RealClear Polling, as of this writing, aggregates 15 polls and calculates an 0.6% lead in the polls for Trump.
Decision Desk HQ, as of this writing, aggregates 622 polls and calculates an 0.7% lead in the polls for Trump.
I notice that none of the fifteen is Rasmussen, even though they still are polling the horse race (with Trump+8). RealClearPolitics seems to have dropped Rasmussen, as 538 did last month.
Rasmussen has a reputation for GOP bias and being pretty close to the line in terms of legitimacy. RealClearPolitics management is center right, so I’m little surprised they dropped Rasmussen. The obvious explanation is that Rasmussen is a dubious pollster, and RealClearPolitics believes in keeping their biases out of their polling aggregation operation.
As noted in my second link in this thread, the sainted Nate Silver questions ignoring Rasmussen; he finds their accuracy to be average.
Decision Desk HQ seems also to have stopped using Rasmussen – nothing more recent than mid-February, anyway.