538 unveiled its 2024 forecasting model this morning and it gives Biden a 53% chance of winning the election. The key to how we win in this model is our strength in MI, PA, WI, the blue wall states which get us to 269 Electoral College votes, or check as I’ve been calling it.
Assuming we win MI, PA, WI, winning either AZ, NC or NE-2 (our state targets) gets us to 270 or as I’ve been calling it, checkmate . Regardless of this initial 538 data run, I think we are most likely to win AZ and NC due to the extremism of AZ’s Kari Lake and NC’s Mark Robinson, who are likely to bring down the entire GOP brand in both states; and NE-2, the blue dot, where current polling has us ahead. There is a lot of data nerdery in this new 538 model but the bottom line is that it currently favors Biden, which is where I believe the election has been for some time now.
The race for Ohio Congressional District 6 was supposed to be a blowout. After all, Trump won that district by over 29 percent in 2020. And Rep. Bill Johnson won it two years ago by 35 points.
That meant it was a reliably red district. And the Democratic challenger was a first-time, unknown candidate named Michael Kripchak, who quit his day job to run against GOP state senator, Michael Rulli. Kripchak is a veteran who spent only around $25K to Rulli’s $700,000, a nearly 30 to 1 cash advantage for the Republican.
In the end, however, Rulli won by only around 8.5 points. That’s a 20 point swing toward the Democrats since 2020, and a 26 point swing since 2022. Importantly, every county moved toward the Democrats.
Agreed. However, because this thread is about the reliability of polling, I thought it would be particularly interesting in the case of this special election to see how any polls out there compared with the actual election results. I’ve had zero success finding any polls so far in advance of this election. It’s entirely possible that no one wanted to spend money on polling in the Ohio 6th simply because it’s considered a such a safe district. But if there WERE polling data to examine, I think it could carry very significant ramifications for elsewhere.
The polling in this cycle is skewed by a never before factor. The impatient voter only stands for a president four years. We may in fact go into that in the post Trump era. But here, the confusion is that voting for “someone else” or “someone new” is not there. Both are used up candidates.
Could be, but Republicans have been losing steadily since before that. The optimistic view is that polls are just wrong. The pessimistic view is that Trump voters only show up when Trump is on the ballot and don’t care about other elections.
This has been and will continue to be my mantra until Election Day.
If Biden gets those 3 anything else is gravy.
Polling of likely voters appears to be trending in this direction.
I saw a NYT graph that showed that the more engaged a voter is, the more likely the voter is to support Biden. Trump got a ton of support from non-engaged voters. Sorry, I can’t find the article now.
Anyway, as the election gets closer and all voters become more engaged, maybe that trend will continue.
ETA: Here’s the article, with is an annoying scroll-through thing. Happily, the graphic on the cover is what I’m talking about:
Yes? Trump lost by millions of votes both times. He just won in the right places, by a slim margin, the first time. He’s not getting millions more votes than Biden if everyone voted.
That’s not the current polling. And it’s certainly not something that’s safe forever-more across all charismatic strongmen that could ever run for President.
I definitely still support the popular vote, no matter the polling. And the current polling doesn’t necessarily say that popular vote is trending towards Trump, only that it might in a particular turnout circumstance.
In any case, my support for the popular vote is based on the principle that every American’s vote should have the same influence on the Presidential race, not based on who it would help.
In a 100% voter turnout, with all votes counted equally, you will get different winners between using first-past-the-post and ranked-choice. There’s nothing about the electoral college that necessarily conflicts with your principle.
The electoral college was made for two purposes. Favoring the small states is only one of the two and the other was to put the choice into the hands of someone who has the responsibility and weight of making a reasoned choice on their shoulders, by those who voted for them.
Of course the electoral college conflicts with the principle! Right now, no presidential general election candidate campaigns in, say, CA or TX, despite the many, many millions of voters there, because those states aren’t at all “swing states”. So those voters don’t get nearly the attention from candidates that WI/MI/PA voters do. And many voters may stay home because they don’t think their votes matter in non-swing states.
But this is a hijack – if you want to continue, let’s do it in another thread.
I think incumbent advantage is exaggerated. Going back the last half century:
Ford - was incumbent, lost to Carter
Carter - lost reelection
Reagan - won reelection, convincingly
Bush Sr. - lost reelection
Clinton - won reelection, convincingly
Bush Jr. - won reelection, but both of his elections were squeakers
Obama - won reelection, but by less than his first election
Trump - lost reelection
Biden - currently in a tied/nearly-tied battle with Trump
It looks like incumbents are almost a 50-50 proposition to win reelection. On top of that - not to beat a dead horse - Biden isn’t the typical incumbent. He’s uniquely vulnerable. We’ve never had an 81-year old incumbent before.
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