Theory of the Race:
I expect the 2024 election to take place in a D+5 environment or so. I expect Kamala Harris to win the popular vote by about that number-- so, 2020 redux. I expect all states to vote for the same party they did in 2020, except for North Carolina, which I expect to vote for Kamala Harris. I think the Democrats are going to take north of 225 seats in the House of Representatives, bolstered by strong showings in states like California, New York, and Arizona. The Senate gives me more pause, but I think it will be even split when all the dust settles.
I think the special elections we've seen this year pretty straightforwardly suggest a 2020-esque environment. I look at this with a couple factors: the ground Trump has lost with moderates and independents since the January 6th attack on the Capitol and the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, the abortion issue mobilizing huge numbers of women and young voters for the Democrats, and the growth/leftshift of major metropolitan and suburban areas across the map. The excitement Harris's entry into the race generated is the coup de grâce, cementing the Party's obvious advantages with low-propensity voters. Looking at that, it gets hard to think of a world where you can't describe Kamala Harris as the clear, but not guaranteed, favorite.
So obviously, I think the polls are underestimating her. Polling this cycle has been particularly suspect. Republicans, once again, are flooding the zone with dubious firms like Patriot Polling. Pollsters are herding in a vain attempt to avoid a 2020/2016 repeat. The "good" firms like NYT/Siena have been showing outlandish results like Georgia trending right, Virginia being competitive, and massive depolarization of young voters, low propensity voters, and voters of color, despite oversamples almost never showing the same thing. I think it's clear that, once again, polling isn't accounting for the furious pro-choice majority that wants Trump and his thugs gone for good.
The Republicans are getting obliterated downballot. They're being outraised. They're being out-organized. Their narrow House majority depends on multiple incumbents in left-trending suburbs that have endorsed abortion bans, in Democratic states that had unusual turnout in 2022 like New York and California. Where Republicans have to go on the offense, they've almost universally failed, with these joke candidates like Hovde and Joe Kent. As a rule, I don't think the Dems downballot will overperform Harris by as much as lots of polls think (Sam Brown will lose big, but probably not by double digits), but they're still winning comfortably, and Republicans have nobody to blame for this but themselves. If they win anything, it will be in spite of doing everything possible to self-sabotage.
The main difference between 2024 and 2022 will be higher turnout, particularly with young voters and minority voters, allowing Democrats to deliver the knockout punch that evaded them in the midterms.
I don't buy that there has somehow been a shift to Trump in the last month, and there aren't enough rigged polls in the world to convince me otherwise. I don't buy Democrats will get record low turnout because VBM/EV is more favorable to Republicans than it was in 2020, and would like to remind everyone that this happened in 2022, and like in 2022, the race will come down to the preferences of the ever-growing and disproportionately young independent voteshare.
Now I'll talk specifics (my prediction is that it will land within a half point of whatever number I've given).
I expect the 2024 election to take place in a D+5 environment or so. I expect Kamala Harris to win the popular vote by about that number-- so, 2020 redux. I expect all states to vote for the same party they did in 2020, except for North Carolina, which I expect to vote for Kamala Harris. I think the Democrats are going to take north of 225 seats in the House of Representatives, bolstered by strong showings in states like California, New York, and Arizona. The Senate gives me more pause, but I think it will be even split when all the dust settles.
I think the special elections we've seen this year pretty straightforwardly suggest a 2020-esque environment. I look at this with a couple factors: the ground Trump has lost with moderates and independents since the January 6th attack on the Capitol and the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, the abortion issue mobilizing huge numbers of women and young voters for the Democrats, and the growth/leftshift of major metropolitan and suburban areas across the map. The excitement Harris's entry into the race generated is the coup de grâce, cementing the Party's obvious advantages with low-propensity voters. Looking at that, it gets hard to think of a world where you can't describe Kamala Harris as the clear, but not guaranteed, favorite.
So obviously, I think the polls are underestimating her. Polling this cycle has been particularly suspect. Republicans, once again, are flooding the zone with dubious firms like Patriot Polling. Pollsters are herding in a vain attempt to avoid a 2020/2016 repeat. The "good" firms like NYT/Siena have been showing outlandish results like Georgia trending right, Virginia being competitive, and massive depolarization of young voters, low propensity voters, and voters of color, despite oversamples almost never showing the same thing. I think it's clear that, once again, polling isn't accounting for the furious pro-choice majority that wants Trump and his thugs gone for good.
The Republicans are getting obliterated downballot. They're being outraised. They're being out-organized. Their narrow House majority depends on multiple incumbents in left-trending suburbs that have endorsed abortion bans, in Democratic states that had unusual turnout in 2022 like New York and California. Where Republicans have to go on the offense, they've almost universally failed, with these joke candidates like Hovde and Joe Kent. As a rule, I don't think the Dems downballot will overperform Harris by as much as lots of polls think (Sam Brown will lose big, but probably not by double digits), but they're still winning comfortably, and Republicans have nobody to blame for this but themselves. If they win anything, it will be in spite of doing everything possible to self-sabotage.
The main difference between 2024 and 2022 will be higher turnout, particularly with young voters and minority voters, allowing Democrats to deliver the knockout punch that evaded them in the midterms.
I don't buy that there has somehow been a shift to Trump in the last month, and there aren't enough rigged polls in the world to convince me otherwise. I don't buy Democrats will get record low turnout because VBM/EV is more favorable to Republicans than it was in 2020, and would like to remind everyone that this happened in 2022, and like in 2022, the race will come down to the preferences of the ever-growing and disproportionately young independent voteshare.
Now I'll talk specifics (my prediction is that it will land within a half point of whatever number I've given).
Personally, I think he's being a delusional coper.
He is a self-admitted resist-Lib who thinks Trump will become the next Julius Caesar (overthrow the Republic) and install a fascist police state.
But,
he is highly knowledgeable about American electoral politics and has accurately predicted several senate and house races in the past, on top of accurately predicting Trump's win in the Republican Primary against Desantis months before the primary even began
@Logic55 @VideoGameCoper @Castaway
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