State of the Race Breakdown!

Finally!!!

Sorry for the absence!

Hi all! I am sorry that it’s been a while since I’ve written anything. It has been a little wild on my end as of late, but I am hoping to be back on the proverbial horse and in your inboxes a little more.

That said, it’s November 2nd as I’m writing this and in case you haven’t noticed, there’s a little election coming up on Tuesday. As is my habit, I want to tell everyone what I’m thinking about the race, let you know what I think is happening in each campaign, and finish with a prediction.

As some of you might have noticed, my prediction in 2022 was off. I was expecting a “red wave” and it arrived as a pink trickle. That has made me, and a lot of other people who follow politics, particularly wary of getting out over our skis this year.

As a matter of fact, let’s just take a quick moment and look at the national elections since Trump hit the scene in 2016.

2016 - Hillary v. Trump

As we all remember, 2016 was the biggest political upset in the history of American politics, without a close second. Hillary Clinton and the DNC rigged the nominating process for her and then through their partners in the press elevated what they thought was a joke candidate, Donald J. Trump.

What they didn’t know then, and don’t really understand now, is that Trump had very real appeal with working class voters in the United States. Further, by rigging their own process against Bernie Sanders, they sent a lot of populist Democrats into the Trump camp.

On a night that people like me relive over and over again with great joy, all the people that I despise the most (the inside the beltway, elite group of screw ups that are seemingly always wrong but never in doubt) had a full on, live, public meltdown that continues in full force to this day.

I loved it then, I love it now, and I will always love it. I say that as someone who did not vote for Trump in 2016.

2018 - Midterms

As a rule, Americans like divided government. Obama had both houses on his side when he won in 2008, then didn’t. The same was true of Trump in 2016, then didn’t. The same was true of Biden in 2020, then didn’t. It’s a standard correction for the President to lose one or both houses if he holds all three after his first inauguration.

That’s what happened in 2018. A simple, standard, correction. The GOP lost congress. As we know this led to Democrats impeaching Trump over something in the Ukraine that hasn’t aged very well, and again over January 6th. He was never convicted in the Senate.

2020 - Trump v. Biden

The only thing you need to know about 2020 is that Covid changed everything. Trump was cruising towards reelection and Covid hit. He didn’t handle it very well. He showed no real leadership and allowed nameless faceless bureaucrats who hate him to shut the country down and it screwed everything up. The BLM riots wouldn’t have happened without Covid. January 6th wouldn’t have happened without Covid… and Trump wouldn’t have lost without Covid. That’s 2020.

2022 - Midterms

The red wave that never came was due to one thing and one thing only, the Ghost of Roe. Roe v. Wade was overturned four and a half months before those midterm elections. There were a ton of indicators that the GOP was going to sweep those midterms. They were hopeful the abortion issue wouldn’t hurt them too badly. They were wrong… the abortion issue was a huge motivating factor for women and it was enough to allow the Democrats to keep the Senate and only lose the House by a few seats.

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Now that we’ve headed down that little memory lane, let’s talk about 2024!

How to read the polls

Ever since Joe Biden melted on stage, a la Nazi artifact hunters in the first Indiana Jones movie, and Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer with the backing of Barack Obama gave him the Fredo Corleone treatment, the polls have tightened. That said, Donald Trump has been on the ballot exactly twice and the polls have underestimated him twice. Notably, they were off with Hillary Clinton, but they were actually much worse in 2020 when he was against Joe Biden.

Trump beat the polling in 2020. Feel free to go to Real Clear Politics and look at the national and state polls, it was way off in favor of Biden.

https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2020/trump-vs-biden

So, what does that tell us?

In my opinion, it tells us that the baseline might be wrong, but that doesn’t make the trends wrong. I think the trends are correct.

What I mean by that is that if something happens, like Trump getting shot or Kamala Harris’ campaign landing an effective blow, you see polls move. That movement is real, but we don’t really know where the poll started.

We see steady movement with women toward Harris and movement toward Trump with men. Trump is also gaining with blacks and Latinos. All of that is likely real movement during the snapshot in time when those polls are taken.

What we don’t know… and can’t know until Tuesday is what turnout is going to be. Is there still a significant female vote waiting to arrive on Election Day, still spurred on by the Ghost of Roe? It’s very hard to know. Will MAGA swamp the polls on Tuesday because it’s mostly new voters who voted early and the die hard MAGA folks still don’t trust the early vote? Again… impossible to know.

At this point in the race, you could get as much insight from public polling as you could by studying chicken entrails. It’s all voodoo.

Public polling, especially when Trump is on the ballot, is about studying momentum and direction, not predicting what the vote will be. That’s my opinion, and I could be wrong, but I do believe that.

What about the early vote?

The first thing you need to understand about the early vote totals up until this point is that they have not been counted as votes yet. Some states report vote totals by party registration, some don’t. For example, in Arizona, we know that more people who are registered as Republicans have returned early ballots than people who are registered as Democrats. We also know there are a large number of independents who have returned ballots.

Obviously we can make some extrapolations about that, but it’s not perfect. Keep in mind, we don’t have any real insight on how the indies are breaking. Further, there has been a large realignment with the parties. Lots of people still registered as Republicans will vote Never Trump and write in or go for Kamala. At the same time, a lot of registered Democrat union workers are proudly voting Trump this year.

It is 100% true that the GOP is doing better on early vote than they did in 2020 (and 2022 for that matter), but there are a lot of factors to that… not least of which is that President Trump has changed his stance and is now encouraging Republicans to vote early, when in years past he expressed skepticism which kept loyal Trump voters from voting early.

The bottom line is that looking at the early vote there are positive signs for Republicans and negative signs for Democrats in pretty much all of the races… but none of this is dispositive. We just aren’t going to know until we see who turns out on Tuesday.

That said, I’d rather be Donald Trump with the data that we do have. Let’s get into the campaigns.

Harris / Corporate Press Campaign

This cycle we have seen the entire corporate press apparatus join forces with the Harris campaign in an attempt to destroy Trump. They’ve done this because Harris is an historically weak candidate. I’m not going to go into all the problems with her and her campaign here, although I’d like to do a post mortem if she loses… mostly because it would be fun.

That said, the press has given Harris an advantage by ignoring her lies and gaffes and taking part in lies about Trump. Whether it’s “Hitler and Nazis” or simply intentionally taking him out of context to claim he said things he didn’t say, the corporate press coverage has been egregious. They have blessed Harris with 82% positive coverage while smacking the Trump campaign with 89% negative coverage. This is unprecedented, and assuming the tactic is unsuccessful, will further lead to the collapse of the old school press.

As for the Harris campaign itself, it has been a mess. They have had no messaging beyond “Orange man bad” and a candidate who is so unlikable and unrelatable that she can’t even sit for unscripted interviews. In a normal cycle, if Trump wasn’t on the ballot, or if the press was actually doing their job, this would be a landslide of Reagan like proportions.

That said, credit where it’s due… the press, deep state, and David Plouffe have done yeoman’s work trying to make that dingbat look viable.

(BTW, if you roll your eyes at the “deep state” comment, then you explain to me why Dick and Liz Cheney are all of a sudden pro-choice liberals who are campaigning up and down ticket for Democrats this year. Riddle me that, Batman.)

Trump

Trump is always going to be Trump. You can’t have him without the gaffes and without him saying things that send Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) liberals into fits. He’s never going to be John F. Kennedy.

That said, post assassination attempt, Trump’s campaign has been excellent. He has embraced the persona of the “happy warrior” and has dropped most of the anger and negativity that threatened to encompass his early campaign. He has beaten all the law fare cases against him, with the exception of the New York case which I expect him to win on appeal if not before, his money problems went away with the IPO of Truth Social, and he seems to be having a lot of fun out there.

The Trump campaign is acting like they think they are winning. At the same time, the Harris / Press campaign are acting like they think they are losing. That tells you something. Each campaign spends millions and millions of dollars on internal research and polling that doesn’t become public. They know more than the public polling.

Trump thinks he’s going to win and he’s walking around like a guy who just won the lotto but doesn’t need the money. That confidence has transferred to his voters who are also very confident in a Trump victory.

Sad attempts at October surprises like making a big deal about Tony Hinchcliffe at his Madison Square Garden rally or pretending that he called for Liz Cheney to be executed only serve to remind the Trump base that the Dems will do anything to keep Trump out of the White House. Net net… I think those attacks have actually helped Trump.

Prediction:

There are seven battleground states this year plus four secondary “watch closely” states. Here’s my most likely prediction.

Disclaimer! For everything that’s been written about this race, there are several unknowables which could shift momentum in either direction. Harris COULD still win this… but I’m going out on a limb anyway. Let’s see how it ages.

Battleground states:

Arizona: Early vote looks good for Trump. Polling has looked good all season. Trump wins by 3 or 4 points. (Lake loses narrowly)

Nevada: This is the year that Nevada turns. Trump wins by 2 or 3.

Georgia: No state in the Union has exemplified the split in the GOP better than GA. Dems successfully capitalized on that split in 2018 and 2020 by getting two left wing Senators in place and narrowly voting for Biden in 2020. That said, Kemp and Trump have made up and are both pushing for a Trump win, which he will get. GA goes to Trump by 5.

North Carolina: This is another piece of fools gold for Dems. Harris pulled millions in resources out last week and it will go to Trump by 4 or 5

Wisconsin: This will be close, but early voting and polling show that Harris is in trouble. Trump win by 1 or 2 points.

Michigan: This is Harris’ best chance at a swing state. It’s razor close, but with her issues with Muslims in Dearborn and erosion in the UAW union, this will fall for Trump by a small margin.

Pennsylvania: Harris loses by 2. I’m kind of guessing here… but so is everyone else. That’s my guess.

Secondary States to Watch

New Mexico: Harris will hold New Mexico by 4 or 5 points

Virginia: My Old Dominion home! I’d love to see Virginia return to her roots as a place where the GOP can be competitive. They won a bunch of statewide races in 2021 and there is hope there, but unfortunately I think Harris will hold Virginia by 3 or 4 points. The Ghost of Roe is still very alive in Northern Virginia and Trump Derangement Syndrome is at epidemic levels there. The rural parts of the state just don’t have enough people left to counter that.

New Hampshire: Again, this will be very close, but it just might be Trump’s year. I’m predicting NH’s 4 electoral votes will fall for Trump this year.

Minnesota: This would be a real coup for the GOP if they could pull it off. It’s the only state in the union that Reagan didn’t take in 1984 and is the longest continually Democrat state in the country. It’s very close, but I just think the Twin Cities vote will be strong enough to hold for Harris.

Let’s look at the map:

Based on what I can see, Trump will win the Presidency with 316 Electorals to Harris’ 222. I believe the popular vote will be very close… either Harris by a point or Trump by one or two points. The Senate will go Republican with 52 or 53 Senators and the GOP will gain five or six House members.

Disclaimer again!

There is so much out there that is unknowable. This is no longer about changing anyone’s mind… it’s all about turnout. If young men show up for Trump on Tuesday, Trump will win by at least the prediction above, if not more. If the Ghost of Roe continues to haunt the GOP, Harris could take the rust belt and hit 270 exactly, or even pick off a sunbelt state to add to her victory.

Everyone on the TV is saying that we might not know on election night who won… I don’t think that is true. I think it’s going to be obvious by the time the polls close on Election Day just who showed up to vote. If it’s Trumpers, this isn’t going to be close. If, for some reason, there is a hidden Election Day surge for Harris, Harris will dominate the night.

I’ll be watching multiple screens on Tuesday. I plan on having my TV showing Fox, CNN, and MSNBC on split screen. I’ll also be monitoring a few online livestreams like Daily Wire and Mark Halprin’s 2 Way, and I will be refreshing the New York Times election tracker on my computer.

Let’s see what happens! And remember, no matter what happens, we are ALL Americans and we should all love this country and the citizens in it. Good luck to all of you, no matter how you vote.

God Bless,

—Virgil