This is what the stock market calls a “correction.” Harris Still Favored
I’m watching night 3 of the Democratic National Convention and Oprah just exited the stage. It was electric; the crowd was as energized as it has been all through the convention. Today we’re looking at a set of data that was collected almost entirely before the convention.
The State of the Race
The slowdown in the campaigning is over and the DNC seems to be sucking up all the air in the election. Well, maybe it’s just sucking up all of my attention. (Boy, that was just a hell of a response for Mayor Pete.) The excitement in the Arena is palpable and infectious. There was little to no bounce coming out of the RNC. I don’t think the same will be true of the DNC.
Trump and Vance are on the campaign trail, and Trump seems more active than last week, but I don’t know if it’s enough. More on that after the analysis.
Results:
A minor change in the methodology; with this update, I’ve separated out the congressional districts in Maine and Nebraska. Those are modeled separately and this will make the projections a bit more accurate. Since Electoral-Vote.com doesn’t have that data I’ll be taking it from Projects.FiveThirtyEight.com. Plus the first and third districts in Nebraska needed a smidgen of algebra because I only had separate polling on District 2. Aside from that, as always, an explanation of how the map was created and our scheme for finding our polling averages can be found here: Methodology.
You probably know how this goes by now. We entered the polling data into our model and ran 40,000 simulated elections. If the election were held today, Vice President Harris would have roughly a 62% chance of winning while Donald Trump would win about 37% of the time. The likelihood of an Electoral College tie is still approximately 1%.
This is a “polls only” approximation and so it’s sensitive to changes in polling numbers. That leads to some volatility. For example, let’s look at Virginia which moved from “Leaning Democratic” to “Barely Democratic.” Here’s what that looks like in their data.
That is not a dramatic change, we’re looking mostly at the result normal of statistical variation.
Given this data, Harris still leads and the odds of her winning the election are about 3 to 2.
Trends:
The averages have shifted back in Trump’s direction and it’s put the odds for Harris and Trump back to where they were two weeks ago. Here are the changes from last week.
| State | Change |
|---|---|
| Georgia | Toss Up to Leaning Democratic |
| Michigan | Barely Democratic to Toss Up |
| Nevada | Barely Democratic to Barely Republican |
| North Carolina | Toss Up to Barely Democratic |
| Pennsylvania | Leaning Democratic to Toss Up |
| Virginia | Leaning Democratic to Barely Democratic |
As I mentioned above most of these look like what happens with results within the margin of error. The possible exception there is Georgia where the new poll looks a lot different from the previous one. My best guess is that this is merely a more accurate description of the state of the race than a rightward shift but it could be either. More polling will determine that. It turns out that one consequence of my choice of using a ten-day window for poll numbers is some volatility as we’re frequently replacing a single poll with a different single poll. I hope we get more state polls as election day draws closer; that will tamp down the variation.
The odds of a Harris winning sitting at 3 to 2 seems more reasonable than the 3 to 1 we found last week.
Last Words
I’m now writing on Thursday Morning. The end of Night 3 at the DNC was nearly flawless. Walz gave a powerful “pep talk” that received what might have been the best crowd response of the day. It was also steeped in Americana. A high school football coach who loves his family, helps his neighbors, and helped win a state championship surely has appeal to voters all across the political spectrum. And watching his family was heart-warming. Trying to reconcile that with a “soulless communist who will destroy America” just does not compute.
Neil Young’s “Keep on Rocking in the Free World” is a perfect song to end the evening.
As I mentioned, I haven’t seen much coverage of the Republican campaign. I’ve seen a tiny rally featuring Vance, part of a small, weird, appearance by Trump in Howell, Michigan, and an AI-generated image implying that Taylor Swift is endorsing Trump. In addition, a Trump staffer released a now-deleted video of Trump backed by Beyoncé’s song “Freedom,” Trump had claimed that he is better looking than Kamala Harris and that there’s no way Harris’s acceptance speech will get better ratings than his speech to the RNC. Trump’s interest in crowd sizes remains an ongoing theme. Maybe I’ve seen more than I thought.
Let’s take those one at a time.
- The Vance rally just seems like more of the same.
- In his appearance in Howell, Michigan Trump seemed lethargic. If any other candidate had made that speech Trump would have been all over them for being “low energy.” Also, “Kamala crime wave?” Seriously?
- I’m pretty sure the Taylor Swift thing was a misstep.
- I’m certain using Beyoncé’s “Freedom” was a misstep. There’s already a cease and desist order. A lawsuit will probably follow.
- “I’m better looking than Kamala Harris” is just sad.
- And bragging about the ratings of his acceptance speech is just dumb. There will be objective evidence tomorrow and my money here is on the new kid. If Trump’s right this is a non-story. If he’s wrong it’s an embarrassment. There’s no upside.
- Trump’s obsession with crowd sizes is getting funny. The best example of that is probably Walz and Harris appearing remotely to the DNC after the roll call vote from the very same venue that hosted the RNC. Both venues were packed and there was no footage of anyone leaving early. If nothing else this was some world-class trolling.
Trump had a pretty effective line of attack against President Biden, but it’s now been a month since the president dropped out. The Trump Campaign still does not have a coherent strategy to run against Harris. Falsely calling her a communist or blaming her for a nonexistent crime wave might play to his base but it won’t play with independents and it won’t bring any new voters to his cause. We’ve seen it all before.
Comics, the Universe, and Everything 