On one side of the aisle, Democrats are battling each other via media leaks. The main Kamala Harris-backing Super PAC put out word to the New York Times that the campaign's closing messaging around Trump being a 'fascist' is unproductive-to-counter-productive: “'Attacking Trump’s Fascism Is Not That Persuasive,' read one line in bold type in the email...Trump Is Exhausted isn’t Working, read another." The campaign publicly responded, also through the Times, insisting that the 'fascism' play is an effective one, causing them to become more confident about their prospects of defeating Trump next week:
As the presidential contest enters the final sprint, campaign aides and allies close to Vice President Kamala Harris are growing cautiously optimistic about her chances of victory, saying the race is shifting in her favor...Top Democratic strategists are increasingly hopeful that the campaign’s attempts to cast former President Donald J. Trump as a fascist — paired with an expansive battleground-state operation and strength among female voters still energized by the end of federal abortion rights — will carry Ms. Harris to a narrow triumph. Even some close to Mr. Trump worry that the push to label him a budding dictator who has praised Hitler could move small but potentially meaningful numbers of persuadable voters. Officials within the Harris campaign and people with whom they have shared candid assessments believe she remains in a solid position in the Northern “blue wall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, saying internal polling shows her slightly ahead in all three — though by as little as half a percentage point. They think she remains competitive across the four Sun Belt battleground states. Arizona and North Carolina appear to be the toughest swing states for Ms. Harris, these Democrats said, and they feel better about Georgia and Nevada.
'Fascism,' ground and ballot operations, and women. That's their formula. And based on what they're telling the Times, Harris' campaign believes they are leading in all three upper-Midwest 'blue wall' states, which would be enough for her to win the presidency, even if Trump sweeps the Sun Belt swing states. All else being equal, that outcome would result in a 270-268 Electoral College victory for Harris. Trump really needs to break through in at least one of the MI/PA/WI trifecta. Over in Trumpland, confidence is running high. Axios wonders if this 'hyper-confidence' may backfire and trigger a meltdown in the event of a loss:
Donald Trump's surrogates, allies and foot soldiers appear supremely confident he'll be re-elected president next week, projecting an air of inevitability inconsistent with what polls portray as a coin-flip election. A longtime member of Trump's inner circle told Axios: "We've never had data that looks this good." Trump could win, potentially in a landslide. So could Vice President Harris. And yet the MAGA universe largely refuses to entertain the latter outcome — priming Trump's base for mass distrust, disbelief and denial of a second straight election loss. "The Republicans are projecting an image of a landslide and are hyped on early voting numbers in a way I have never seen before," Split Ticket elections analyst Lakshya Jain tweeted Sunday. "You can credibly construct an argument for Trump as a favorite, but we can do that for Harris too," he added...Like most partisan media, the pro-Trump echo chamber self-selects news, polls and predictions that point to a decisive victory for the former president on Nov. 5. Conservative media routinely downplay Trump's vulnerabilities — such as his racist rhetoric and his former chief of staff suggesting he's a "fascist" — while amplifying Harris' gaffes and bad polls.
Some longtime Trump allies are admonishing the faithful against any sense or anticipation of inevitable victory:
Cockiness is a cancer. Knock it off. No more measuring drapes. No more texting me for tickets to the inauguration. You will get a very nasty reply if you do that. That attitude has no place in a winning campaign.
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) October 29, 2024
Play like you're 5 points down. We don't know what other…
"We need to work harder than we have up until this point. We need to pierce the Blue Wall. We need URGENCY," he continued. A few days ago, Trump-skeptical conservative Dan McLaughlin posted this snapshot of RealClearPolitics' aggregated data:
It's not over. But the warning lights are all flashing red right now. pic.twitter.com/Icb0Rc64bn
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) October 26, 2024
As of last evening, exactly one week prior to election results starting to roll in, the RCP picture remained similar, albeit with Harris edging slightly ahead in Michigan, by a fraction of a point. Across the seven major battleground states, the polling average differentials were less than one percentage point. All seven were within a typical poll's margin of error. In short, per this data, the race is historically and exceptionally close. I can understand either side harboring cautious optimism. I cannot understand over-confidence in either direction. Of course, if there's a polling error -- again -- that underestimates Trump's support, he will almost certainly win the election. If pollsters have somehow over-corrected, and Harris over-performs her numbers, she will have the inside track to becoming the next president. And if the much-maligned polling is broadly accurate this time, it could be a nail-biter, perhaps favoring the party with the better ballot operation. It's justifiable to say some level of Trump over-performance is at least somewhat probable, given what we saw in both 2016 and 2020. But it's hardly set in stone.
Remember, the 'fundamentals' of the 2022 midterm cycle dramatically favored Republicans, who ended up under-performing expectations most places, barely winning a House majority and losing a net seat in the Senate. Some polls overstated the GOP advantage in key races, even as the national 'popular vote' numbers were nearly spot on. Presidential years are different, obviously, as turnout will be much higher. Better turnout may benefit Trump and his party, as lower-propensity voters may combat or overcome Democrats' relatively new advantage among the highest-propensity voters. Lots of data has shown Kamala Harris falling short among various elements of the 2020 Biden victory coalition, but it remains to be seen whether those apparent trends will have materialized when all the votes are counted. Some elections gurus appear to be detecting GOP-friendly patterns in some the early voting data, but I'm hesitant to put too much stock in projections that use the outlier COVID election as a helpful or meaningful baseline.
All in all, it's reasonable to conclude that Trump is a very slight favorite heading into Tuesday's election. It's conceivable that the floodgates could open, polling errors again benefit him, GOP turnout surges, Democratic turnout recedes, and the Biden coalition splinters to the point that Trump even wins somewhat comfortably. That's plausible. But so is a Harris win. And given Republican failures and disappointments in nearly every major election since 2016, over-confidence or cockiness feels extremely foolish. But pessimism isn't really in order, either. There are, undoubtedly, positive signs in the mix, from Trump's perspective:
JUST IN: ABC reports Trump has a slight edge in enough battleground states to win over 270 electoral votespic.twitter.com/NooNQjLXR9
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 29, 2024
538/ABC: Trump 54% to win
— Neil Stevens 🇺🇲 (@presjpolk) October 29, 2024
Polymarket: Trump 67% to win
270towin: Harris 270-268
The Economist/Columbia U: Trump 54% to win
RCP: Trump 297-241
Nate Silver: Trump 54% to win
Very interesting three different models get the exact same forecast.
Under this batch of polling, Trump wins pretty handily. Under this one, it's a total white-knuckler. Under this one, she ekes out a win. I'll leave you with the question of whether 'shy' Trump voters are less of a phenomenon these days, thus possibly making polling more accurate?
I think this is largely true — although not in all cases, of course. But if a perceived stigma has been mostly erased, could that mean there are fewer ‘shy’ Trump voters to be missed by pollsters? https://t.co/Avdn8wESxR
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) October 29, 2024
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