The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Election 2024: Be Prepared for Anything

Posted on | November 3, 2024 | No Comments

The old Scout motto has always been wise advice, and as we brace ourselves for Election Day — to be followed by Election Night, and then perhaps Election Week or even Election Month — we ought to psychologically prepare ourselves for all possible contingencies.

We have now entered that phase of the campaign where there is nothing to be learned by checking Real Clear Politics for the latest poll data. Every major pollster has already released their final numbers and whatever predictive value polls may have is already incorporated into our expectations. About a week ago, a solid source passed along word that the Trump campaign’s internal polling showed them leading in Pennsylvania by three points — just shy of the four-point lead they would consider “safe” — and that in general the Trump team is “cautiously optimistic” about the election. Despite what Byron York calls the “final torrent of BS” in the past week, probably nothing has happened to alter that calculus, mostly because early voting is running so far ahead of any previous election year. What should we make of this report?

With just three days until the election, former President Donald Trump’s campaign remains unsettled about his prospects in North Carolina, a Sun Belt state that he’s claimed in two consecutive presidential elections.
When asked why, a Trump campaign official put it bluntly.
“If there’s one state that could bite you in the a–, it’s North Carolina,” the official said.
At the same time, Vice President Kamala Harris’ team, which less than two weeks ago feared the Tar Heel State was “a little bit slipping away,” is now seeing it as “very much in play,” a senior campaign official said.
Their dueling outlooks emerged as both campaigns landed in North Carolina, with the candidates rallying voters in a margin-of-error contest that’s raising the stakes in every battleground. Of late, Trump has deviated off course and into states like Virginia and New Mexico in the final days of the campaign, declaring he could expand his map.
Yet he’s made a plan of returning to North Carolina each day until the election.

My first thought: Head fake.

For weeks, I’ve been repeating the obvious: If Trump wins Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, that’s it, he’s the next president, and the outcomes in the other battleground states — Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada — would be moot, in terms of the Electoral College arithmetic. Anybody can look at the polls and see how solid Trump looks in Georgia now, which leaves North Carolina and Pennsylvania. As I said before, Team Trump feels pretty good about Pennsylvania and so they are devoting extra attention to North Carolina, just to make sure they don’t suffer a surprise loss in a state where the public polls have shown the race much closer than Georgia. And this move has the added benefit of encouraging the Harris campaign also to devote time, money and energy to North Carolina — if Trump’s worried about it, maybe she’s got a chance there — which means less of their attention is available to Pennsylvania, the state that will almost certainly decide the election.

Although I have long despised Nate Silver, his recent criticism of “herding” by pollsters deserves consideration. Even while there is a 6-point spread between the “outliers” of national polls — WSJ has it Trump +3, while Morning Consult has it Harris +3 — the polls in most battleground states seem to be bunched up, as if predicting that Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, etc., will all be nearly tied. As I say, Trump’s looking strong in Georgia, but even there, a certain amount of “herding” seems to be happening, as if many pollsters are afraid of showing Trump ahead by more than a couple of points. The “herding” effect appears most evident in Pennsylvania, where pollsters seem reluctant to go out on a limb and say either Trump or Harris could win by more than two points. If it comes out 51%-48% either way, the polls will generally have underestimated the margin of victory, and several of them will be wrong about who wins, but none of them be off by more than a six-point margin, and the most wrong of them will be able to say they weren’t alone. Everybody’s cheating on the final exam.

But what if Pennsylvania turns into a comparative blowout? What if, instead of a one- or two-point margin, it opens up to a four- or five-point margin? What if it’s Trump 52% to Harris 47%, or vice-versa? In that case, the pollsters showing a two-point lead for the candidate who loses will be somewhat discredited, but not utterly disgraced, while the pollster who shows a one- or two-point lead for the ultimate winner will puff out his chest in pride of his vindication: “Nailed it!”

Given the problem of “herding,” is there any way we can discover auguries from these particular entails? Well, here’s just a tiny clue: In their poll published October 12, New York Times/Siena College had Harris +3 in Pennsylvania, leading 50% to 47%. The latest NYT/Siena poll came out this morning, and it’s Trump +1 — 48% to 47%.

The word for that is “YUGE.” First of all, it represents a net shift of 4 points toward Trump, and secondly, does anyone think the New York Times would publish its final poll showing Trump ahead in Pennsylvania — which everybody knows is the crucial battleground — if there was any chance of a Harris win there? No way. Stick a fork in her, she’s done.

If my interpretation of this is correct, it would explain why the Trump campaign has added extra stops in North Carolina — they’ve got Georgia and Pennsylvania locked up, and they just need to avoid a surprise in North Carolina to assure they’ve got 270 Electoral College votes. But then again, I could be completely wrong: “Be prepared.”

However this election turns out, I don’t think we’ll know the result on Tuesday night, and we might not know on Wednesday, either. “Too close to call” will be endlessly repeated by the TV talking heads, as they point to the results in various “bellwether” counties, talking about how many precincts have yet to report in Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Detroit, etc. Even if Trump were to ultimately win a popular-vote majority and run the table in the battleground states — maybe even flipping New Hampshire, Virginia or New Mexico into the “red” column — such an outcome wouldn’t be conclusive enough for the media to call it a win on Election Night. Therefore, no matter how optimistic we may be, we must psychologically brace ourselves for disappointment. Even if it’s four years of President Kamala Harris, we can cope with it, somehow.



 

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Category: Donald Trump, Election, Kamala Harris, North Carolina, Pennsylvania

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