180 Comments

I think polling is broken beyond repair.

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Looking at the composition of the sample cross tabs in the Siena polls, it’s all a matter of significantly increasing the weight of the high school only voters.

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Response bias is an issue with polling, and the types of people who are prone to answer surveys aren't the same people in the same ratio who vote in elections.

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Yes, but weighting takes a bit of guess work.

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Absolutely. That's the special sauce required to correct for who responds to polls vs who votes.

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Seems like polling is more "special sauce" than data at this point. How can it not be with less than 1% response rates?

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There are some polls that I think use actual data. But then there are some that give exactly the same results plus or minus 1 every time (cough cough Emerson, YouGov), and that's just modeling. Sorry. No real data is that precise.

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I posted on the Discord today that it seems like polling is about 80% fudging and 20% surveying, but that 20% may be generous.

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Granted it's from different pollsters, but it's hard to imagine for example,.a scenario where 36% of Haley supporters backing Harris, and Trump being ahead in the swing states, are both true.

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We will only know that after the election. The same thing was said after 2020 and 2022 polling was better then average.

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Yes

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Senate polls from Marist and Siena of Texas, Florida and Ohio. Brown up by 1 and 2, Cruz up by 4 and 5, Scott up by 2 and 9. Siena also has Sheehy up by 8 in Montana.

Emerson has Casey up 2, Slotkin up 5, Baldwin up 4, Gallego up 7 and Rosen up 8.

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Correction. The Brown +1 is from the Washington Post.

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I know no one wants to think ahead to 2026 but there's a huge difference in having 49 seats vs. 48 given the midterm senate map. Winning back Maine would get a President Harris 2 years to confirm judicial nominees and potentially pass legislation depending on how the house goes. We should obviously continue to play for the majority but ending up with 49 seats and the Presidency is a good outcome given what we were looking at earlier in the year and the map as a whole.

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North Carolina will also be in play in 2026, especially if Roy Cooper runs.

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Imagine a world where Cal Cunningham had just a little more self control ...

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A world where more politicians were actually decent people? Perish the thought!

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They’re typically more decent than the rest of us.

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I disagree

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I looked into it before but there really is no conclusive evidence that Cunningham’s “scandal” cost him the seat. He performed pretty much the same as other candidates running against incumbents in competitive states. If there was an effect, it was modest and his loss can just as easily be attributable to other factors.

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Bill Nelson losing in 2018 was really the one that got away

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Interestingly, the FL result implies DMP is 4 points ahead of Harris. The potential for an upset is in the realm of plausible.

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The Siena poll of FL included favorability. Scott has 44% favorable to 45% unfavorable. Mucarsel-Powell has a +14 with 37% favorable to 23% unfavorable. Her problem is that 40% "have either never heard of her or are unsure how to rate" her. Particularly with her running ahead of Harris in Siena and Marist, it seems like some money spent on positive ads about her would be money well spent. Who know? Lightning might strike.

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Oct 10·edited Oct 10

The trouble is, it's $3-4 million a week to run those ads in Florida (have campaigned there, 10 media markets, many expensive ones)

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Money shouldn't be a problem, and if it is, we are not doing something right. Time to coordinate with Harris, and tell them to see you in court, like trump.

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Oct 10·edited Oct 10

It would seem that short of a major polling error, Tester is politically toast. The consolations in Montana are that the state house are all but ensured to gain seats for Dems and there's a good chance Tranel can win MT 01. Both will increase Dem representation in Montana and expand their bench for future statewide elections, helping prevent a future slide. Outside of Maine in 2026, the Dems REALLY need to consider reviving the Dean's 50 State strategy, otherwise they have little hope of regaining the senate. The most obvious choices seem to be Alaska and Iowa, both fairly cheaper markets due to their rural size. From what we've seen in Iowa this year, I am all but convinced it has reverted to being a competitive state and with Trump likely gone after this year our results there should improve. That is a major plus to not dealing with Trump anymore post 2024 - future elections likely won't turn out his low propensity supporters and the pull of his populism diminishes, tho the GOP will likely still deal with the stain of his legacy for years to come. There is no going back from Trumpism.

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Good post, but please explain what you mean by "reviving the 50-state strategy." What would that consist of, and what part of it isn't being done now? And if it isn't being done now, with all the money sloshing around, why would it be done another year?

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Well for starters, it means recruiting and supporting credible candidates everywhere and anywhere we can. And I do mean anywhere, not just for statewide senate and governor races or even state house and judicial races, but races as local as schoolboards and local officials like city council. The MAGAs recently ironically have done a better job with their own "50 state strategy" than we have. As to why it's not being done now, well the greater priority right now is winning the presidential election and losing has far reaching repercussions. Also, these are often long term and long shot investments quite often. Still we should be investing anywhere, if just to build our presence and network wherever we can. It's time to stop being scared and go on the offense, otherwise we have little hope of winning back the US from extremists and bigots.

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I agree with this, but I think it's being done much more since 2022. You disagree?

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I think what we're seeing now is a good start, even if it is a tad late to the game. Investments are being slowly but surely made now for Texas and Florida in the senate as they should have and Democrats have at least 2 solid candidates for Congress in Iowa that are competitive with funding and polling.

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You can say they're late to the game, but TX and FL are punishingly expensive. We can't expect organizations like the DSCC to send millions and millions of dollars to campaigns unless they look potentially viable.

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I shall remain the stubborn caution optimist on Tester until the results are in after election day.

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Oct 10·edited Oct 10

I just hope that at least Tranel pulls off a victory. If somehow the Abortion Referendum passes and Tester loses simultaneously, the voters will look like complete morons voting for the jackass that will do the complete opposite and much worse.

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Maybe, but looking like morons to people like us has yet to stop voters in red states from voting in referenda for abortion rights, Medicaid expansion, fair districting of some sort or minimum wage increases while voting for Republican candidates again.

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With such major differences between polls, someone is going to be very wrong.

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Oct 10·edited Oct 10

Presidential numbers from the polls mentioned above. Trump by 6 in Ohio in both Marist and Post polls. Emerson has Michigan and Wisconsin tied. Trump up 1 in PA, NC and GA. Harris up 1 in Nevada and Trump up 2 in Arizona ,

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Any analysis of cross tabs with these? Also, correct me if I am wrong but as a lot of folks state "look at the trends", Aren't the trends reversing/going down? Any reason why?

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Remember that Emerson's polls favored the GOP by 4-7 in 2022.

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As we know, western North Carolina was hit hard by Hurricane Helene, with many communities devastated. Yesterday, State Representative Caleb Rudow (D) from Buncombe County, proposed a bill to allow hurricane victims a 5-day extension to register to vote and a 3-day grace period for mail-in ballots.

Every single Republican in North Carolina’s House voted NO.

I wonder whether this will come back to bite them in the election?

Except for Asheville, I understand that much of the hurricane-stricken region in the western part of the state is heavily Republican. I wouldn’t be surprised if people vent their anger at the Republican House representatives that are on the ballot this November.

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Quite possibly. Good analysis here https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2024/Items/Oct07-4.html. A 33% reduction in votes in those areas would have cost Trump the state in 2020. With the caveat that said reduction would not occur uniformly across the entire area, I don’t think that amount of drop off is unreasonable.

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We were up in W NC on Monday...Franklin, Sylva, Cullowee. Each of those towns was up and running. Power on, cell service, gas stations and restaurants open. I don't doubt that a lot folks are still without power, but that area is soing better than one might expect from media. We did not drive into Asheville because we had no business there, but the highway was open and downed trees were much more common from Asheville south. Forest City was still clearly without power. My point here is that the damage and aftereffects are not at all uniform, so a regional analysis of county trends is unlikely to be granular enough to be very meaningful, especially this early. My guess is the true effect in Nov will be on turnout models. Those with a low propensity to vote will be far less likely to vote. But the vast majority of folks who voted in 2020 during a pandemic and in 2022 in a midterm will still vote.

I could be wrong of course. It'll be interesting to see the data next year. I doubt we'll have detailed data analysis until then, when one of the DB folks truly digs into it. Seems like a good assignment for Steve Singiser (sp?) who, iirc, had some amazing analysis of Appalachian voting 15ish years ago.

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Or maybe it was Jonathan Singer.

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With Gallego up by roughly 7 points in Arizona s Senate race, Arizona clean elections held the debate between Gallego and Lake last night. It was lively, but Gallego held his own against the right wing nutcase former newscaster.

https://www.youtube.com/live/53Vg5_bXsWE?feature=shared. YouTube of debate

As much as I'm always saying Arizona is going to be close, I expect this race to end by at least a 5 points spread. Hopefully it will help down ballot (and even up ballot?)

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My fear is that many voters will try to pride themselves on "independence" by voting for a Democratic (Gallego) and one Rep (Trump). Same in NC or MI where we have senate races

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NC does not have a Senate race this cycle, but it does have a lot of other important races aside from the Presidential race.

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The second tier race is NC gov which will give voters a reason to split.

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In NC, Trump outran the GOP nominee for governor by 1 and 3 points in 2016 and 2020 and he never got over 50%. He will definitely outrun Robinson by a lot more but can he clear 50%. What if turnout from western NC drops by 10% or 20%? Harris is back in NC next week.

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Asheville is wiped off the map. That's a huge blow to Dems too

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It’s not just Asheville though, it’s a lot of smaller communities as well and they favor Republicans.

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Asheville is not wiped off the map. The river arts district has substantial damage as do the water treatment plants and distribution lines. But my friends who live there, mostly apt dwellers, are back to work already with all utilities except water. A few dramatic pictures on TV or youtube does equate to being wiped off the map.

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This is hokum..please just stop

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Muhlenburg PA-7 poll CD and Pres & Sen https://x.com/justin_sweitzer/status/1844381066343350442

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Biden +0.6; current poll is Harris +3 and Casey +6. Note that Muhlenberg is located in PA-07. (Just like Susquehanna is located in PA-10, which it polled yesterday).

Nice results overall from these CD-specific polls in PA.

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For reference, Biden won PA-07 51.8-47

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But the district lines changed. He won this iteration by 0.6 according to the DKE spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Sg4ZZz5FcX7lz-m2xqmYtndaO2uEMSaL7x99AbQOvv8/edit?gid=1096752259#gid=1096752259

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Right. Forgot about that.

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Good numbers

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Northampton is in this district and is considered the bellweather county for the state. This is really good if it holds.

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As a Detroit native I can attest to this completely! So many black men I know will not support Harris! This is BAD news and her campaign has not been engaged with Detroit grassroots! :(

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/10/kamala-harris-detroit-voters-turnout-michigan-00183107

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Not the brightest bulbs I guess.

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You would be surprised how VERY socially conservative a lot of African American men are.

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Wonder if reluctance to vote for a woman also plays a factor.

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They voted for Hillary. And Gretchen Whitmer. And other downballot Dems who were women.

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Turnout in Detroit was below expectations, which is why she lost the state.

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The difference between 2016 and 2020 in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin was suburban turnout. Many people forget this but Hillary actually outperformed Biden in Philadelphia. The reason why he won the state while she didn't is because his margins in the Philly suburbs were MUCH stronger than hers. On election night, we are going to have to look at Philly and Detroit suburbs early on.

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That just does not compute in my brain. I could understand fiscally but socially?

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No, I can understand it.

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Many African Americans are VERY religious and as a result are quite socially conservative particularly on choice and LGBTQ rights. Keep in mind that when Maryland voted to legalize marriage equality in 2012 at the ballot box - the first state in the USA to do so - the majority of African Americans in the Old Line State voted AGAINST the measure. Both Prince George's and Charles Counties, both heavily African Americans voted against it, and Baltimore City BARELY supported the measure. Quite a few "fiscally conservative" (really anti tax) Republicans, particularly in Frederick and Howard Counties voted for the measure.

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According to https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/02/16/faith-among-black-americans/ religiosity is decreasing though, pretty significantly. I’m not sure I buy the theory that Harris support with black male voters is decreasing due to conservative religious values while at the same time the percentage of black folks who are very religious is decreasing.

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Misogyny and religiosity are linked.

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Religion is a hell of a drug.

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Religiosity even more so.

We distinguish between Muslims and Islamists, but it’s high time we make a similar distinction between Christians and Christianists.

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The P-Diddy/Kanye group.

Seriously, the same stuff that works with uneducated WWC voters also works with Latino & black men as well.

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The article may well be about something real, but it's an exceptionally poor use of data. They talk about the 50 percent turnout mark as if it's magical - after all, Biden won in 2020 with just under 51% turnout in Detroit, and Clinton lost in 2016 with just over 48% turnout in Detroit.

But 2020 was higher-turnout overall. In Michigan, turnout was 71%, versus 63% in 2016. So turnout in Detroit was actually *worse* relative to the rest of the state in 2020 versus 2016, which is the opposite of the impression given by the article!

I'm still convinced that our turnout in 2020, relative to overall turnout, was actually quite bad, due to Covid and a lack of in-person canvassing. I don't see any reason that 2024 should be equally bad.

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We had the highest vote total ever in 2020. what, around 80+ million votes. If that is bad then what is 2024 going to produce? I guess I am confused at what you are saying, sorry.

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What I'm saying is that Democratic turnout, versus Republican turnout, was relatively worse in 2020 than people give it credit for. A lot more Dems stayed home than Republicans. Yes, we got more votes - because we won independents by quite a bit.

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If I recall correctly, Republican national turnout in the 2022 Midterm Elections was actually at least 3 percent higher than Dem turnout. However, Democratic turnout was good where it mattered, preventing the much-feared Red Wave. One key exception was New York, which lost us the House.

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Alot of Republicans also voted for Democrats for Senate because the GOP put up kooks.

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You are correct. Republicans won the popular vote in 2022 by 2.8%. BTW, California as well as NY.

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It's the whole "Trump is gaining black voters" spiel again the media loves to spin up with little actual basis aside from dubious statistics. Even if we assume this is true tho, Harris and Dems have more than offset these alleged losses with black men, with their far bigger gains with black women, women in general and young voters. Alongside the larger gains in suburbs now, Harris and Dems have been further gaining in suburbs. Both black women, and surburban voters tend to be much higher propensity voters than black men, which more than offsets any apparent losses with the latter group. For better/worse that's where we're at now.

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Sadly and anecdotally many men I know are parroting the misogynistic line that Harris essentially "slept her way to the top" in San Fran as an excuse as to why they don't like her. Nasty but I hear it a lot

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"Many men" are parroting that line? I'm sorry, but that just sounds like trolling. That's not something you say unless you're chronically stuck in right-wing echo chambers, and I doubt a lot of black men in Detroit are part of that scene.

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On a side note, I find many of American idioms rather bizarre. Woody Allen famously said something like: "I don’t mind the men who sleep with my wife. It’s the ones who stay awake that bother me."

And then, of course, if you base it on utterances, unusually many American men are accused not only of having an Oedipal Complex, but putting it into practice...

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How many men is "many men?" Like Lenny Liberal says, this sounds like trolling. How many Black men have you personally talked to about this? Are you knocking on people's doors and hearing this from hundreds of Black men?

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That's plausible, but it's anecdotal, and data is not the plural of anecdote.

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I would be skeptical this has any validity beyond the scope of anecdote. Harris will win Black men overwhelmingly and I'm not especially concerned about turnout either.

This is just Politico "Dems in Disarray" bs.

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Oct 10Liked by David Nir

YESSS TX-15 mentioned [on the pod]!!! I’ve long been a TX-15 truther and I’m so glad HMP is putting down some real money on it.

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Please educate me: What are "TX-15 truthers" and the HMP?

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TX-15 truther - presumably someone who believes TX-15 (south Texas swing district, currently represented by Republican Monica De La Cruz) can go blue

HMP - House Majority PAC (largest Dem spender in congressional races)

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author

We've written about it, too! Extensive item just yesterday in fact: https://www.the-downballot.com/i/149986145/tx

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I’ve always pushed against the idea that Latinos would become a solid democratic voting block and therefore that Puerto Rico would assure 2 dem senators and/or reps. Latinos are inherently swing voters. Just look at Latin American politics.

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Yes. Anybody who treats Latinos / Hispanics / Chicanos (a term that I recall from California but hardly see anymore) as homogeneous is woefully ignorant.

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We are incredibly different from each other. For that matter many Latinos have grudges against other Latinos/Hispanics. Many in my family don't care for Puerto Ricans or Cubans and we all come from so many different backgrounds. Plus we have the machismo male culture across many subgroups that is Conservative coded.

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Machismo... Speaking of which, any thoughts on the analysis by Octavio Paz in his essay collection, "The Labyrinth of Solitude"? It’s been decades since I read it, so it may well be dated.

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I actually haven't read it! I'll need to check it out.

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Machismo is a real thing but at the same time, women president in Latam? Many… in USA?

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That’s mostly a class/authority structure thing, IMO. La Doña can be the boss.

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Is there a swing state other than Florida with a sizable Latino population where the majority of Latinos aren’t Mexican-American? Not to imply Mexican-American is a monolithic demographic either, of course, but few are, Latino or otherwise.

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Puerto Rico specifically has elected GOP-aligned delegates to Congress, so I always found it odd that Republicans assume it would be two Dem Senators (just lazy analysis and a touch of racism, probably).

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Definitely a touch of nativism. Santorum had said he was ok with statehood as long as they learned and used English as main language. At the same time mist gop Florida politicians are for statehood

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Says Santorum, the man with his very own entry in the Urban Dictionary.

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A lot of really terrible Democratic messaging has emerged from the 2012 consensus that Hispanics were poised to be an unwavering Democratic constituency for the duration of the republic. The expectation of its inevitability has hobbled Democratic election strategy for more than a decade now and I fear they're gonna get the formal, impossible-to-ignore wake-up call in another 26 days.

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Oct 10·edited Oct 10

I concur, I look at my family. My generation on my mom’s side are all 1st generation American. In the last 15 years I’ve seen a steady move to the right from 25-40% of my family and extended family. There are so many assumptions and extrapolations of what this constituency wants and /or believes in. I’m Chilean-American, after the social unrest of 5 years ago there was an effort to change Pinochet’s constitution, first a constitucional convention dominated by left leaning members and an incredibly progressive constitution that was rejected by 6o something % then a second one dominated by right leaning members that was rejected by 50% something. It goes to show that politicians know squat lol

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That's a reasonable take.

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Man, as a Puerto Rican, I wish you'd gotten someone other than a pro-statehood advocate to talk about the status question in Puerto Rico. I'll fully cop to being pro-independence, but even broad familiarity with the current state of affairs in Puerto Rico leads one to the conclusion that statehood for Puerto Rico is not a viable solution to the current crisis on the island.

"Fantasy Island" by Ed Morales is a solid introduction here; there are others I can recommend.

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Doesn't it depend on which problem you want to solve? If the problem to solve is getting more attention and reliable assistance from the federal government, statehood would help. If the problem is not having the sovereign right to determine your own budgeting, independence could solve that, though potentially at a sacrifice, initially. But what's untenable is continuing with the status quo. Do you disagree?

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(this is a few days late, but I wanted to respond)

I do; the status question isn't the primary issue facing the island, the economic crisis is.

As Morales (and others) point out, the federal government has never been particularly interested in subsidizing or supporting the Puerto Rican economy, except insofar as it benefits American private enterprises. Right now, as a result of the extortionate debt burden the island carries, Puerto Ricans will be paying off that debt for the next 40-50 years, at least. There is no scenario where Congress admits Puerto Rico as a state while it carries that burden, and with no prospect of its economy recovering enough to pay it off ahead of schedule.

You can see that by the lack of attention that resolving the status question gets in Congress. Republicans outright ignore it, and officially removed it from their platform this year-this despite the PNP (pro-statehood) candidate being an ardent Trump supporter. Meanwhile, Democrats barely pay it lip service; the two leading Puerto Rican members in the House (Nydia Velazquez and AOC) only occasionally bring it up, and it's Velazquez who does more than AOC.

Even on the island, the status question is passing more and more into irrelevance, because residents can see that it's a distraction from resolving the problems the island faces, and because thanks to the PROMESA law, the commonwealth government doesn't really have any power, except to implement what the Fiscal Control Board does. This is reflected in the dramatic crash in voter turnout. Historically, Puerto Ricans turned out to vote in the mid- to high-eighties; even as recently as 2012, turnout was 78%. That cratered to 55% in 2016, and it hasn't really recovered since.

Moreover, in 2020, three outsider parties (the pro-independence PIP, Citizens Victory, and Dignity) combined to get 34% of the vote in the governor's race, a smidge more than the pro-statehood PNP got. While statehood "won" the non-binding referendum, it did so because supporters of the other options-and Puerto Ricans as a whole-understand that those referenda are utterly meaningless, and that Congress isn't going to admit Puerto Rico as a state.

I can keep going, but for me, the pursuit of statehood by its supporters seems to me less about resolving issues on the island and more about resolving their relationships with their Americanness.

Puerto Rico is a separate country, with its own language, its own history, its own legal code, even its own Olympic teams (specifically so the U.S. could dodge accusations that it was keeping Puerto Rico as a colony)--I could keep going. These are all incompatible with being the 51st state, and statehood supporters give up the game when they say to Puerto Ricans on the island that they keep all those things AND still be a state.

They cannot. I'll know that we're having an honest debate on resolving the status question when pro-statehood supporters are honest about that, and campaign on that. They don't, because they know that if they do, they'll lose. And that's why I don't treat the debate as a serious one.

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Q. Where is Donald Trump going to be the next four years?

A. A place where his onesie matches his skin tone.

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Here's hoping!

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I hate to think of Trump winning but the reality is that the Harris surge has abated and the chances that Trump could win in the electoral college while the popular vote have increased in the last week or two, as the debate glow has faded for Harris. That is the real reason why Trump has refused any further debates. He and the LaCivita-Wiles team know it would be a complete disaster if he debated again. Whether by design or accident, Trump and his team know that there are fissures going back to colonial days about immigration, and fears about the "other", the Great Replacement theory of Madison Grant and other anti-immigrant theorists is over 100 years old and still has resonance as other wave of immigration comes to our shores. Economic nationalism and disengagement from events outside our country also has resonance in America and has for a very long time, and tariffs once again sound good to many people, even though they never work. The AFL opposed immigration for many years because of fear of lowering wages, and so did Booker T. Washington oppose it because he understood that immigrants might take jobs from black workers. Trump has also tapped the strain of religious authoritarianism that led to the Scopes monkey trial and widespread book banning in many parts of America long before Ron DeSantis was born. Trump is a salesman and good at lying and finding where his audience is vulnerable and afraid. In short, some voters who would support Biden may not support Harris, who to some is "the other". I am afraid of losing Michigan and Wisconsin most of all.

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Hypothetically, even if your fears come true and she loses MI + WI, Kamala Harris can still get to 278 Electoral Votes by winning PA + AZ + NV + NC. If she takes GA, then she can afford to lose both AZ and NV.

Bottom line: Harris has many more paths to 270 than Trump.

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People like tariffs because they presume - wrongly - that "those people" will pay for them. Never mind that the Depression was worsened by extreme tariffs et al. And yes there has always been a strain of anti immigration sentiment here ever before the USA existed as an independent nation. Lest we forget that Benjamin Franklin complained about German immigration back in the day and that John Adams worried about Catholic immigration. And if that wasn't enough, one of Thomas Jefferson's biggest complaints in the Declaration of Independence was of the British Parliament enlarging Quebec, albeit as a means of pacifying the French population there.

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Benjamin Franklin had a point. Much could have been avoided if Friedrich Trump had not been allowed to immigrate from Germany. With the wisdom of hindsight, here are three more that were worthy of being barred from entering the USA: Peter Thiel, Rupert Murdoch and Elon Musk.

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Across all nations and history, the vast majority of people who are already in a place don't like new people moving in, for many reasons, some of them valid. I wish Biden had addressed immigration earlier.

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Even if he had addressed the issue earlier, we would have taken major heat for it. Especially since there was - and still is - a sense that our economy is shrinking. I've said numerous times here and at our old DKE site that the biggest thing helping Orange Slob right now is the fact that our electorate wants to pretend that the 2020 Covid Crisis NEVER happened. Just as Reconstruction was doomed by the fact that the American electorate - eventually - wanted to pretend the Civil War NEVER happened, thus is the case with Covid. As a result, the people who either caused the event or whose response (or lack thereof) made the event even worse get let off the hook.

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That might have hampered the economic recovery, given that economists have produced analyses showing that the sole reason the U.S. economy recovered better than any other industrialized country's is immigration, including illegal immigration.

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Maybe but, even if that is the reason, a few months earlier wouldn't have made any economic difference however, I think, would have made a political one.

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You could be right. For better or worse, though, it's water under the bridge now.

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The material fact is, just to AVOID demographic and economic decline, the US needs to bring in 2 million people a year for 10 years, minimum,.

We need massive amounts of people.

What we need, versus where the population is (no immigration!) is an unbridgeable gulf that will be a defining mechanic driving many of the country's challenges into the mid century.

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Which economists say immigration was the sole reason for economic recovery?

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Same pattern as 2016. It might just be response bias in the polling but every Trump setback (be it a scandal or a bad debate performance) had a 10-day expiration date before it didn't matter anymore and he started catching up in the polls. And, of course, we all know how that ended in 2016.

As for immigration policy, we're in "wait and see" mode at this point regarding its salience but a pretty basic analysis of human nature and recent electoral history, at home and abroad, made it quite obvious that the border policy of 2021-2023 was gonna be a big problem.

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The Democratic Party is WAY too electorally dependent on people who are incapable of accepting that humans are anything BUT naturally good and naturally inclusive.

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That's a fact, and we have to accept it.

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Can’t that 10 day expiration policy also be applied to 2020? And of course, we all know how that ended as well.

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I don't remember Trump ever closing the gap in 2020 polling. Correct me if I'm wrong there. I certainly never thought Biden's lead seemed threatened at any moment of the post-Labor Day general election campaign, although given how close it ended up being, I guess I should have.

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Just looking at a few examples there seems to have been a lot more fluctuation in 2020. Trump would gain ground and lose ground in some places (GA, National Ballot), stayed steady in some places (MI, WI) and increased his polling in FL. Polling was so off in 2020 I wouldn’t really use it to forecast future results though. Additionally I’m not sure it’s possible to really compare the Trump scandals with poll movement since they were pretty much continuous.

My bigger point is that Trump being able to brush off bad news isn’t a harbinger of him winning. Sure, he did it in 2016 by stumbling into an EC victory, but in 2020, with more flubs if you will, he ended up losing. The lies / scandals / apparent dementia this year is much closer to 2020 than 2016.

If your argument is that Trump scandals in 2016 didn’t matter even though the polling sometimes showed they would so it’s possible they won’t matter in 2024 then I’ll concede that point. That is certainly a possibility.

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You make some good points on history, but the reason Trump won't debate again is that he got his ass handed to him.

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Q. Why did the chicken cross the road?

A. Because he was afraid to debate Kamala Harris again.

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That analysis of the WA Governor's race is woefully off - let's start with the fact that the state hasn't elected a Republican Governor since John Spellman in 1980. It was already very difficult for a Republican to get elected to statewide office here, and even moreso as the party has gone further right this century.

Also, while yes, he was elected Sheriff in King County, everyone accepts that the position isn't one that can be compared to other elected offices, similar to judicial seats. He ran for Congress as the Tea Party was gaining ascendance on the right, won a right-leaning swing district a few times, and served as a generic Republican in Congress; nothing that made him stand out from his peers and nothing that would endear him to a statewide electorate. He wasn't full MAGA his last 2 terms but he was still very much a Republican.

He was never going to be elected Governor, based on a single arrest (with which he had little to do) in 2001, even if people did take his origin story at face value. Any noise from Republicans that this was a "marquee matchup" was wishful thinking, at best, and I doubt they had any intention of committing money to it.

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Even beyond that (excellent analysis) regarding that 2001 arrest, the state has seen a massive influx of new arrivals over the last 15 years who have zero idea who Gary Ridgeway is

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I know the most recent polls have caused a lot of heartburn in fellow KH voters. If we look at the signs from actual elections and early voting tabulations,

- the Democratic firewall in PA has reached about 33% of target with 4 weeks to go; I'd be shocked if the Dems don't wind up with a 450,000-500,000 vote by mail firewall, way above the 400,000 target

- a Democrat just flipped a Trump +15 mayor post in AK

- Washington primary which has historically provided a good read on the general election environment indicated a slightly more Dem leaning environment than 2020

- in his two Presidential elections, Trump never exceeded 47% in his vote share. He hasn't done anything that would endear himself to the independents/undecideds and is not expected to between now and 11/5

maybe we should focus on phone banking/door knocking/making donations, you know, actions that will actually help her win instead?

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Oct 10·edited Oct 11

Very good analysis. Lots of hard work needed in these final 3 weeks in the swing states, Trump doesn't really have much of a ground game apparently so to kill it with GOTV volunteering could well be enough (hopefully), never be complacent though, as Kamala said, "we are the underdogs'!!

💙🇺🇲🎯🙏

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Oct 10·edited Oct 10

The gap in GOTV effort between the two campaigns is a good point. Trump's win needs to rely more heavily on the harder-to-reach/low-propensity voters turning out to vote than KH's. In 2020 Dems almost had no GOTV but still eked out a win. Now the script has flipped so that should favor the Dems instead this time around.

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And strongly so! The Trump Campaign has outsourced GOTV to the likes of Charlie Kirk and his Turning Point USA, and to Elon Musk. What could possibly go wrong?

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Joshua Smithley currently estimates the firewall at 162k.

https://nitter.poast.org/blockedfreq

However, as I understand it, that Pennsylvania Firewall is only counting voters who are registered as Democrats – not our share of Independents, who by all indications are breaking towards Harris.

"Worry less, do more!"

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That figure is based on variance between ballots returned by Democrats vs the ballots returned by Republicans as reported by the individual county reports updated daily & compiled by VoteHub. The request Firewall is currently 527k & has stayed around that amount since Friday.

Personally, I think to target needs to get to 450k to feel comfortable. Based upon the current statistics described here, that's very possible.

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Oct 10·edited Oct 10

Another day, another poll. This one from Reuters/Ipsos showing Harris leading Trump 47% - 41% with suburban voters and that she has a slight edge 45% - 43% among middle-income households ($50K - $100K). Previously they had Trump leading 43 - 40 among suburban voters and 44 - 37 among middle-income households. Good trendlines.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/harris-overtakes-trump-among-suburban-voters-reutersipsos-polling-shows-2024-10-10/

Numbers like this might help with down ballot races such as state house races that cover the suburbs, like in Texas.

https://www.texastribune.org/2024/10/10/texas-house-competitive-races-vouchers-democrats-republicans/

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