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. citizen says Thursday, September 19, 2024 at 3:37 pm

    Trump claims he will visit Springfield, Ohio “in the next two weeks”.
    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-says-will-visit-springfield-ohio-two-weeks-rcna171758

    Meanwhile the Springfield mayor and Ohio governor, both Republicans, are trying, using careful language, to tell Trump to forget about coming.
    https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/18/politics/ohio-republicans-haitian-migrants-trump-what-matters/index.html

    They just need to tell him that he will need to prepay for use of their facilities, police, etc. He’ll be a no show.

  3. “When he does campaign events, he makes odd choices of venue: Today, he will appear in New York’s Nassau County.”

    It’s not odd at all. GOP are defending a record 18 house seats in New York this time, I read (confess I haven’t double-checked the number), and Nassau County is right in the thick of the fight. Trump needs those seats to achieve the majority in the House to govern more effectively if he wins.

    Any talk of winning the state is just bravado to juice turnout in above said races. I do think GOP have a chance to win the next Mayor & Governor races in NY City & State respectively, but I do not think they are remotely close to voting for GOP for president.

    Plus Trump has a fundraiser to do there, it’s wealthy territory – just like Harris goes to California, she doesn’t need the extra votes for president.

  4. New Hampshire

    Uni of New Hampshire 12-16 September

    Harris 54-43% Trump

    A very good poll for Harris.

    University-led surveys are often some of the best, but idk about these guys specifically.

  7. ‘Fess,
    I told Yabba about the Bludger lunch when I ran into him at the dinner after election day last Saturday. We have resolved our differences. 🙂

  18. Of the last 21 national polls, Trump has only led in 4 of them. He’s led in 1 of the last 10. And Harris is just beginning to crack the 50% mark. Is this real movement? Is this a temporary post-debate blip that will reset in a week or so? It feels like Harris is incrementally locking in voters as we move forward.

    This and more discussed here:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPtbU29HQOE

  21. Confessions:

    In the 2019 Australian federal election, exactly ZERO out of COUNTLESS polls had the Morrison government ahead on a two party preferred basis.

    The Shy Tory Effect cannot be ignored, it is especially expected to be underestimated with such a polarising candidate as Trump.

    If the average poll immediately before the election had Harris up +7 nationally and +5 up in all the swing states, I would still give her only at best a 50% chance of winning the electoral college.

  22. If the average poll immediately before the election had Harris up +7 nationally and +5 up in all the swing states, I would still give her only at best a 50% chance of winning the electoral college.

    I probably would too, such is the pro-Republican, anti democratic bias of the EC.

    But even William’s post above points to a strengthening in the Democrat polling post debate.

    Which is why I ask: Is this real movement? Is this a temporary post-debate blip that will reset in a week or so?

    Time will tell.

  25. Steve Ulrich of PoliticsPA reports that a new Franklin and Marshall College poll for Pennsylvania shows Vice President Harris with a 3-point lead, which is within the margin of error.

    The survey results showed Harris with a three-point advantage over Trump, 49-46%, in a multi-candidate race with third parties and leaning voters included. A previous F&M poll in early August also gave the vice president a three-point margin vs. the former president, 46-43%, with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. polling at six percent. He has since dropped out of the contest. The three points that separate the candidates are within the poll’s 4.1% margin of error.

    Harris has not polled lower than 48 percent in the Keystone State since the end of July, while Trump has topped the mark just three times in the last eight surveys.

    …

    Few Pennsylvania voters are splitting their tickets in the presidential and US senate races, wrote Yost. Nearly half (47%) of the voters are Harris-Casey voters and two in five (39%) are Trump-McCormick voters. There are a small proportion of Trump-Casey (2%) and Trump-Other (2%) voters and virtually no Harris-McCormick or Harris-Other voters
    https://www.politicspa.com/f-mccormick-narrows-deficit-vs-casey/139291/

  26. Which is why I ask: Is this real movement? Is this a temporary post-debate blip that will reset in a week or so?
    —————————
    I’m of the opinion that these are not times of rapid poll movements based Trump saying something stupid or Harris being very good or showing competence and getting good coverage. The place is either highly partisan or low information. The days of large groups of voters swinging week to week may come again, but not for this cycle.

    Movement is slow and likely to be initially swamped by polling noise.

    There is the potential tho. Had Harris performed poorly in the debate or her first interviews as candidate, some pre-existing views may have been solidified. But she did very well. Trump could stumble so badly (Biden style) that pre-existing concerns on his age might force a strong poll shift.

    I think we will just see more of the same. Hopefully, a slow but sustainable shift to Harris. But not so much that anyone should feel Victoria levels of certainty in the outcome

  27. David Lerman of Roll Call notes the failure of yesterday’s bill to fund the government past September 30.

    “The 202-220 vote marked a predictable defeat for Johnson, R-La., on a bill that alienated most Democrats and left his own GOP conference divided.

    Fourteen Republicans voted against it, more than enough to offset the three Democrats who defected from their party to back the measure: Maine’s Jared Golden, North Carolina’s Don Davis and Washington’s Marie Gluesenkamp Perez. They are considered three of the most endangered Democratic incumbents this November.

    The delayed vote, which was initially planned for last week before getting pulled, also cost leaders a week of negotiating time on a funding extension that is needed by Sept. 30 before the new fiscal year begins. Next Friday is Sept. 27, which is the target date for lawmakers in both chambers to wrap up and head home to campaign.”

    US House. MAGA GOP Speaker Mike Johnson is again behaving as he is some sort of Ethan Hawke of Mission Impossible/ James Bond, who rescue a critical situation at last second.
    But the ‘bill to fund government’ is normal government stuff to keep government functioning and not something extraordinary, which needs all sorts of pyrotechnics/ midnight oil burning.
    What it shows is that American political system is dysfunctional at heart.

    As Rick Wilson tweeted: Looks like the #MAGAShutdown is coming!

  28. TK
    Is the below post by Trump shows that his brain is broken or some kind of ‘cunning plan’

    If you ask me what I think. I would say, ‘I see it but I don’t believe it’. Can someone be so stupid and still be candidate of one major party in USA?

  30. Harris will be mortified over Howard’s decision not to endorse her candidacy. No doubt Caroline Kennedy has personally relayed this shocking news to her.

  31. The internet is forever:

    CNN has published their reporting on Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for governor in North Carolina, and found that he called himself a “black NAZI!” on a pornography website’s message board.

    The statements were posted more than 10 years ago, and CNN says Robinson, who is Black and currently serves as the state’s lieutenant governor, also wrote about enjoying transgender porn and referred to himself as a “perv”.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2024/sep/19/donald-trump-rally-apparent-assassination-attempt-new-york-election-campaign-kamala-harris-us-politics-latest-news

    There’s worse in the story but I won’t put it here.

  32. Rapid response team onto it:

    Kamala Harris’s campaign has seized on the revelations about Mark Robinson, releasing a video of Donald Trump heaping praise on the North Carolina gubernatorial candidate:

  33. Hard to believe there’s 39% of NC voters who would vote for such a whackjob, but here we are. via IAPolls2022

    NORTH CAROLINA poll by @cygnal for @CarolinaJournal

    Trump: 46%

    -1

    Harris: 45%

    +1

    —
    NC Governor
    Josh Stein: 46%

    =

    M. Robinson: 39%

    -3

    —
    Attorney General
    Jackson: 45%

    +7

    Bishop: 43%

    +1

    +/- change vs August

    ——
    #67 (2.1/3.0) | 600 LV | 9/15-16 | ±3.9%
    https://carolinajournal.com/trump-harris-tied-in-new-nc-poll-of-likely-voters/

  34. Surely Americans are sick of the chaos, the weirdness and the profoundly abnormal of MAGA? Don’t they just want normal back? Normal politicians who aren’t constantly screaming at them, gaslighting them, brow beating them, or making them feel unworthy?

    Even from Australia it all just feels exhausting.

  36. Not done with spreading fanciful, if not delusional misinformation about Haitian immigrants eating pets, JD Vance is now convinced that they are to blame for rising communicable diseases. Problem is that these things are checkable.

    What’s more, Vance’s dishonesty about Springfield goes well beyond the pet-eating scam and strays into other really dangerous territory. Vance has repeatedly cited a need to draw attention to other problems supposedly inflicted by Haitians, again and again claiming that “communicable diseases” are “on the rise” and have “skyrocketed.”

    You might describe this as the art of the “secondary lie.” Even as the pet-eating ruse sucked up all the attention, MAGA figures have advanced other claims along with it that have passed into the discourse with little scrutiny. It’s a trick that MAGA propaganda often employs.

    But it’s very hard to square Vance’s claims of “skyrocketing” diseases with official health data from Clark County, home to Springfield. That data shows that reportable communicable diseases in the county—excluding Covid-19, which dwarfs all others and surged during the pandemic for many other reasons—actually have declined in a broad sense. Despite a rise in 2022 that was the exception, they were actually lower in 2023 than they were in 2021 (when the Haitian influx gained steam), which in turn was lower than 2020 (before their arrivals really got going). The overall trend from 2020 through the end of 2023 is downward, not upward.

    “If you look at all reportable diseases as a whole, they’re actually going down,” Chris Cook, the health commissioner of Clark County, told me.

    https://newrepublic.com/series/48/jd-vances-weak-excuse-pet-eating-lie-just-blew-face

  37. ‘fess,
    All of the behaviour reported today as coming from various Republican candidates, and that includes Donald Trump and JD Vance, points to the fact that they have become the party of sick deviants.

  38. At least such uncertainty in outcome should tell anyone in a close state thinking of making a left wing protest vote (or by not voting) to have good hard look at themselves.

  40. Larry Sabato
    @LarrySabato
    Our Crystal Ball rating for NC Governor has been Lean D. Mark Robinson (R) was going to lose even before this new story. The question is whether Robinson brings down the top of the ticket (Donald Trump) with him. Those 16 electoral votes could be the whole election.

  41. C@t:

    Republicans these days tend to be:

    – racist
    – fascist
    – sexist / misogynistic
    – anti-immigrant
    – ignorant of even basic things
    – amoral
    – corrupt
    – unethical
    – without shame
    – weird
    – delusional
    – conspiracists

    I could go on…

  42. sprocket:

    Apparently NC Republicans vetted him, but Trump came out all guns blazing in favour of him therefore they got stuck with him. This from last year:

    Top North Carolina Republicans opposed to Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson are rallying around Bill Graham, an attorney and wealthy businessman expected to enter the 2024 gubernatorial race Wednesday.

    Republican insiders in North Carolina worry Robinson has too much baggage to win a high-profile contest in a battleground state that has seen Democrats occupy the governor’s mansion for most of the last three decades. Enter Graham, who plans to announce he will seed his campaign for the Republican nomination with $5 million in personal cash and begin advertising on statewide television October 26. Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, is barred from reelection because of term limits.

    “Only four of the last thirty years have been led by a Republican governor in North Carolina; we keep losing to the liberals,” Graham will say, according to a draft press release first shared with The Dispatch. “If we want to change that, we need a nominee who will have the resources, discipline, and character needed to defeat the far-left Josh Stein in November. I am that candidate, and my campaign will prove it.”

    https://thedispatch.com/article/gop-frontrunner-for-north-carolina-governor-gets-a-republican-challenger/

  43. Ven
    “TK
    Is the below post by Trump”
    Have you got a link to that post?

    And, no, Trump saying stupid or selfish stuff isn’t going to shift the dial much.

  44. One of the new unearthed statements by Mark Robinson (a black man) on the porn site chat room he frequented in 2010 was:

    Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it (slavery) back. I would certainly buy a few,”

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mark-robinson-north-carolina-governors-race-cnn/

    And then there is this endorsement of Mark Robinson by Donald Trump..

    March 3, 2024, 11:06 AM GMT+11
    By Alec Hernández and Jake Traylor
    GREENSBORO, N.C. — Former President Donald Trump likened North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson to Martin Luther King Jr. in an endorsement Saturday, despite the gubernatorial candidate’s long history of controversial comments about homosexuality, religion and victims of sexual abuse.

    “This is Martin Luther King on steroids,” Trump said of Robinson at a pre-Super Tuesday rally in North Carolina.

    “I told that to Mark. I said, I think you’re better than Martin Luther King. I think you are Martin Luther King times two,” he continued as he offered Robinson his endorsement in the Republican gubernatorial primary on Tuesday.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-compares-north-carolina-lt-gov-mark-robinson-martin-luther-king-rcna141523

  47. Here’s an important story that has an Australian aspect to it:

    Amid the recent crackdown on Russian influence in American media, a group of former Trump advisers and operatives have quietly helped build a pro-Russian website that frequently spreads debunked conspiracy theories about the war in Ukraine, election fraud and vaccines.

    Working alongside contributors for Kremlin state media, the former Donald Trump policy aide George Papadopoulos, his wife, Simona Mangiante, and others have become editorial board members of the website Intelligencer, which is increasingly becoming a source of news for those in the rightwing ecosystem.

    …

    Intelligencer appears to be gaining in popularity. It recently had its best month for internet traffic, with an increase of nearly 300% during August, according to data from Similarweb, and its articles have been shared on social media by the conspiracist Alex Jones, former Trump White House staffer Garrett Ziegler and former Trump aide Roger Stone.

    According to Emma Briant, an associate professor of news and political communication at Monash University in Australia, the use of well-known figures to spread pro-Russian political messages represents a shift in disinformation tactics.

    “Since the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has increasingly been forced to rely on networks of proxies and influencers whose conspiracist ‘brand’ generates income and audiences through social media monetization and some of whom Russia has now been caught covertly subsidizing,” Briant said.

    The website’s opaque ownership structure makes it difficult to understand its financial backing, and there is no direct evidence of Kremlin funding. There is no corporate entity listed anywhere on the website, just a business address in Los Angeles.

    Although much of the website’s content focuses on issues relating to American politics, the site actually began in Australia, with a little-known media outlet called TNT Radio, which launched in 2022. Show hosts and guests frequently deny climate change, discuss culture war issues in the US, espouse pro-Russian viewpoints on the war in Ukraine, and spread conspiracy theories about Covid-19.

    Jennifer Squires, one of the station’s owners, explained in an interview that Intelligencer began as a way for TNT Radio to have a written publication to complement its radio station. To develop the new site, Squires said she turned to George Eliason, an American journalist who has lived in eastern Ukraine for more than 10 years. Eliason, who already had a show on TNT Radio at the time, has formerly appeared on RT and blames Kyiv for the war in Ukraine.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/19/intelligencer-pro-russia-website-trump

    Anyone heard of TNT Radio before?

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