It’s sickly funny in a way that the 268-270 SunBelt RustBelt scenario is probably the most likely Harris win scenario(it’s what the polls are predicting). Had a couple local politicians in Nebraska 2 months ago made a different choice and changed to Winner Take All that would be a 269-269 tie leading to a Trump win.

It’s also good to note 2008 being second highest was hard carried by Obama, McCain was not pulling record numbers. 2020 was both parties breaking their all time records(though proportionally they both fell a bit short of 2008 Obama). Personally I smell 2008 style numbers. Post-COVID means less people free that day and a bit less wall to wall election exposure, and while Harris is more charismatic than Biden she’s not Obama(Obama wasn’t even supposed to be picked in 2008, but he came in so hard and strong they gave him a shot and he mauled Hillary. Kamala wasn’t fighting her way through a primary she was never supposed to win in a trial by fire like Obama).

Also states have shifted in one way or another. Nevada was the bluest state in 2016 and 2020, only swing state to go blue both times, only one of the modern swing states Hillary held(albeit in 2016 Virginia and New Hampshire and New Mexico were considered Swing States too). This year it’s looking to be a lot more red…hopefully…if it’s still the bluest state that’s game over already. Abortion doesn’t sell well there, state is more male, and it’s mostly older so the women there aren’t super passionate. That and they got hit by COVID and Inflation really really badly and No Tax on Tips is popular. Meanwhile Wisconsin(traditionally the reddest of the rust belt) is being reigned in by Tim Walz to a degree and has been the bluest at several points while Michigan(the bluest state Trump won in 2016) is slipping a bit due to Arab voters.

Calling it being around 2008 Levels, but not 2020 level.

What do you predict Turnout being this year? 2020 was 65.9% of the VEP(Voting Eligable Population). The lowest in the internet era was 2012 at 58%. Average is 2004 and 2016 at 60.1 and 59.3 each, 2008 was the previous high at 61.1

Yes

Trump is at 46.7% baseline on 538. His TOTAL in 2020 was 46.8 and 46.1 in 2016. At the current rate it’ll be 46.8-47 by election day. The polls have been extremely good at predicting this baseline, it’s the undecided remainder they suck at guessing(Harris is at 48.1 right now) so Trump is pretty much guaranteed to get more of the Popular Vote then in 2016 or 2020.

With the current info on Undecideds, it’s lining up mostly with what I guessed based on what we knew about the locked in voters barring another polling disaster rendering all the data moot. Around 60% of the recent undecideds have broke for Harris, but the bulk of Undecideds who committed earlier broke for Trump (52-48) which is a larger number. These two average out to basically 50-50 on the whole. Undecideds went massively for Trump both previous elections so I don’t foresee Harris breaking 50%ish, that’s already a big gain.

This is relevant because the final locked in scores at the rate things are trending are going to be something like 47.5 - 49 give or take a half a point by election day. Not all of the 3-4 points left are going to either them, at least one, maybe 2 are going for Third Parties, which unlike in past years are way more left leaning than normal thanks mostly to RFK Jr and Libertarian infighting. Harris is trending in the right direction, but that 3rd party shift absorbs some of that. A final 50/50 call between what’s left leaves maybe a 2 point difference final result depending on exactly how well third parties do. 48-50 or so. That’s a Hilary Clinton sized margin between Popular Vote and EC. Not a death sentence, this thing is cyclical, sometimes it favors one party or another (Democrats had a EC advantage in 2004 and 2008 and probably 2012) and sometimes it’s stronger. The effect is supposed to be much less this year, a Biden level margin of 4 points or even a 3 point lead is a safe Kamala win. Not so much 2 points, that’s up in the margins.

If the polling is right, this is a dead heat election where Wisconsin and Michigan are going blue, Arizona Georgia and North Carolina going red, and Nevada and Pennsylvania are too close to call.

So yeah, when people ask how Trump could be doing this well despite stuff like COVID deaths or Harris’s gains, that’s my reasoning.

1. Significant gains in Libertarians who usually vote for the Libertarian Party
2. Notable gains with young men.
3. Marginal gains with Hispanic men
4. Democrat losses among older white men attached to Biden.

Landslide stomps get views too. They made a game of Reagan’s run in literally 1984 trying to predict if he could win all 50 states or not. (He fell one short).

Breaking the Libertarian Party as badly as it’s been broken(they’re polling like a quarter of what they did last time) is crucial in a way I don’t think people understand. That’s probably where a lot of the young men gains are coming from. They’re polling worse now then they got as final results last time. I don’t think it can be understated how bad that is, third parties are lucky to get half of what they see in polling. They’ll be heading to losing 75% support and most of the remaining 25% are going to be Leftist Libertarians who would probably break Democrat if they had to. The Hardliner Hoppeans and Rothbards are obviously going for Trump and a lot of the Moderates went to RFK Jr who in turn endorsed Trump.

That and the COVID deaths thing was always a bit overstated. Yes, more Republicans died. But like a third more. It’s like 44-56. Democrats tend to live in cities which aren’t exactly the safest places to be in a pandemic, had Trump not been a moron and just sold MAGA masks or something the democrats would have almost certainly been hit worse. That and some of those Republicans would have died anyway as they tend to be older. The actual net loss compared to usual 4 years is like a point or two, nothing monstrous. They’ve slipped with older white guys who Biden was running up the margins with, young guys are slipping, Hispanics are holding firm, it’s basically a race between that and the black and female gains.

Third Parties do not exist in a vacuum. I think way too many people have had their heads stuck in 2000 to realize this, they have trends that shift. Voting Third Party has helped democrats since at least 2008, and 2004 was pretty neutral. You could also argue it probably helped them in the 90s as Ross Perot was probably hurting Bush more so really 2000 was the odd one.

A lot of young voters don’t always realize these factors are not set in stone. The Electoral College helped Democrats more in 2004-2012, it just didn’t stick out because Obama was so absurdly popular it smothered it and Bush managed to hold onto Ohio by the skin of his teeth in 2004 preventing Kerry from winning via EC. Meanwhile 2000 went to the EC by basically a fluke(popular vote margin was the tightest ever of an election where it and the EC didn’t agree, winning margin was tightest ever period, butterfly ballot issue, Bush probably would have won New Mexico if they recounted there) and 2016 did come down to that so people focus on that and ignore 2004-2012.

Or Swing States. The USA doesn’t always have them at all, sometimes basically every state is up for grabs(See the 70s and 80s or the 30s and 40s), it depends on how divided by party line the country is at the time, it’s cyclical. And when there are Swing States they aren’t locked in, neither are solid states. California was a safe red state from the late 60s until the late 80s, then for about a decade it was considered a Swing State, and after 2000 it was considered a solid blue state. Virginia was a safe red state until 2004, then it was a swing state during Obama’s years and 2016 before being considered a solid blue state. Iowa and Ohio and New Hampshire were THE swing states for decades (hence their good spots in the Primaries) until they weren’t, two went safe red and one went safe blue. Sure, 2024 and 2020 are mostly the same(Florida is the only shift, it was considered a swing state in 2020 and safe red now), but 2016 had a ton of states up for grabs, and 2012 only had like 4 or 5(Virginia, Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, and MAYBE Iowa?).

The Third Party votes have been hurting Republicans for years, just none of the elections were tight enough for it to have 2000 style effects. If America had ranked choice or run-off style ballots or simply no third parties allowed Trump would have won even harder in 2016, no third party means he carries the popular vote and gets an extra half a dozen states. Gary Johnson had 5 and a half percent of the vote and another 2 percent went to Evan McMullin, both right wingers, Plus another percent for the smaller right swing parties. Yeah Hillary would get the green vote, but say goodbye to New Hampshire, goodbye to New Mexico, goodbye to Minnesota. Even in 2020, in a world with no third parties Trump gets Georgia safely, probably gets Arizona, and Wisconsin is getting dangerously tight. He probably still loses, Wisconsin is highly unlikely to come up favorably, but still.

Now the script is flipped. Even in the states where Cornel and Claudia were gatekept, Green’s have their leading lady back and the Libertarians are infighting badly, Constitution Party is still weakened. Georgia was on the verge of a Hat Trick(No Constitution Party, but the Greens + PSL + Cornel) prior to them saying Cornel and Claudia’s votes wouldn’t count, Virginia HAS a hat trick(and while it’s considered a safe blue that that’s going to eat into the margins massively, don’t expect a 10 point win), and Wisconsin sorta has one, all the left parties are there, but so is the Constitution Party and RFK Jr. There’s going to be a few more potential Democrats leaking out, and a few people who would normally vote Libertarian or Constitution voting Trump. Those margins matter. Honestly RFK Jr’s role here was quite clever, he dropped off too late for the 4 or 5 parties signed up with him to do anything, and he further helped gimp the Libertarians, double filtering the moderates to Trump and helping the Leftist Faction get the pres pick.

TL:DR The lower number of undecideds also means that less of them need to break for Trump to give a win, even with the gap between Popular Vote and Electoral College predicted to shrink significantly. Polls have been very accurate at predicting the baseline support, it’s the undecideds they suck at guessing.

Trump’s baseline just hit 46.1%, 2016 final levels(not 2016 baseline that was barely 40%, big difference) and at the rate it’s slowly creeping up could be at or close to 2020 final levels, 46.8%. Harris has been stuck at 48 and a half points for a bit. Assuming this trend holds another 4 weeks we’re looking at something like 48.8 to 46.8 baseline nationally or in that general area. Some of those undecideds are going for third parties, likely more left leaning ones.

All that accounting for if Trump wins just half the undecideds the final result gap would be around 2 points, similar to 2016 if not slightly smaller, which is probably a Trump win. He’s converted enough to diehards he’s gone from needing 2/3+ to just half. And Trump won with the undecideds both prior elections. Harris is improving, absolutely, but the changing third party situation is a braking factor absorbing and neutralizing it to a degree(in 2020 and especially 2016 Trump was bleeding more votes to guys like Gary Johnson, Jo Jorgenson, Rocky De Le Fuente, and Evan McMullin. This year the third party composition has shifted left thanks to the rise of the PSL, strengthing of the Greens, RFK Jr killing the small right wing bloc, and Libertarian infighting.). So this change was a net negative and Harris’s growth has been somewhat absorbed in neutralizing this. That’s also probably why Trump’s raw base total is up, among other things a lot of hardliner Hoppean or Rothbardian LIbertarians jumped ship to him when Chase Oliver and the moderates won the party.

Take a swing state for example. Less accurate overall, but just a hypothetical, and it’s a clean “get the most votes and it’s yours” so no need to guess ratios. According to 538, There’s 4 and a half points not locked in, Harris is leading by 0.4-0.7 and it’s fluctuating day to day. Pennsylvania isn’t a super 3rd party happy state compared to some of the sunbelt, and PSL and Cornel didn’t get on, so that’s a bit more favorable. Let’s say 1 point goes to third party, a bit more Harris thanks to the internal shifts, but not by much. Of of the remaining 3.5, if 63% were to go to Trump, that’s it, even with the best case 0.8 point base lead Harris loses. If it’s more like 0.4 Trump just needs around 55% of the undecideds. That’s it. And this state is better in the third party spread than some others. Trump won more than those numbers from them the last two elections.

538 has Trump’s support at his 2016 final levels. This is relevant to note because, in both prior elections, the polls were extremely good at predicting the baseline margins from diehards and registered, and the error came from badly guessing the undecideds wrong.

Unless this is the first election in a long long time to actually get the baseline wrong or literally 100% of the undecideds go to Harris, Trump’s got above 2016 in raw percentage totals basically locked in(in 2016 a ton of people went third party so neither he or Hillary actually crossed 50 percent, Hillary was 48.2 and Trump 46.1). In 2020 it was 46.8 for Trump and 51.3% for Biden. If things continue to trend that way Trump will be close to his 2020 total percentage locked in and thus will almost certainly be higher in the final count. The people genuinely leaving Trump will mostly be former undecideds, not the people locked in, so this number isn’t being shifted as much. That does suggest that, even with his general ceiling region not shifting a ton, he’s probably set to break 47% in the final number if not more (Trump was polling sub-45 in both 2016 and 2020 so 48 is also plausible).

This matters mostly because not every undecided is going to break for Harris or Trump, there will be people sticking third party who most polls lump in with them or at least contribute to the ‘Not Harris or Trump’ number, and this is one of the few areas where the general trend is not in Harris’s favor. Just broadly speaking this is the most left-wing Third Party batch we’ve had since 2000.

As much as people love to say voting third party helps Republicans, that hasn’t been the case in a while, the Libertarians have been the strongest for a long while and they usually siphon off more Republicans, especially Anti-Trump Ron Paul types. They probably cost Trump Georgia in 2020. But the Libertarian party has been in a state of collapse since 2022, there was an attempted takeover by a hard right clique, which lead to a nasty party schism that left the party not cooperating, then a ton of Hardliners defected to Trump when the Moderates got control of the primaries, and then to make matters worse RFK joined in around that time taking most of the right wing moderates and leaving the Left Libertarians to put Chase Oliver on the ticket. So a ton of Libertarian voters either left with the hardliners for Trump a year ago or left for RFK who in turn endorsed Trump likely redirecting some more of them to him, and what’s left is the most Left-Wing Libertarian the party has run since the 1970s.

Then there’s the fact the Constitution Party has been steadily weakening for years, they lost their status as the Number 3 Third Party in 2020 to the PSL, and this year they had a schism between the Mormon and Protestant factions. They also mostly take Republican Votes. Or the fact the usual coalition of small right wing parties all working together to back one candidate(Rocky De Le Fuente last time) are all gone. Why? They all hitched to RFK Jr, and he dropped out too late for any of them to pick new guys. (That I honestly suspect was the real goal of his candiacy. Wipe out the small right wing third parties and weaken the Libertarians).

On the other foot, the Greens are proportionally stronger as Jill Stein has better name recognition than Howie, the Party for Socialism and Liberation is surging with youth support and is set to break their all time record again, and Cornel West…exists.

It could be far worse, lawsuits kept most of them off of most Swing States, Nevada kept the Green Party off and has the Constitution Party, and Pennsylvania and Arizona only have the Greens and Libertarians. Wisconsin and Michigan also still have RFK Jr on them despite Cornel West and Claudia being there. But it’s still way more left leaning than normal just from the Libertarian crisis and lack of small right parties even without those new guys.

Let’s say around 1.5% of the undecideds go Third Party. Lower than 2020, way way lower than 2016, about on parr with previous years. It’s going to be mostly people who would otherwise vote democrat. The Popular Vote to Electoral College margin is supposed to be quite a bit less this year, but sub-Hillary margins nationally are probably a loss. So Harris wants a 2 point lead and there’s around 98.5% available. It’s gonna be tight.

Minor Vance win overall since he had lower expectations going in and Walz got that one unfortunate extremely clippable misspeak. Vance refusing to admit Trump lost in 2020 and his Springfield…thing though cost him any chance of a rout, which is basically required for a VP debate to have significant upballot effects. Still the Republicans probably appreciate getting Vance above Sarah Parin and Aaron Burr and getting the media distracted for another day or two.

Fuck that “I’ve become friends with school shooters” misspeak is gonna be clipped to hell isn’t it

I will say this debate is inherently riskier than the last one simply because JD Vance is already at his floor. He’s the most unpopular VP or VP candidate in history. Worse than Sarah Palin, worse than Spiro Agnew, worse than Aaron Burr.
He loses, nothing changes, he cannot go lower barring Mark Robinson tier revelations and even then I have doubts. He wins, Walz slips a point or two, Harris by extension maybe 1/4th of a point.

Really anything that can stop the bleed for the Republicans is a win for them, October is critical. Harris rode a 6 week high after getting in at the end of July, spent the first two weeks undoing the pit Biden had dug, then got boosts from the VP pick and convention that lasted until early September. Trump finally had trends on his side and the debate utterly wrecked that. That’s finally fading again so they really are seeking a win, a screw up here could be too late to wait out and Vance getting some good press could bury stuff like the Uncle Robinson(no relation) disaster.

The other problem is that he’s young, really young, Teddy young. JD Vance is young enough he can fake it for a little bit in a way Trump is just too old to do these days. He’s baitable, but not to the level of Trump or even Biden in this environment. Young Narcissists can put on a face for a while in a controlled space like this, 80s Trump did it all the time and I’d argue Vance might be sharper than him.

I don’t think it’s a bad matchup, Walz is very wholesome and more experienced(and the reverse would be very unideal for the Democrats. Vance would be better at avoiding the massive tangents Harris baited Trump into, meanwhile Walz isn’t as high energy or effective on the pursuit against Trump as Harris is) , but he definitely ‘looks’ and ‘sounds’ older than he is, especially compared to Harris. So Walz is walking in with that already there.

Still got the 5th most votes of any presidential candidate ever. (1st is Biden 2020 and 2nd is Trump 2020, 3rd is 08 Obama, 4th is 2012 Obama)

Also that second to last point isn’t 100%, but there’s a lot of rumor and evidence to suggest the plan at the end of Clinton’s term was to bring in Gore, and then either when he lost or ran out his terms JFK Jr. was to be the next guy in line. Him dying and Al Gore losing put them in a tough spot in 2004.

I will note the idea Harris was picked at the 2020 primaries is bunk, people don’t vote on a President/VP ticket then(though that would be an interesting system). Harris was picked by Biden, and while she was on the 2020 ticket in the national election it’s impossible to say how many people she swayed.

I don’t think she’s perfect, but unlike Hillary at least Harris was picked by circumstance, even if unfortunate circumstance, not appointed years in advance like Hillary was. (Hillary had been intending to go for it after she gained some political experience and Bill’s scandal faded. Al Gore was supposed to carry the democrats, but that didn’t work out, and JFK Jr who was being courted for a 2004 run died in a plane crash in 1999, so they had to work with John Kerry which didn’t go well. Then Hillary was ready and initially had party favor, but Obama came in like a locomotive without brakes: All the DNC’s horses and all the RNCs men couldn’t stop Obama in 08, no my friend)

Today is an all time high on slightly right leaning RCP, and a slight rebound on 538(But not to 12th/13th/15th levels). More like 16th or 11th evening. RCP tends to lag a bit on D rises and vice versa for 538 so we’ll see. Still suggests the overall strong growth trend passed and we’re nearing a ceiling. Not a bad ceiling, a winning ceiling, but it’s there.

Canadian, not my fight. Our liberals ain’t doing so good