US presidential election minus nine weeks

Kamala Harris’ win probability dropping in Nate Silver’s model. Also covered: UK polls since the election, still no new PM in France after the election and two German state elections.

Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is a paid election analyst for The Conversation. His work for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.

The US presidential election is on November 5. In Nate Silver’s aggregate of national polls, Kamala Harris has a 48.9-45.5 lead over Donald Trump. In my article for The Conversation last Friday, Harris led by 48.8-45.0. The next important US event is the debate between Harris and Trump next Tuesday (Wednesday at 11am AEST).

It is the Electoral College, not the national popular vote, that is decisive in presidential elections. The Electoral College is expected to be biased to Trump relative to the popular vote, with Harris needing at least a two-point popular vote win in Silver’s model to be the Electoral College favourite.

Harris’ probability of winning the Electoral College in Silver’s model has dropped from 47% last Friday to 42%, with Trump now the favourite at a 58% chance to win. Trump’s win probability has increased every day in this model since August 27, and he’s now at his highest win probability since July 30. Current polling in the most important swing state (Pennsylvania, with 19 electoral votes) only gives Harris a one-point lead, and the model expects further declines for Harris as her convention bounce fades.

UK: no honeymoon for Starmer and Labour after election

At the July 4 UK general election, Labour won a thumping victory with 411 of the 650 House of Commons seats, to 121 Conservatives and 72 Liberal Democrats. This occurred despite Labour winning just 33.7% of the vote, to 23.7% for the Conservatives, 14.3% Reform (but only five seats), 12.2% Lib Dems and 6.7% Greens (four seats).

A new government would normally expect a polling honeymoon, but not this one. There haven’t been many voting intention polls since the election, but a late August BMG poll gave Labour just a 30-26 over the Conservatives with 19% for Reform. A late August More in Common poll gave PM Keir Starmer a net -16 approval rating, while a mid-August Opinium poll had Starmer at -6 after their first poll after the election gave him a +18 net approval. I believe the economic messages from Labour that there’s more pain ahead for the UK are backfiring.

France: still no PM two months after election

The French president (Emmanuel Macron) is the most important French politician, but the system still requires a PM who has the confidence of the lower house of parliament. At snap parliamentary elections that Macron called for June 30 and July 7, the left-wing NFP alliance won 180 of the 577 seats, Macron’s Ensemble 159, the far-right National Rally and allies 142 and the conservative Republicans 39.

While without a majority before the election, Ensemble was in a far better position with 245 seats. On July 23, the NFP agreed on a PM candidate, Lucie Castets, but Macron has no interest in appointing her. A PM needs to be appointed by October 1, the deadline to submit a draft 2025 budget.

Far-right gains at two German state elections

German state elections occurred in Thuringia and Saxony last Sunday. Proportional representation with a 5% threshold was used. In Thuringia, the far-right AfD won 32 of the 88 seats (up ten since 2019), the conservative CDU 23 (up two), the economically left but socially conservative BSW 15 (new), the Left 12 (down 17) and the centre-left SPD six (down two). The Greens and pro-business FDP fell below the 5% threshold and were wiped out.

In Saxony, the CDU won 42 of the 120 seats (down three), the AfD 41 (up three), the BSW 15 (new), the SPD nine (down one), the Greens six (down six) and the Left six (down eight). In Thuringia, the AfD is well short of the 45 seats needed for a majority, and the most likely outcome is a non-AfD government. A year out from the next federal German election, the polls are grim for the current governing coalition of the SPD, Greens and FDP.

717 comments on “US presidential election minus nine weeks”

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  1. sprocket_ @ 7:14

    This is how T**** builds a team. (Though it’s more gang than team.) He grasps about for people who have power and might support him. Do they respond to flattery? If they do, then he bribes them with something they want, more power. And by support, I mean they project strength. They don’t need to do anything much, at least at the start. Promises are transactional. Debt accrues.

    (And it makes you think about his relationship with foreign leaders. It’s personal.)

  2. He has also failed to attend the semi-regular get together of all other living presidents at state funerals, historic commemorations and the like.

    There’s nothing in it for him.

  3. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/05/opinion/trump-talk-weave-english.html?unlocked_article_code=1.IU4.bkfX.knq9nLE0AcFQ&smid=url-share

    I’ve unlocked this piece in the NYT by John McWhorter. He’s a linguist at Columbia University. He makes a simple point, that T****’s word salad isn’t a sign of dementia. Though it is getting worse, he’s always done this.

    If the weave reflects a failure of attention on the part of the speaker, however, it demands an almost burdensome amount of attention for the listener. Especially lately, the connections between one topic and another become ever more murky. Trump lives to a disconcerting degree in his own head and shows no inclination to face outward.

    But he makes no effort to meet other people where they are.

    But it’s more than a matter of style. It’s a refusal to think ahead or consider the perspective of others, things we should rightly expect our leaders to do. Presidents should have a responsibility to speak outwardly and above, communicating to and for us, not just to themselves. Trump’s “weave” can be amusing, but it is yet another attribute that proves him — almost every time he opens his mouth — to be unfit for office.

    It’s deeply selfish, to the point of being narcissistic.

  4. Late Riser:

    Friday, September 6, 2024 at 7:40 am

    [‘He has also failed to attend the semi-regular get together of all other living presidents at state funerals, historic commemorations and the like.
    There’s nothing in it for him.’]

    I think his peers would prefer it that way.

  8. Andrew – Re the abortion issue, it’s a case of yes and no. Yes, the abortion issue has been factored somewhat into Harris’ poll numbers already, but no, in the sense of the great unknown of turnout. In real life elections since the Dobbs decision, the pro-choice side has nearly always outperformed the polls. This strongly suggests that there is a pro-choice groundswell among irregular voters that is motivating them to turn out, with the implication that Harris’ poll numbers are actually being under measured currently.

  9. Trump is done mentally, physically, and criminally.

    And the MAGA movement will rant and rave for a while longer, but ultimately they will be done too. Good riddance I say.

  10. Re Trump wanting Musk to head a massive razor gang should he be elected – given the reputation of both these characters, it would be 10% commission of the amount cut to each of them personally.

  11. citizen

    Musk is revered by many. He has always given me creepy vibes.

    Frankly Musk is bought and paid for by foreign entities. I’m hoping that at some stage he will eventually be held accountable for his part for being a chaos agent.

  12. You might consider telling the truth a novelty
    —————————————
    Twas a joke, bloke. Of course I believed you. Losing long posts happens to me regularly…. And I’m usually glad of it. See if this one makes it….

    I’ve got no problem with posters thinking US foreign policy is all well meaning rainbows and flowers. I’d still like to believe in Christmas too. But as a student of it, “I’ve deciphered the illusion, traded magic for fact – no trade backs”.

    The end game is the same. The motivations are the same. They all want their own pax.

    No superpower is happy to share power or see another’s power increase. And they will do some truly horrid things to protect their interests. Yes, there are clear differences in that generally the US has institutions and checks on executive power – a great example is Iraq where numerous agencies and congress have been very transparent and honest in addressing the mistakes made in the decision to go to war (and the war itself) and will, I believe, be more forward in speaking truthful advice to the executive next time (although Trump will likely try to dismantle that). Many of those institutions are deeply rooted in morality. even the nefarious ones have veins of morality within the cold hard rock.

    I’m on the record here regularly criticising the brutality and possible psychopathy of dictators Putin and Xe. I know there is a difference between Russia/China and the US. But I try not to let my living in and benefiting from being in the West blinker me from the similarities.

  13. If you wanted further evidence of how the gun nuts and religious loons have destroyed the US, note that the Australian eSafety Commissioner has been advised that it is too dangerous for her to travel there because she spoke out about bullshit on twitter.

    Apparently Trump wants Musk as a part of his administration. A partnership made in heaven presumably.

  14. I was also pleased to read that our Government is assessing the consequences of a return of Trump. I reckon it would include a careful reading of the Project 2025 manifest, the authors of which will be running the show. Trump is just their useful idiot.

  15. The MAGA’s reckon they need a wall to keep the Hispanics out. If Trump wins the Canadians will need one to keep the sane Americans out.

  16. The consequences of a Frump victory are disastrous for this country & the world in general (i.e not Vlad & Bibi), every government knows this. It’s amazing the the average American’s knowledge of the world beyond their borders is so limited, or perhaps they just don’t give a shit. I suspect with the maga mob it’s both.

  17. Victoria ”And the MAGA movement will rant and rave for a while longer, but ultimately they will be done too. Good riddance I say.”

    The MAGA movement won’t go away. They seem to be about one third of Americans. Such a movement won’t fade away quickly. A new populist leader will emerge, most likely younger and less flakey than Trump.

  18. I suspect with the maga mob it’s both.

    Even outside that cohort, it tends to be both. The US is a large and insular nation. International travel, particularly beyond Canada and Mexico, is the realm of woke elites.

  19. a r: “The US is a large and insular nation. International travel, particularly beyond Canada and Mexico, is the realm of woke elites.”

    Indeed. I recall an overnight stay in New York, years ago. Mrs S and I found a cable channel on our hotel room TV that breathlessly billed itself as ‘The Get-To-The-Point News Network’.

    After a slew of US stories, up came a title screen: ‘The Global Minute’. We waited in anticipation of 60 seconds of world news … and got a report about Mexico.

  20. Trump’s incoherence is getting more incoherent. The incoherence is not necessarily a sign of dementia. The incoherence getting worse may be a sign of dementia. Just to jog the memory here are Trump’s actual dementia symptoms:

    1. Frequent and increasing phonemic paraphasia. The speaker’s brain delivers a nonsense word which the speaker then tries to say.

    2. Confusion about reality. Delusional states. China does not control Bagram Air Force Base.

    3. Beginning a sentence, forgetting what the start was about, and finishing it with something totally unrelated. For large parts of the time in his recent speeches, Trump spends large amounts of time doing this.

    4. Sleepiness. Falling asleep in court. (How many accused fall asleep in court. Trump did it on a daily basis.)

    5. Progressive deterioration in his memory.

    6. Pronounced forward lean that not even his toe pads can offset.

    7. Deterioration in gross and fine motor skills. There are increasing examples where someone is holding Trump’s hand while he is going up or down steps.

    8. Confabulation. This is not just about accidentally replacing the name of someone with that of someone else. He routinely confabulated Obama for Biden. Most recently he confabulated two men, only one of whom was in a helicopter with him. He confabulated Haley and Pelosi numerous times. Confabulation is not forgetting someone’s name or using someone else’s name for someone. It confusion about who somebody actually is. Sometimes Trump has a delusion that Lecter is alive, sometimes dead. Sometimes Lecter is a real person. And so on and so forth.

    9. Confabulation between generations or people who lived at different times. For a while Trump operated under the delusion that his father was born in Germany. Nope. the Bronx.

    10. Balance. You will have noted footage of individuals helping Trump walk or of Trump concentrating intensely when walking down steps, clutching the rails.

    11. The sundowner syndrome. Dementia symptoms tend to become more obvious towards evening. Trump’s speeches have now been brought forward more to the middle of the day. More lately they are being shortened for the same reason.

    12. Slurring. Quite a few examples in the RNC speech.

    13. Periods where Trump is silent. This includes stints on the stage where he is not aware of his context or what he is supposed to be doing.

    14. Infantilism. Trump has been throwing the dummy out of the cot a lot recently. His use of childish nyah, nyah language is another example.

    15. Trump’s lies are those of a narcissist. That they are becoming less and less based on reality is a symptom of his dementia. MLK’s crowd was a million but Trump had a bigger crowd.

    16. Increasing use of fillers: repetitions and superlatives.

    17. Syntax simplified over time.

    18. Incoherence more incoherent over time.

  23. ”
    Steve777says:
    Friday, September 6, 2024 at 8:34 am
    Donald Trump has quietly wound down his presidential campaign in states he was targeting just six weeks ago: Minnesota, Virginia and New Hampshire. Polls are showing that relacing Joe Biden with Kamala Harris’s has put them out of Trump’s reach:

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/sep/05/trump-swing-state-harris
    ”

    But BTsays produced polls which showed Virginia in play…

    And we have to keep an eye on it.
    BTsays even posted Minnesota NH polls are not in comfortable zone for Democrats as per polls.

    One of the reasons Al Gore lost in 2000 was because he lost NH

  24. While Lichtman does have a very positive record on this stuff, I am always very skeptical on people who offer predictive models like this. They can be encouraging when they say what you want to hear but remember: such predictors (and there are others who also claim a good prediction record) are always correct until they’re not.

    Still, I do appreciate his keys are at least based on qualities that are logical and still pretty conventional, and not just superstitious nonsense.

  25. “Nate Silver has not been a credible pollster for years, so his predictions of a Trump victory I will take with a rather big grain of salt.”

    Except he hasn’t made any predictions whatsoever, he’s analysing data which gives Trump an extremely narrow lead – at this point in time only.

  26. “Donald Trump has quietly wound down his presidential campaign in states he was targeting just six weeks ago: Minnesota, Virginia and New Hampshire. Polls are showing that relacing Joe Biden with Kamala Harris’s has put them out of Trump’s reach:”

    Steve777 – Virginia isn’t out of reach. Only 3% Harris lead. But that’s not to say that the Trump campaign isn’t pulling back there (I didn’t know they’d ever been targeting it anyway tbh).

  27. Hugoaugogo – re the abortion issue.

    It’s an interesting one. It certainly will bring higher turnout to the polls in states where it’s on the ballot.

    But there is crossover- by which I mean people who like Trump and who also want to preserve abortion access. It’s not the only thing they vote on. So they vote ‘yes’ to retaining maximum abortion access or ‘no’ to any restrictions or whatever; but in the same ballot box vote Trump.

    Of course we can expect that more of the inflated turnout would opt for Harris and those that vote for Trump were probably going to come out anyway.

    But there is also a smaller cohort who are anti-abortion and don’t normally vote (Christian reasons perhaps, as covered on an earlier thread) who may be motivated to come out in support of the ballot on abortion and, while they’re there, vote for President for once – for Trump.

    It’s just not clear that the increased motivation isn’t already factored into polling – but we just don’t know.

    And where abortion isn’t specifically on the ballot, I’m not convinced that it’s really an ‘abortion election’ at all in spite of the hype. It feels a bit like yesterday’s battle and people realise it’s down to states now and not presidential decrees etc.
    But again, time will tell. . . they do exit polls on voters’ key motivations I believe.

  28. BW, yabba and others

    The Harris-Walz campaign already has a huge number of field offices in the battleground states. There are 26 in Georgia and 50 in Pennsylvania alone! More will certainly open as we get closer to November. And this is compared to Trump’s 42 field offices—that’s total, by the way. Although it looks like he might be closing up a few of those…

    If you want more details on how Harris is dominating in the ground game, checkb details like:

    * PA staff: Harris’s 1500 vs Trump’s 300.

    * PA volunteers: Harris’s 400,000 vs Trump’s 14,000.

    * Harris’s massive advertising advantage in most battleground states.

    * Massive voter registration surges in our critical demographics.

    * The potential “Silver Wave” of 65+ voters who are breaking for Harris by over 10 points and who are the most reliable voters by age.

    [UPDATE] Just today we got some new registration numbers from Pennsylvania. Since Harris got into the race, there has been a 60% increase in new registrations (compared to 2020) for voters under 30, a 49% increase among women, a 110% increase among Black voters, and a stunning 262% increase among Black women. All in PA.

  29. Katich

    “Twas a joke, bloke. Of course I believed you. Losing long posts happens to me regularly…. And I’m usually glad of it.”

    No probs.

    Now re your new post. . .

    USA doesn’t like other superpowers getting too powerful in their various realms of influence, there is some truth to that. But that’s because they can see what they’re aiming to do with that influence, which is very nefarious indeed and will stop at nothing its power enables said superpowers to do.

    I just can’t accept that the USA’s mostly benign/policey influence in any way has a similar endgame to China or Russia or Iran, etc. They must have made huge economic losses from the wars they’ve fought however one chooses to look at them. Hence their enemies/sceptics claiming that their motivation for involvement is economic (e.g. control of more of the world’s oil) is as ridiculous and improbable as it is malign accusation. Any economic gain will have been based on a very poor ROI for all the high cost of the military interventions etc. if so!

  30. Ven

    Ground game is definitely very important, esp eyes and ears on the ground that ensure a campaign is targeting their ‘market’ precisely as possible.

    But it’s worth remembering that Hillary Clinton had a decent ground game behind her (though she was careless and took Rust Belt states for granted until it was too late) in 2016 whilst Trump basically didn’t have a ground game – or even a 1/2 decent campaign structure – at all!

    Trump does have a robust ground game now with all the establishment behind him this time – though it only takes 1 or 2 smart Alecs higher up to make a wrong choice/reading of polls to stuff up where to focus attention for a few weeks.

  31. ‘BTSays says:
    Friday, September 6, 2024 at 6:52 pm

    Katich

    “Twas a joke, bloke. Of course I believed you. Losing long posts happens to me regularly…. And I’m usually glad of it.”

    No probs.

    Now re your new post. . .

    USA doesn’t like other superpowers getting too powerful in their various realms of influence, there is some truth to that. But that’s because they can see what they’re aiming to do with that influence, which is very nefarious indeed and will stop at nothing its power enables said superpowers to do.

    I just can’t accept that the USA’s mostly benign/policey influence in any way has a similar endgame to China or Russia or Iran, etc. They must have made huge economic losses from the wars they’ve fought however one chooses to look at them. Hence their enemies/sceptics claiming that their motivation for involvement is economic (e.g. control of more of the world’s oil) is as ridiculous and improbable as it is malign accusation. Any economic gain will have been based on a very poor ROI for all the high cost of the military interventions etc. if so!’
    ——————–
    China has captured the massive fossil fuel and fishing resources of the South China Sea for a song.

  32. Trump’s “ground game” is far from ‘robust’. His earlier campaign team had field offices across the battleground states. When Lara Trump took over the RNC these were all closed and the funds diverted to address his legal issues.

    Trump is relying on Big Media, of which he can command a lion’s share of unearned coverage compared with Harris – she is definitely the underdog. But he’s pitching to the Andrew Tate crowd, therefore wasting the huge advantage he has with the MSM for simply getting out of bed each day. Even if Trump had massive on the ground volunteers, their efforts couldn’t make up for this. He is simply too well known and too well covered by MSM for local volunteers to counteract what voters are seeing on the nightly news or in their social media feeds.

    Team Harris need to skewer him on his opposition to the Florida abortion measure. This is a massive sleeper issue for him from which he cannot escape. It’s out there and fact: he is supporting abortion only up until 6 weeks, a time when most women don’t even know they are pregnant. He’s been able to skate by the abortion issue by playing a game each way, appealing to pro-choice with his ‘that was my Vietnam’ comments, and cloaking himself in the pro life cloak by sticking by his evangelicals.

    But no more, that genie is now out of the bottle. If you want something that will wake women up to the fact that Trump is not laissez faire on abortion, this is it.

  33. “the USA’s mostly benign/policey influence”

    Work with a bunch of people from all over the world. Suffice to say they have a different perspective on USA policy and influence.

  35. Trump’s getting nervous about his sentencing hearing on Sept, 18 before Merchan, J.* Each of his 34 felony counts carries up to four years imprisonment and a $5000 fine. However, it’s unlikely that a first-time non-violent offender would go to gaol. It’s more likely that he’ll be sentenced to a period of probation. That said, the matters before Chutkin, J are far more serious, in consequence of which if doesn’t win the election and is found guilty, he’ll be doing some serious time in a federal penitentiary.

    * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwrdZ-GrBu8

  37. “Work with a bunch of people from all over the world. Suffice to say they have a different perspective on USA policy and influence.”

    Yes, that was part of my long message I lost yesterday – about America-bashing being the favourite pastime of people from other Western nations (I mean you tend to expect it with Africa / Asia etc.). It’s a shame but I don’t expect it to change to more reasonable perspective as long as influences remain as they are.

  39. On Thursday at an event billed by his campaign as a major rollout of his future economic plans, Donald Trump instead promoted conspiracy theories about Vice President Kamala Harris and immigrants. Trump also embraced harmful environmental policies and rehashed economic ideas that failed during his presidency.

    “Kamala Harris is the first major party nominee in American history who fundamentally rejects freedom and embraces Marxism, communism, and fascism,” Trump said in a speech at a luncheon held at the Economic Club of New York.

  40. He did mention quite a few policies as well, Ven.

    In fact, what I read about it didn’t mention the bit you refer to. I guess it’s hardly news! (that Trump says his opponents are x, y and z I mean)

  43. Guaranteed employment – for all the wrong reasons.

    Nation’s largest police organization endorses Trump

    Ahead of Donald Trump’s trip to North Carolina today, the Fraternal Order of Police issued the following statement of endorsement of him:

    “In every election cycle, the FOP pays close attention to which presidential campaign highlights the issues most vital to the men and women of the FOP, including the challenges faced by the rank-and-file law enforcement officers, the real issues in public safety, and the problems in our criminal justice system…

    The National FOP endorsed Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. He led our nation through some very tough times. He provided our nation with strong, effective leadership during his first term, and now that he is seeking election to a second term, we intend to help him win it.”

  45. Unbelievable.

    A judge on Friday delayed Donald Trump’s hush money sentencing until after the November election, which means voters will cast ballots without knowing whether the Republican nominee could face jail time for his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records.

    Prosecutors did not object to a request from Trump’s attorneys to delay the sentencing, which had been scheduled for Sept. 18.

    New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan changed the date to Nov. 26, noting the extraordinary nature and timing of the first-ever sentencing of a former U.S. president — a defendant who, in this case, is again running for the highest office in the land.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/09/06/trump-sentencing-date-new-york-hush-money-case/

  46. Dick Cheney isn’t from Texas.
    Neither is Liz Cheney.
    Why Texas? lol.
    Where’s GWB?
    I bet Sideshow Ted wishes he’d stayed in Cancún.

  47. Former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney said former president Donald Trump and running mate JD Vance were “misogynistic pigs” at an event hosted by the Texas Tribune Friday.

    “Every opportunity Donald Trump gets to show the American people who he is, he pretty clearly — and his running mate is doing this too — this is my diplomatic way of saying it: They’re misogynistic pigs. And I think that will become clear,” Cheney said when asked what advice she would give Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of next week’s debate.

    Cheney — who lost her 2022 reelection bid to a Trump-endorsed candidate — also said at the event that her father, former vice president Dick Cheney, will join her in voting for Harris.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2024/09/06/2024-election-campaign-updates-harris-trump/#link-BPRWLY3IUZAWVOT4MXBDJJNCG4

    Former Republican presidents and vice presidents who have publicly stated they are voting for Trump in November: 0

  48. I’m going to step in on the side of Silver. Firstly he isn’t predicting a winner. He’s presenting a set of probabilities based on many inputs, which historically have created an output that closely matches what occurred.

    When those probabilities fall within 60:40, 40:60 Silvers model is saying exactly what the swing state polling is saying. This race is a toss up and both candidates have an equal chance of winning.

    Trump could win.
    Harris could win.

    That he’s being paid by a betting agency is troubling because it creates an obvious conflict of interest. But until I see a major divergence of his modelling with actual results I’m using Silvers modelling as one important data point in several I’m using to judge the likely outcome, which at this point is clearly impossible to predict.

  49. I think Merchan’s decision to delay Trump’s sentencing is sound.
    My only concerns are that if he prevails in November, he’ll not only instruct the D of J to nolle all charges against him, but in the case of the matters before Merchan, he’ll pardon himself, which given the composition of the SCOTUS bench, the majority will probably absolve him, though the CJ & Coney Barrett might not be onboard.

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