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 US national polls, Kamala Harris has a 49.3-46.1 lead over Donald Trump (49.3-46.2 in my previous US election article for The Conversation on Monday). In presidential elections, the Electoral College is decisive, not the national popular vote. Harris has at least a one-point lead in enough states to win the Electoral College by a 276-262 margin.
The New York Times released polls from the highly regarded Siena on Tuesday, which had good and bad news for Harris. Siena’s national poll gave Harris a 49-46 lead, her best position in this poll. But Trump led by a thumping 55-41 in Florida, which used to be a swing state. This caused Silver’s Florida aggregate to move two points in Trump’s favour, and he now leads by 5.5 points there.
On Wednesday, Quinnipiac polls of Wisconsin and Michigan gave Trump 2-3 point leads, though Harris had a three-point lead in Pennsylvania. Silver’s model now gives Harris a 53.5% chance to win the Electoral College, down from 56% on Monday. There’s a 23% chance that Harris wins the popular vote, but loses the Electoral College. The FiveThirtyEight model is now very close to Silver, with Harris a 53% chance to win.
Two right-wing candidates to contest UK Conservative leadership
As in previous UK Conservative leadership elections, the final two candidates are selected by Conservative MPs, with Conservative party members to choose between these final candidates. At Wednesday’s final round of MPs’ votes, the right-wing Kemi Badenoch won 42 of the 120 votes, the right-wing Robert Jenrick 41 and the more centrist James Cleverly 37.
Cleverly had easily won the previous round of MPs’ votes on Tuesday with 39 votes, followed by Jenrick on 31 and Badenoch on 30. It’s likely that a tactical voting blunder caused him to finish third and be eliminated, with some of his supporters voting for Jenrick as they thought Cleverly had a better chance to beat Jenrick than Badenoch in the members’ vote.
Members will now decide between Badenoch and Jenrick by an online vote, with the final result to be announced November 2. A late September YouGov poll of Conservative members gave Badenoch a 41-38 lead over Jenrick.
Labour and PM Keir Starmer’s dreadful start to the term continues, with a recent More in Common poll giving Labour just a 29-28 lead over the Conservatives with 19% for Reform and 11% for the Liberal Democrats, although three other early October polls gave Labour 5-8 point leads. The latest two polls that have asked about Starmer’s ratings have him at net -30 (Opinium) and net -36 (YouGov).
Far-right wins most seats in Austria
Austria uses proportional representation with a 4% threshold to elect its 183 seats. At the September 29 election, the far-right FPÖ won 57 seats (up 26 since the 2019 election), the conservative ÖVP 51 seats (down 20), the centre-left SPÖ 41 (up one), the liberal NEOS 18 (up three) and the Greens 16 (down ten).
The FPÖ had its best result in an Austrian election and it was the first time since World War Two that a far-right party has won the most seats. However, the FPÖ is well short of the 92 seats needed for a majority. The ÖVP and the Greens had formed a coalition government after the 2019 election. A coalition between the ÖVP and SPÖ is the only way to keep the FPÖ out of government.
Japanese election: October 27
The conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has formed government after every Japanese election since 1955 except after the 2009 election. Of the 465 lower house seats, 289 are elected by first-past-the-post, while the remaining 176 are elected using proportional representation in 11 multi-member electorates.
This election is being held a year early after Shigeru Ishiba replaced Fumio Kishida as LDP leader and PM on September 27 and called an early election. Polls indicate the LDP is far ahead of their nearest party rival, the centre-left Constitutional Democrats, but there’s a large “no party” vote. The LDP should easily win yet another election.
Thanks Adrian. I can understand the Michigan poll re the large Arab American community but the Wisconsin poll is “weird”.
(From the previous thread)
Ar
Regarding the Hurricane response that is why I posted earlier about the Florida GOP reps blocking extra disaster funding relief.
https://www.eenews.net/articles/lawmakers-stunned-as-disaster-funds-left-out-of-stopgap-bill-2/
In USA as here, the Federal agencies mainly hand out the cash while the State agencies do the recovery work. Governor De Santis is primarily responsible.
We should be wary of jumping at any individual poll. These polls might mean something or they might be outliers due to a wonky sample. Harris is still ahead in the polling averages in enough of the swing states to win, though of course it’s all very close, and anything can happen over the next month. We should be especially careful of any polling out of North Carolina and Florida between now and election day – the twin hurricanes will have an unpredictable affect on both voting intention and turnout, and pollsters will have no real way of allowing for this.
Polling averages are lagging indicators.
The Qunnipiac polls in all three states are out of step with the other polling in those states; that doesn’t make it wrong, but that’s why people like our host William and like Nate Silver tend to model off multiple polls rather than just assuming any single poll is correct.
The hurricanes are functioning as something of an October surprise and the Republicans are going out heavily to blame the incumbents, never mind Republicans voting to reduce FEMA funding (and never mind how Trump reacted to similar while actually in office). It might well be swinging voters if people believe that Biden/Harris were unprepared for the disaster. I do wonder if the rather extraordinary NYT/Siena poll of Florida reflects a screaming fit of local Floridians blaming the Feds.
I wish them Democratic heathens would stop sending all those hurricanes into our blue states. It just ain’t fair.
All polling are lagging indicators, but whaddya gonna do? Polling averages, especially ones that only use recent polls, are generally more reliable than individual polls as far as crystal ball gazing goes.
a r says:
Thursday, October 10, 2024 at 5:21 pm
Polling averages are lagging indicators.
_________
Ha! Polls are lagging indicators. But yes, simple averages lag more. But that is not the only model one can build.
Edit: Snap!
Yeah, that. Doesn’t matter who actually holds responsibility. Doesn’t matter who opposed what extra funding.
At the end of the day, voters will blame any snafu on whomever’s sitting at the time. Not all of them. But enough of them that Biden and Harris both need to be immaculate in their handling of the response.
Will the Hurricane cause a few to review their ambivalence towards climate change?
Yes, Biden and Harris and the administration need to handle this efficiently, as you know that Trump is already claiming the various agencies aren’t helping people in the badly affected areas from the previous hurricane.
The polling of course could be wrong in two ways, either they’re not taking account of the shy Trump voters(which manifested itself in 2016 and 2020), or their likely voter models aren’t factoring in young voters and newly registered voters.
And hey, if Trump wins, not a jot we can do about it here in Australia, we’d just have to hope that whoever he’d appoint to diplomatic and trade posts isn’t totally crazy, and our alliance with the U.S can weather the storm for the next 4 years or so.
Much as I would prefer a President Kamala Harris, for all sorts of reasons, we don’t have a vote in this.
I do. Not going to the trouble of using it though, as it would be counted in CA. Blue drop in the ocean of blue.
Who will be elected the next U.S. President?
We’re 3 weeks away.
What do you posters think.
An informative read on where the Harris campaign sees itself:
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/09/politics/democratic-anxiety-kamala-harris-2024-election/index.html
I would not be at all surprised if Kamala wins the popular vote and loses the electoral college. Whatever happens you can be guaranteed that Trump will claim victory and do everything in his power to seize it. If the election has not resolved, the lower house decides the President. The lower house is gerrymandered to buggery.
If Kamala wins there is every chance she doesn’t get sworn is as President. The US is a failed partial democracy.
How can it possibly be this close? One candidate is a 34 time convicted Criminal.
Harris to win.
Vlad, very confident of a Harris/Walz demolition job on the MAGA cult.
The female vote is going to destroy them.
Bookmark it!
MABWM – a so-called Contingent Election, where neither candidate wins an Electoral College victory (most likely a 269-all draw) and the decision is thrown to the House of Representatives, it’s likely that the GOP will hold sway, but not definite. The current score in state delegations is 26 GOP, 22 Dem, and two tied. One of the ties, North Carolina, will probably go Republican, as they have aggressively gerrymandered there, but the Dems could yet win in say, Arizona, Wisconsin and Minnesota (the other tied state), which would see the delegations at 25-all. What happens then is anyone’s guess!
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/08/04/politics/tie-presidential-election-what-matters
Socrates
“Incredible to think Florida, the most vulnerable state, is home to some of the worst climate science denial.”
It’s not really incredible. It’s perfectly possible for them to believe that some of our seasons are getting warmer at the moment (seems like that’s Summer for USA, and Winter for the UK, particularly), that seas are warming up and therefore hurricane seasons are getting, on average, more savage – but not attribute it to humankind. If that the inclination of your thinking in the first place, idk why a few bad hurricanes would change that suddenly.
sprocket
“Wondering if the bad Quinnipiac poll is a wash from the VP debate?”
Would need to be corroborated by other polls to even start drawing that conclusion (maybe totally unfairly, Trump’s attack on the administration re FEMA funding is landing in states well away from the hurricanes where it’s harder to disprove).
But certainly the VP debate could well be one factor in any current movement in the polls.
Either way, Harris is now finally doing what I said all along she missed doing at the start – making herself more known to the American people. The initial euphoria from the base was. . . just that, euphoria.
By focusing more on policy than Biden ever did, the Dems have (IMO, not everyone will agree) totally dropped the ball on the ‘threat to democracy’ message.
Biden’s team’s strategy such as it was (keeping it more of a referendum on Trump), was possibly quite a good one. Biden just wasn’t capable of executing it effectively – he was too old and his messaging wasn’t sharp enough even when he had a good press conference or whatever.
Now it’s as much a referendum on Harris and people just aren’t sure about her even as they cautiously quite like her. Her favourables are pretty good, but her poll movements haven’t matched as that long article posted on here yesterday testifies to.
C@tmomma
“Keir Starmer used to be a lot more like Jeremy Corbyn but if you actually take a look at the things he has done since being elected, and especially when we see Rachel Reeves Budget, then it will become obvious that he is more in the Economically Conservative (a position the actual Conservatives have abandoned)/Socially Progressive mould.”
Economically conservative?! Tell me one thing he’s done that’s economically conservative. He talks a good talk on prudent stewardship (even Corbyn/McDonnell could do that) when he wants to, but that’s it. I haven’t heard him even propose anything economically conservative, only rolling back pro-business laws because they are ‘pro worker’ and introducing/reintroducing heavily trade union-oriented legislation. They are Labour’s paymasters after all.
Whilst cutting Winter fuel allowance for all but the very poorest pensioners – the whole political spectrum is united against the cruelty of this, from Conservatives (who introduced it a few years back and promised to keep it) to Greens, Lib Dems, Nats and the left-wing of Starmer’s own party. The phrase ‘heat or eat’ as regards pensioners this Winter is going to be hung round Labour’s neck again and again unless they finally drop their obstinacy and scrap it at the budget later this month.
The optics aren’t good when there’s rows over advisers’ pay not being enough at £180k and when you’re finding money somehow for 23% increases for doctors and train drivers (even they already earn 60k a year, compared to pensioners 13k).
Even those who didn’t like Starmer thought up to the election that he was a shrewd operator. Although he’s ruthless when it comes to dealing with people (which served him well when ditching Corbyn and Abbott – temporarily – from the party), he now looks like a deer stuck in the headlights and his poling approval ratings have already plummeted to mid-minus 30s net.
I do agree that Starmer is socially ‘progressive’, if that’s what you call saying some women have a pen*s (he’s backtracked on that since but not apologised to his own MP he castigated for it – she’s now just left the party) and being very keen on legislating for euthanasia (sorry, ‘assisted dying’ is the correct term) – another attack on the most vulnerable who can least defend themselves, as all the data in countries with such a law have proved it to be in spite of prior assurances.
I do wonder if Rachel Reeves is feeling tortured in her position – or maybe we will find out she’s a lot more hard left underneath than I ever thought. I do think she’s genuinely a strong ‘numbers person’ so competent for [what you would call the] Finance Secretary role whatever her beliefs, so hopefully she won’t literally send the country bankrupt at least.
Rant over! (for now )
Vlad
“Who will be elected the next U.S. President?”
If I knew I could be a rich man.
But – unless you believe the deep state decides all these things in a pre-ordained manner – none of us will know for another 3 weeks and 5 and bit days. Suppose it could become less close in that timeframe one way or another.
Ven
“He threatened ABC, he threatened CBS but MAGA people say he is not threat to democracy.”
Ironically, insofar as it’s real at all, Trump seems more of a threat to democracy when he loses.
This is all bluster against the news channels – whether it’s effective with voters, I’m not sure. Probably works well for the suspicious section of the base.
But it was when he actually lost that the worrying actions occurred challenging results in court left, right and centre; attempting to influence/change electors; then pressure on Mike Pence etc.
(I’ll leave the open debate on exactly what % Trump was culpable for the crowd’s actions on Jan. 6th, on the table rather than relitigate it on this thread. We probably all agree he had at least some responsibility for it. But even if it had ‘succeeded’, law enforcement/army would have restored order eventually so not a threat to democracy in that sense – just threat to lives 🙁 . The other things I mentioned above could have changed the outcome of the election ‘peacefully’/through legal loopholes so more of a threat to democracy therefore.)
Why would they do that based on a normal weather event?
Stooge 12.13pm (previous thread)
Why discriminate based on religion? I thought the far left where you reside, hated that. Yet you proclaim you are anti-Christian for some reason.
Top grade Marist polling has Trump lead in single digits in the stretch states. Plus the Senate races are tight..
Texas trump + 7, Ted Cruz + 5
https://maristpoll.marist.edu/polls/u-s-presidential-contest-texas-october-2024/
Ohio – Trump + 6, Sharrod Brown +2
https://maristpoll.marist.edu/polls/u-s-presidential-contest-ohio-october-2024/
Florida – Trump +4, Rick Scott +2
https://maristpoll.marist.edu/polls/u-s-presidential-contest-florida-october-2024/
I’ll leave the open debate on exactly what % Trump was culpable for the crowd’s actions on Jan. 6th
No Trump, no Jan 6th. I thought that would have been obvious.
Unless you are determined to be engaged in deflection on Trump’s behalf.
Ok, I have what should be good news and bad news for Kamala Harris.
Firstly the good news:
Tomorrow in the US, the inflation report will be released to financial markets. The report should show underlying inflation steady at 3.2%, which should ensure an interest rate cut of 25 basis points by the FED in November.
That has to be good news for the Democrats. Albo could only dream lol
Now the bad news:
The polling experts above give Kamala a 53% chance of winning the election.
No no no no no.
Let’s analyse the betting markets. It’s the other way around:
Trump 53%
Harris 47%
Trump gaining the ascendency!
Been There above at 6.16 pm,
Mate, stick to pretending you can win at horse racing 😀
One thing I’ll note from what I’ve seen coming out of North Carolina is that, whatever nonsense may be getting spouted elsewhere, Republican local state and federal members in western North Carolina have been as energetic in trying to debunk misinformation as their Democratic counterparts. (I wouldn’t expect that North Carolina politicians pay much attention to Australian politics, but the experience of Lismore – where both Kevin Hogan and Janelle Saffin significantly outperformed their parties at the subsequent elections – indicates that an incumbent local member can get a big boost from being seen to be effective in a disaster).
Fun fact: the term “debunk” itself effectively originates in Asheville – “bunkum” originally comes from “a Buncombe speech”, a term which arose in (dis)honour of the vacuous speeches of an early 19th century Congressman for Buncombe County (which includes Asheville).
I feel like a lagging indicator. It might be a Boomer thing.
Ha Ha Centre! Good one!
No need for me to pretend about winning at horse racing, books well in the black.
Will be even more in the black when Harris/Walz win handsomely!
I’m loving the prices I’m getting for that ticket!
Same thing happened with Biden last election; I cleaned up!
Let the fools put their ill-informed money on Trump, better prices for me.
Remember, bookmark this, don’t say you weren’t told!
64% of gamblers are male, 36% female. Never had anything to do with betting myself but could that statistic skew US Presidential election betting odds towards Trump?
Centre @ #27 Thursday, October 10th, 2024 – 7:48 pm
It’s all a beat up post Covid. The inflation was real and needed to be tamed but I’m just not seeing this ‘Cost of Living Crisis’ any more. It’s a wicked problem to have. People still spending freely which leads to inflation staying higher longer. But the government in power gets the blame because people have high expectations and they aren’t being met because interest rates are staying relatively high.
Pretty decent article from Robert Reich via the Guardian, so hopefully no paywall.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/10/democrats-elites-trump-musk-republicans
Bellwether @ 8.47 pm
NO
The gender of gamblers makes no difference.
C@t at 9.06 pm
You are right that the cost of living crisis is waning, but not fast enough here in Australia for the RBA to lower rates which would ease the cost of living further. On the other hand, the FED in the US is expected to cut rates next month.
It’s not a real good look for Albo given his promises at the last election 😉
Some very insightful analysis, BTSays. Please keep it up.
Kirsdarke,
The ‘Corporate Oligarchs’ that Trump et al rail against when criticising the Democrats, are actually supporting Trump!
Centre @ #36 Thursday, October 10th, 2024 – 9:21 pm
I’m sure if he could tell wealthy Boomers and Gen Xers to stop spending so much money, he would. 😉
Kirsdarke @ 9.12 pm
Have we found out why Musk is really supporting Trump? What’s in it for him I wonder!
Been There,
Feel free to give us a tip on the horses on a Saturday so we can put you to the test…
Centre @ #40 Thursday, October 10th, 2024 – 9:28 pm
I just heard Tim Miller say that Elon Musk will be getting reduced regulations for his businesses if Trump is successful. Also, it appears Trump has promised him a position in his Administration as Manager of Efficiency Services, or some equally Orwellian title. Which would equate to Musk slashing and burning like he did to Twitter but government wide.
What’s attribution have to do with anything though? If your house is underwater because of a 1000-year rain event, it makes no difference if you think the warming that triggered it was natural or manmade. Your house is still underwater, and the insurance companies are still tired of rebuilding it.
I’d argue it’s more that if you accept the science on climate (even with caveats on man-made vs. natural warming) then you know the writing’s on the wall for Florida and you don’t move there in the first place. And possibly if you live there, you make plans to move away (plus DeSantis probably drove away a fair few of the ’80 IQ and above’ cohort). Ultimately you end up with an overabundance of true deniers. People certain that warming isn’t happening, and not open to convincing otherwise.
Also Florida boasts a lot of retirees. Its population skews older, and the older cohort skews towards climate denialism.
Centre
My system involves over some 200 bets or more a week using a staking plan and a bank, of which I bet 1%, so $1,000 bank, $10 bet.
My profit on turnover is around the 28% mark, proven over years.
Out of that 200 plus bets a small percentage will win, exactly which ones out of that 200 plus will win I do not know.
The beauty of it is that I know that a certain percentage of them will win over the course of a series.
So, sorry , no, I can’t give you a tip on the horses on Saturday, it doesn’t work that way.
I’ll have up to 70 bets on Saturday, I know that some of them will win, which ones, I don’t know.
C@tmomma
“”I’ll leave the open debate on exactly what % Trump was culpable for the crowd’s actions on Jan. 6th
No Trump, no Jan 6th. I thought that would have been obvious.”
Well, obviously. That doesn’t mean the participants weren’t culpable themselves, or tell us what Trump intended to happen, etc etc blah blah.
Mavis 9.22pm
Thanks
1. Certification of Biden’s win stopped.
2. Fake electors installed for Trump.
3. Election result subverted, Trump declared winner.
4. If people (civilians, law enforcement, Pence, Pelosi, etc.) have to be injured or killed to make that happen, fine.
Meanwhile in Canada the Conservatives are a mile ahead and well placed for a huge majority at the next election. The most recent polls have the Conservatives just over 40% and the governing Liberals (centre to centre left) neck and neck with the NDP (centre left to left wing) at about 20% each.
Trump should be in jail just for his attempt to get Republicans in Georgia to falsify the vote.
The betting markets thought Hillary was going to win in 2016, the odds on the betting markets merely represent a reaction to the wisdom of the crowds, and the crowds don’t know anything (see also – Brownlow odds every year recently, and the midterm elections in 2022). There’s no inside information betting here.
Democrats are categorically more anxious about this election and Trumpists more confident regardless of the state of the polls (the same as in 2022, in fact), and as such I’m actually surprise the betting spread is not even wider than it is.
Betting is not polls. Polls are based on actual data from voters. Betting is just the public reaction to those polls. Stick to polls.
The polls are guesses based on limited data. Bets on polling are wish-casting based on guesswork and on political gamesmanship. Neither of them are a whole lot of good in a contest that’s not decided by the efforts of those running (as in a horse-race or a baseball match) but instead is determined by how many spectators decide to take sides. We don’t know who the voters/non-voters will be or where their votes will count.
What we can be sure of is the Republicans are trying to debase the democratic process from go to whoa. They want to be declared the winners regardless of the wishes of the voters. They are thieves.
Been There @ 10.46 pm
Oh my god, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph 😀
You want high activity which guarantees that the high margins taken by the racing industry/betting company will realise.
I thought you were going to say something intelligent like being highly selective, zooming in on a good thing, that you feel must be trying, and striking if the odds are acceptable to the proposed risk…
Readers don’t bet on horse racing, the odds are disgraceful which will guarantee certain defeat, you can do much better with your money.