US presidential election minus seven weeks

Still anyone’s guess as to who will occupy the White House come February, but it does seem that last week’s debate has moved the dial towards Kamala Harris.

Evidence is starting to emerge of a strengthening in Kamala Harris’s position in the wake of last week’s debate, and while this hardly amounts to a paradigm shift in terms of the popular vote – after rounding to whole numbers, The Economist’s poll aggregate records no change from Harris’s 50-46 lead when the debate was held on September 10 – it’s been enough to move forecast models substantially in her favour. Nate Silver’s model is the most striking case in point, with Trump’s win probability falling from 59.7% to 52.0% just over the past few days, having peaked at 64.4% the day before the debate. After bouncing around 52-48 for a couple of weeks, The Economist’s probability reading now has Harris leading 57-43. FiveThirtyEight’s model remains the most bullish for the Democrats, putting Harris’s win probability at 63%. More from Adrian Beaumont at The Conversation.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

605 thoughts on “US presidential election minus seven weeks”

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  1. I’m amazed that so many American voters find Trump remotely electable. But he might win.

    ”…the fact that, with just weeks to go to the election, we are in a situation where a highly credentialed woman is neck and neck with an extremist sexual predator and convicted felon who writes late-night rants in all-caps is an astounding indictment of US politics. GOD HELP US ALL.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/25/trump-on-truth-social-making-no-sense-at-all-again

    One Australian political figure he reminds me of – Johannes Bjelke Petersen, premier of Qld from the late 1960s to the late 1980s. He wasn’t a sexual predator as far as I know but he was very right wing, racist, beloved of the Religious Right in spite of the rampant corruption of his regime, profoundly authoritarian and many of his public pronouncements were incomprehensible word salads – delivered via radio, TV and the press since social media didn’t yet exist.

    He probably appealed to the same types of people that Trump does.

  2. Steve777 @ #551 Wednesday, September 25th, 2024 – 11:06 pm

    I’m amazed that so many American voters find Trump remotely electable. But he might win.

    ”…the fact that, with just weeks to go to the election, we are in a situation where a highly credentialed woman is neck and neck with an extremist sexual predator and convicted felon who writes late-night rants in all-caps is an astounding indictment of US politics. GOD HELP US ALL.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/25/trump-on-truth-social-making-no-sense-at-all-again

    One Australian political figure he reminds me of – Johannes Bjelke Petersen, premier of Qld from the late 1960s to the late 1980s. He wasn’t a sexual predator as far as I know but he was very right wing, racist, beloved of the Religious Right in spite of the rampant corruption of his regime, profoundly authoritarian and many of his public pronouncements were incomprehensible word salads – delivered via radio, TV and the press since social media didn’t yet exist.

    He probably appealed to the same people that Trump does.

    They are very similar indeed. This interview was done a few years after Joh was removed from power.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuAVO0jSW5U

    And for the laughs, this the the Fast Forward parody of that interview.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l2doxjnn3Y

  3. To understand why so many vote Trump you only need to look at the ratings of Fox News. Viewers are fed a diet of emotional right wing BS that’s designed to push their buttons. They rarely hear different points of view.

    To a degree, MSNBC is the left wing equivalent, although they’re probably more honest.

  4. One Australian political figure he reminds me of – Johannes Bjelke Petersen

    “How Green Was My Cactus” called him “Sergio Bee-often Peedupon”, so there’s that similarity.

  6. Adam Carlson@admcrlsn
    ·
    1m
    Three new quality non-partisan polls in Pennsylvania released today (two from well-respected in-state pollsters).

    Three exact ties.

    Harris still holds a razor-thin 1.0-point lead in the FiveThirtyEight average of the current most likely tipping point state.

  7. bc @ #553 Wednesday, September 25th, 2024 – 11:17 pm

    To understand why so many vote Trump you only need to look at the ratings of Fox News. Viewers are fed a diet of emotional right wing BS that’s designed to push their buttons. They rarely hear different points of view.

    To a degree, MSNBC is the left wing equivalent, although they’re probably more honest.

    At least MSNBC tells the truth, if they somewhat editorialise upon it with a left-leaning slant.

  10. Harris is starting to hit the national airwaves after confining herself to local news media – TV and radio post-debate.

    Peter Baker@peterbakernyt
    ·
    9h
    Harris will be interviewed today by the great @SRuhle on MSNBC, to be aired in a special tonight at 7 pm followed by analysis on @11thHour

  11. He’s like the Black JD Vance with all these previous online comments coming back to bite him.

    Back in his pre-political days, Mark Robinson wasn’t spending all his online time trawling the forums of porn sites. He spent some time reading and commenting on small political sites too—where the opinions he shared, The Bulwark has learned, were no less unhinged.

    “If the cops wanted to shoot an elderly black man they should have shot Al Sharpton,” Robinson commented in April 2009 on a NewsOne article about Sharpton participating in a police-brutality protest. “Closing his mouth would do this Nation good.”

    “Obama IS a blackface step-in fectch-it

    sic

    for liberal white America,” Robinson wrote on the same site the same month.

    “It’s Oprah the wicked witch, leading the way to sexing up the children!” he wrote beneath another article a few days later.

    https://www.thebulwark.com/p/yet-another-mark-robinson-eye-popper

  12. Mark Robinson is an exemplar of what happens to your brain when you spend all your time on radical Right Wing websites and watching radical RW media on your TV. It breaks your brain.

    Thanks Rupert Murdoch for pioneering the concept. 😡

  13. What a year the Secret Service is having.

    A Secret Service agent has been accused of sexually assaulting a staffer who works for Vice President Kamala Harris, according to four sources in the Secret Service community.

    The incident in question took place sometime over the last week during a trip devoted to providing advance security work and planning for a Harris campaign event in Wisconsin that ultimately did not take place. Several Harris staffers and Secret Service agents were in Green Bay to provide advance security and other planning for an upcoming Harris campaign event. The Harris campaign opted to go to Atlanta instead of Wisconsin on Friday, Sept. 20.

    The special agent in question and several Harris staffers were dining and drinking alcohol at a local restaurant after wrapping up work for the day. The group went back to the Harris staffer’s hotel room when the Secret Service agent in question allegedly forced himself on the woman staffer, groping her in the process – actions that were apparently witnessed by other people present.

    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2024/09/25/secret_service_agent_accused_of_sexually_assaulting_campaign_aide.html

  14. But he might win.
    ————————
    As likely to win as not.

    What’s a qualified woman to do? Some more interviews coming up. Is the advertising not finding its market? Is anyone buying? Just keep on keeping on?

    Feels like a turnout election – pure and simple. Tough to win a turnout election when you’re up against a cult and evangelicals and you’re trying to appeal to disaffected GOP peeps who have been trained to think the very worst of you for decades.

  15. Americans are finally starting to feel better about the economy, invigorating Vice President Kamala Harris’s pitch for the presidency as she narrows her Republican opponent’s longtime lead on an issue that is foremost on voters’ minds.

    Although voters still favor former president Donald Trump over Harris on handling the economy, his advantage has dropped dramatically in recent weeks. Trump now averages a six-percentage-point edge on the economy, compared with a 12-point lead against President Joe Biden earlier this year, according to an analysis of five polls that measured voters’ opinions before and after Biden dropped out.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/09/25/economy-election-harris-trump-polls/

  16. Is Trump still competitive because he is telling people what they want to hear and what the focus groups are telling his campaign?

    WITH SIX WEEKS LEFT until Election Day, Donald Trump and his running mate are terrorizing Springfield, Ohio with lies as Republican officials there beg them to stop. He has endangered Jewish Americans by announcing he will blame them for an election loss. He is promising female voters his victory would make them “happy, healthy, confident and free” and they will “no longer be thinking about abortion,” as he conveys his hate for Taylor Swift and Oprah Winfrey.

    His push for a government shutdown has failed, with House Republicans advancing a continuing resolution that doesn’t include the provision he demanded that would make it illegal for illegal immigrants to vote, despite the fact that it’s already illegal.

    If all this seems like chaotic, political flailing, that’s because it is. This is the final stage of the Trump campaign.

    Trump is making a disjointed play for base voters by railing against “migrants.” And in his delirium, he pines in ALL CAPS on Truth Social late at night for the voters who have shunned him. There is nothing more here. And Republicans running with him downballot, hostage to his insanity and powerless to separate themselves with swing voters, know it.

    Those Republicans are now as incoherent as their leader, with disagreements and inconsistencies emerging over IVF, abortion, Ukraine, tariffs, tax policy, and drug pricing. The only issue that unites them is border security. But it’s harder to talk about that when the issue is tangled up in a racist lie about pets being murdered and eaten.

    The death of the GOP started slowly, but it’s happening more quickly this year. Republicans no longer champion the free market or free trade, the rule of law, the Constitution, entitlement reform, debt reduction, limited government, American exceptionalism and leadership on the world stage, personal responsibility, or protections for the unborn.

    Instead, they champion Trump.

    As he runs out of time, Trump is hurling new policy proposals out of a grab bag: Legalized weed! No taxes on tips, overtime, or social security! A temporary 10 percent cap on credit card interest rates!

    Banning taxes on tips was popular; even Kamala Harris copied it. But the rest of this mess has been ignored.

    https://www.thebulwark.com/p/as-election-nears-trump-vaporizes-republican-party

  17. Team Katich @ #563 Thursday, September 26th, 2024 – 6:56 am

    But he might win.
    ————————
    As likely to win as not.

    What’s a qualified woman to do? Some more interviews coming up. Is the advertising not finding its market? Is anyone buying? Just keep on keeping on?

    Feels like a turnout election – pure and simple. Tough to win a turnout election when you’re up against a cult and evangelicals and you’re trying to appeal to disaffected GOP peeps who have been trained to think the very worst of you for decades.

    RVAT is working hard to address your concerns, TK. 🙂

  18. Mark Cuban has given interviews in the last hour to FoxNews, MSNBC and CNN – nothing like having a billionaire surrogate… standing in front of the lectern where Harris spoke earlier..

    Sept. 25, 2024, 5:15 p.m. ET4 minutes ago
    Simon J. LevienReporting on politics

    “She is pro-business,” said Mark Cuban, the billionaire businessman, about Vice President Kamala Harris in an interview on CNN after her economic address in Pittsburgh. Cuban has emerged as an unofficial surrogate for Harris on the campaign trail, promoting her economic message. He went on to criticize Trump’s economic proposals as harmful to American businesses, including tariffs that would hurt American companies that have manufacturing operations overseas.

  20. Victoria:

    FWIW James Carville was asked about Texas and Florida going Democrat and he said in his opinion it would be more likely Florida, but not this year. Perhaps next cycle or the one after that.

  22. Kamala Harris also has another billionaire in her corner: the late Steve Jobs’ wife:

    Behind Kamala Harris’s Rise: Silicon Valley’s Wealthiest Woman

    The alliance between Kamala Harris and Laurene Powell Jobs is a genuine friendship that has thrust the press-shy billionaire philanthropist into the political spotlight.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/24/us/politics/kamala-harris-laurene-powell-jobs.html

    A friendship that goes all the way back to Kamala Harris’ first campaign for District Attorney.

  23. I think the Democratic Party could pick up Anna Paulina Luna’s House seat in Florida, maybe another surprise one, but not win the Senate race or POTUS EVs. So it could help in swinging the House back to the Dems.

  25. For GOP, border visits are only a ‘political stunt’ when Harris goes

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/9/25/2272787/-For-GOP-border-visits-are-only-a-political-stunt-when-Harris-goes?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_6&pm_medium=web

    “Republicans are attacking plans by Vice President Kamala Harris to visit the U.S.-Mexico border, despite years of complaining that Democratic leaders needed to visit the area more.

    Harris reportedly plans to visit the border on Friday as part of a campaign trip to Arizona.

    In response, Donald Trump wrote, “After almost four years, Border Czar Kamala Harris has decided, for political reasons, that it’s time for her to go to our broken Southern Border.”

    “She is not going when it was at its height. She’s going to probably get a totally cleaned-up photo op,” Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas complained to Fox News. Roy also described Harris’ upcoming trip as a political stunt.

    Republicans have frequently complained that Democrats like Harris and President Joe Biden should visit the border, but now are casting the decision in a poor light.”

  26. Women describe alleged sexual assaults by Donald Trump in new ads( watch videos of those ads)

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/9/25/2272782/-Women-describe-alleged-sexual-assaults-by-Donald-Trump-in-new-ads?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_8&pm_medium=web

    “A new series of television ads center the stories of women who claim to have been sexually assaulted by Donald Trump.

    The ads are the latest from the Anti-Psychopath PAC, which is run by George Conway III, the ex-husband of former Trump aide Kellyanne Conway.

    In the first ad, journalist Natasha Stoynoff details meeting Trump and his wife, Melania, at Mar-a-Lago in 2005, while on assignment from People magazine to interview the couple.

    “At one point, Melania went upstairs to change her clothes for the next photo shoot, and Trump said to me, ‘I want to show you this beautiful painting, this beautiful room.’ He leads me to this room, pushes me against the wall, and starts kissing me forcefully,” Stoynoff explains. “I tried to push him. He kept coming back at me.”

    “Like many women, I blamed myself,” she continues. “So Trump turned to me and said, ‘You know we’re going have an affair, don’t you?’ and Melania was approaching. I was horrified.”

    The second ad features former businesswoman Jessica Leeds. She recounts a 1979 flight to New York City on which the stewardess asked her if she wanted to move up to first class.

    “In the window seat was a gentleman who said that his name was Donald Trump,” Leed recalls. “The airplane took off, and all of a sudden, Donald Trump started groping me. He was trying to kiss me, and I’m trying to push him away.”

    “When he started putting his hand up my skirt, I got out of the seat, grabbed my purse, and went back to my original seat,” Leeds says, repeating many of the details that she told The New York Times in 2016.

    At least 26 women have publicly accused Trump of sexual misconduct over the past few decades.

    “He is a serial predator,” Leeds says in the ad.

  27. Looks like turnout will be the winner in Georgia… new CBS Tier 1 poll

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-harris-poll-georgia/

    It’s a toss-up race for Georgia’s 16 electoral votes. Four years after the state narrowly went blue for the first time in decades, the presidential race there remains tight. Donald Trump is currently at 51% in preferences of likely voters, with Kamala Harris just two points behind him.

    Financial concerns continue to give Trump an advantage, but not to quite the same degree it did when Joe Biden was his opponent. Meanwhile, widespread concern about democracy keeps Harris competitive. Georgia’s voters are divided over recent actions by the State Election Board, and there are stark partisan divides in confidence in the election system, as well as in what should happen after the votes are counted in November.

  29. Banning taxes on tips was popular; even Kamala Harris copied it. But the rest of this mess has been ignored.

    Yes. But. It does back up the theory that the US electorate is tired of the ‘there is no easy solution’ line and ripe for bold (and/or populist in this case) positions. This is why I thought Sanders could have done well against trump in previous elections.

    Take trumps threat to John Deere. IMO, it is perfectly reasonable to expect that a US company, selling goods to the US people, with execs and such reaping the benefits of living in the US – to build the US pie by having as much of its manufacturing in the US as possible. I mean, most of the push to offshoring is for profits, not necessarily lower prices. Now, yes, it isnt as simple as that. John Deere may be competing against cheap imported machinery and US farmers may not be showing them any preference for being a US company manufacturing in the US. But if you are a manufacturing worker in Illinois, you would probably be tired of hearing those market force/globalisation/WTO weeds and just want some job security.

    So, if you ask me, Trump is (electorally) on a winner here. So many people are over “sensible” policy. They want a shake up. They want disruption. They want change (which is an opportunity for the Dems and where Nicholas sometimes has a point). When it comes to the technocrats – this subset of people are full of the angry pills along with a diet of fat, sugar and low fibre and high in synthetic opioids.

  32. TK,
    And I grokked all that as a theoretical perspective to Trump’s play but then I thought that NAFTA would have to be repealed for John Deere to be unable to bring a legal action against the Trump Administration and for Trump to get his way. Sure, it’s all about getting Trump over the finish line in Novemeber, but it’s the short termism that isn’t being called out as it should be and the long term consequences should Trump succeed, globally as well as locally. And this is where I lay a lot of the blame with the media, they too go, oh! big shiny new Trump thing! and don’t bother to game it out even a few moves ahead. Such an abandonment of responsibility.

    That’s why, wrt the news of the day here in Oz I’m so glad that Shaun Carney has called out our own Trumpist avatar, Peter Dutton. More should be doing it, and better one than none, and if only the American media could do the same sort of analysis about Trump!

  33. TK

    The CBS poll is conduct by YouGov – rated #4 on the 538 league table. And it has the extra heft of one of the major FTA networks.

    Anyone can hang a polling shingle up these days..

  35. C@t, yes, I dont think Trump really would put tariffs on Mexican Deere machines. it does sound like bluff and bluster but… well… he is loose enough to do it. he has pitched ditching it in the past. And he isnt alone – Sanders has been very critical. So there may be the numbers in congress for it.

  37. IMO, it is perfectly reasonable to expect that a US company, selling goods to the US people, with execs and such reaping the benefits of living in the US – to build the US pie by having as much of its manufacturing in the US as possible.

    It could be reasonable, but it’s not capitalist. More like the opposite. Exactly the opposite.

    If Kamala tried something like that, the “Comrade” attacks would go up to eleven. But of course Trump gets a free pass.

  38. NYTimes commentary on Kamala’s sit down interview on MSNBC

    p.m. ET19 minutes ago
    Katie Glueck

    Harris also seemed animated and more comfortable when asked about affordable housing shortages. She cited a plan to “create three million new housing units for rent and for ownership by the end of my first term.”

    Rebecca Davis O’Brien
    Sept. 25, 2024, 7:24 p.m. ET19 minutes ago
    Rebecca Davis O’Brien

    As Ruhle’s questions get more specific — on who benefits from tax cuts, on how to increase the housing supply — Harris’s answers have gotten more confident. She tends to struggle with open-ended or hypothetical opening questions, and her opening tonight was vague at times.

    Katie Glueck
    Sept. 25, 2024, 7:10 p.m. ET33 minutes ago
    Katie Glueck

    Harris is giving an interview to MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle, casting Donald Trump as focused on the rich at the expense of the middle class. Polls have shown that many Americans trust Trump over Harris on the economy, perhaps her greatest vulnerability.

    Reid J. Epstein
    Sept. 25, 2024, 7:09 p.m. ET34 minutes ago
    Reid J. EpsteinReporting from Washington

    Hours after Vice President Kamala Harris declared herself a capitalist during an economic speech in Pittsburgh, she said in an MSNBC interview, “I’m not mad at anybody for being rich, but they should pay their fair share.”

  39. It could be reasonable, but it’s not capitalist. More like the opposite. Exactly the opposite.

    I will see your “capitalism” and raise you a “selective globalisation”.

    No free market capitalism exists and none ever will. No powerful force wants competition. That goes for political parties like the GOP and massive companies.

    If you truly want global capitalism, then you allow free movement of labour.

  40. If you truly want global capitalism, then you allow free movement of labour.

    Yes. Which is entirely inconsistent with Trump (or anyone) trying to force a US company to use US manufacturing/labor. Isn’t it?

    Comrade Trump.

  41. a r @ #589 Thursday, September 26th, 2024 – 10:00 am

    If you truly want global capitalism, then you allow free movement of labour.

    Yes. Which is entirely inconsistent with Trump (or anyone) trying to force a US company to use US manufacturing/labor. Isn’t it?

    Comrade Trump.

    Yes. Which is my point. Everybody is inconsistent when it comes to capitalism, free markets, free trade, globalisation etc etc. The libertarians and anarchists are probably close to consistent but operate in a fairyland where power is willing and excited to be shared.

  42. Eg. One Party State Capitalism. China embraced capitalism with both hands and stood it on its head to benefit the party. Pretty similar to what Peter Navarro (yes, he’s still around) and Donald Trump want to do. Trump, of course, adds the Putin extension of bringing back everything under his control for the benefit of him and his cronies. Which is the writing on the wall for so many complicit Republicans, I reckon. They can only see a future in a Trump America where you are in on the grift, or you starve out in the Bad Lands and have to survive as best you can.

  43. I guess that is the rub. The Republicans, like the National Party (and China) make capitalism fit their requirements – and are given mostly a free pass to do so. Why is it that left of centre governments have to be so pure in their free market policy? Clinton and Obama are pretty good examples. Any effort they tried that bucked this dogma had to be pared down into near pointlessness.

  44. The threat by Trump to impose punitive tariffs on John Deere is a way of proclaiming that NAFTA will be undone. This ticks many MAGA boxes. It’s hostile to Mexico. It’s protectionist. It’s disruptive. It depicts Trump as a powerful figure.

    Terrible economics. Terrible for real wages. Terrible for economic flexibility. But….Effective politics. Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania will have taken note.

  45. “I’m amazed that so many American voters find Trump remotely electable. But he might win.

    ”…the fact that, with just weeks to go to the election, we are in a situation where a highly credentialed woman is neck and neck with an extremist sexual predator and convicted felon who writes late-night rants in all-caps is an astounding indictment of US politics. GOD HELP US ALL.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/25/trump-on-truth-social-making-no-sense-at-all-again”

    One hint is in Mahdawi’s own article, since she mutters about how much she has no enthusiasm for a Harris presidency BUT hates Trump more.

    Initially the hard left bit the bullet with Harris and shut the fuck up about how much they don’t like her and accepted it needs to be all hands to the wheel to beat Trump, but some of them can’t help themselves and turnout is THE decisive factor in US elections. Harris can’t afford to have the most left wing voters in the country sit on their hands but she is very limited in how much she can pitch directly to them without harming her chances with other voting groups she also desperately needs.

    AOC has been fantastic on this front it has to be said, but you can see with Mahdawi that there are pundits and politicians (practically single-issue on Gaza at this point) who’ve continued harping on at Harris.

  46. Team Katich @ #592 Thursday, September 26th, 2024 – 11:14 am

    I guess that is the rub. The Republicans, like the National Party (and China) make capitalism fit their requirements – and are given mostly a free pass to do so. Why is it that left of centre governments have to be so pure in their free market policy? Clinton and Obama are pretty good examples. Any effort they tried that bucked this dogma had to be pared down into near pointlessness.

    Because capitalist media owners who have paid shills that attack them relentlessly when they go off piste and into territory that threatens their profit-making machines. And around and around the mulberry bush we go.

  47. @Ven:
    “For GOP, border visits are only a ‘political stunt’ when Harris goes”

    Of all the things to pick out, they’re actually consistent on this as they’ve been complaining for years that she wasn’t visiting, so their point that she’s only finally going now during the election campaign as a stunt makes internal sense.

    @c@t: “Is Trump still competitive because he is telling people what they want to hear”

    That’s always been the secret of his success. Not really that secret.

    If it stopped working he’d be toast, but people really like to keep hearing what they want to hear.

    @Team Katich: “Yes. But. It does back up the theory that the US electorate is tired of the ‘there is no easy solution’ line and ripe for bold (and/or populist in this case) positions.”

    The US electorate has liked listening to fairy stories and promises of instant solutions for a long time. Trump just leaned into it a lot harder than anybody before him dared do.

  48. They attacked Joe Biden for less than this but Donald Trump gets a free pass:

    Donald Trump, at a rally in Indiana, PA., has called for Johnny Carson to be brought back to host the Late Night Show on NBC.

    Johnny Carson has been dead for years. He died in 2005.

  49. c@t: “Is Trump still competitive because he is telling people what they want to hear”
    That’s always been the secret of his success. Not really that secret.

    The hope is, there is a limit to this. A tipping point. Step over it and the sensible recoil in numbers and turnout for the credible candidate. But the US seems to find new bottoms to their barrels.

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