US presidential election minus three weeks

“If you squint at the polling averages, things are getting closer”, notes Nate Silver. But you probably shouldn’t.

There’s been a fair bit of chatter around lately about momentum in favour of Donald Trump, but by any reasonable metric the situation remains as it’s been since the dust settled a few weeks after Joe Biden’s withdrawal. Namely, poll aggregates have Kamala Harris up by three points nationally, which translates into an effective dead heat from election forecasts. A narrowing in Nate Silver’s probability forecast from around 56-44 to 50-50 has no doubt been influential, but the fundamental calculus is unchanged: the polls will very likely prove to have been out in one direction or another, and whoever they are underselling will take home the prize. For what it’s worth, The Economist’s and FiveThirtyEight’s models have ticked back a little to Harris over the past few days after narrowing to almost dead level a week ago, respectively putting her at 54% and 56%.

Considerably more depth on all this is available from Adrian Beaumont’s latest for The Conversation. The monthly Resolve Strategic polls for Nine Newspapers have been asking their Australian respondents who they would vote for if they could or would, consistently finding the fifty-first state to be deep blue: the latest has Kamala Harris at 52%, up two on last month, with Donald Trump down four to 21%.

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.

1,152 comments on “US presidential election minus three weeks”

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  1. Stooge says:
    Thursday, October 24, 2024 at 7:39 pm

    Anyone who says that thermal values do not influence/determine the climate

    I didn’t say that all. The key question is the sensitivity of climate to changes in CO2. That is still an open question. There are multiple factors that effect climate that are vastly more powerful than the thermal properties of CO2 – the oceans, water vapour and clouds, the Sun.

  2. Weathervane,

    Provide a reference link, or am I supposed to take your word for it??

    Interesting how the black vote is plummeting for Kamala.
    Would you like me to provide a link, or the fact that Mr Obama had to lecture them last week, is enough proof I suppose.

  3. What guys say in private should stay private.

    If what Trump said was not in private, then that’s a different story.

    Trump still won that election, I think he turned it all against Bill Clinton.

    * gotta go

  4. Wether,

    You can’t believe anything on the Communist News network.
    They’re all fake news. They hate trump.
    Don’t even waste your time watching them, unless you want to hide in the bubble.

  5. Paula
    I roam far and wide for information but I get it, any offerings from Paula are gospel, from anyone else valueless. No discussion possible with a person with that attitude.

  6. C@tmomma

    “Look, people can support Trump, I don’t the feck care, but what I do care about is when people charge in and spend their time denigrating and abusing those of us who support Kamala Harris. ”

    That’s supremely rich, when mostly people who don’t overtly support Harris on here aren’t doing anything of the sort and those who do support Harris are the ones denigrating and abusing those they think support Trump to a scale of 100:1 compared to the other way. How blind can people be to their own nastiness? This site has been a cess pit this morning, mostly against both Trump and FUBAR. I think some of FUBAR’s comments can be quite silly, but so what?

    Who cares what you think about Trump? Or Harris. Or Albanese. Or any politician.

    Dealing in utter nastiness and vile comments to anyone who doesn’t pass the purity test on Trump is inexcusable and disgusting, can’t you keep this for X/Twitter? Do you talk like that to family members you disagree with? Must be nice family get togethers if so. . .

    “Dude, he and his nastiness outweighs the rest of us put together! It’s his schtick. Trying constantly to own the libs by being nasty and condescending.”

    How do you have the brass face to say this and actually believe it? Sanctimonious doesn’t even begin to describe it.

  7. Bystander

    “C@t
    I don’t see nastiness as a useful way to debate issues, whoever it is coming from. But I suspect I am in the minority.”

    Count me in, that’s 2.

  8. Centre

    “I think many records are going to fall in this election. I think there will be a;
    – record voter turnout,
    – record vote for the losing candidate,
    – record betting turnover worldwide,
    – record vote to the winner.”

    I don’t know about the betting but if one of the other 3 is right then all 3 of them are going to be right (almost certainly, unless the result is not close at all). I think it probably will happen.

    “Which Party will get their supporters to want to vote the most in the key swing states?”

    Well quite, this appears to be what it’s coming down to.

  9. FUBAR

    Enjoy their music of course but understand that if you had a deep conversation with either of them you’d have very little in common.


  10. BTSayssays:
    Thursday, October 24, 2024 at 9:08 pm
    Ven

    Why did you mention me in your 1.35pm post?

    (I’m asking Ven not anybody else to speak for him; thanks)

    I think that You believe that Hitler and his Generals were/are evil. Britain fought for its survival when it fought against Hitler Germany. If not for Roosevelt US Military, things could have been different in battlefield for Britain.

    You said repeatedly said that Trump is not as bad PB posters describe him to be.

    Now, Trump has said “Hitler had done some good things”.
    Two of the high ranking and decorated Generals, who worked with Trump very closely, called him a “Fascist”.

    What to believe now? That is the confusion you may have about Trump, Hitler, if you believe Trump.

  11. Bellwether says:
    Thursday, October 24, 2024 at 9:27 pm

    I disagree. We would have a huge amount in common.

    I find this often with lefties who appear to think that politics defines character and interests. Must be why they are so attracted to Identity politics.

    I went to Midnight Oil a couple of years ago. That was bloody funny giving the anti-Woodside performative artists some feedback.

  12. FUBAR

    Esperanza Spalding on Gaza:

    “Dear ones, I’m grateful to announce and be a part of this collaboration of so many beings using our talents and artistry to stand in solidarity with -raise relief funds for- Palestine.
    Please go to Bandcamp and purchase this compilation album! All proceeds of album sales go directly to aid organizations providing direct support for civilian Palestinians on the ground.
    The song I contributed is the demo of a song-spell I wrote to speak a prayer into the meta-nervous system of our species.
    All these points should be obvious, but this the shared sentiment of artists who organized and contributed to this project:
    “We condemn terrorist violence of all kinds. We condemn the genocide of the Palestinian people, perpetuated by the state of Israel with support of the United Staes and the United Kingdom, which has been ongoing since the 1940s and has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of civilians, caused environmental devastation, and left countless Palestinians currently mutilated, traumatised and homeless.
    We affirm the rights of indigenous peoples worldwide to freedom and safety in their homelands.”

    Happy, but totally unsurprised, to see that Esperanza is in complete agreement with me over the genocide that is occuring in Gaza. However, you’re a persuasive character, maybe you could talk her around to your opinion after the gig.

  13. Hello Ven

    Thanks for replying.

    Yes I certainly believe that Hitler was an evil fiend, etc. Agree re USA intervention being crucial (in both wars).

    “You said repeatedly said that Trump is not as bad PB posters describe him to be.”

    Well that’s a low bar to clear! – I could be quite nasty about Trump whilst still adhering to this statement.

    I’m not at all confused. All the tittle-tattle around what Trump has said when and to whom, is a bit lost on me. Many sources aren’t reliable and you don’t know who’s paying who to say what, sadly. Plus everything has a context.

    Those comments re Hitler would have alarmed me a lot more 8 years ago. Now, I’m not sure they’ll make much difference to the USA electorate even, after a while mud stops sticking however smelly it is.

    I hate what happened on Jan. 6 and am still very worried about Russia/Ukraine if Trump gets in but praying he’s evolving his opinion more to Ukraine, but not really sure what will happen tbh.

    Overall, though, I am comfortable to say for the first time here that I am warming to the thought of President Trump II. I liked Biden better but he’s past his prime and was also dithery on some international matters where faster decisiveness was required – although his instincts always seemed to be in the right direction, like Clinton but less decisive. She would have been brilliant.

    I don’t think Harris is who she is making out to be, although personally/character-wise I like her better than Trump, I doubt I’d appreciate spending any length of time in Trump’s company to put it mildly.

    Still, it’s head over heart for me in the end, which means Trump. I especially like his proposals on curbing the Chinese economy, just hope he comes up with a plan to stop inflation sky-rocketing more than necessary.

    I also have friends in USA who have both small and good-sized SMEs and even slightly bigger in 1 or 2 cases, whose business interests are likely to be better served by Trump, whereas I think a Harris admin would tip America into socialism; and also be substantially more socially liberal on some matters than I would be comfortable with.

    I can understand why other posters on here would like what I describe re Harris and want her in for the same reasons as well as because they don’t like Trump. That’s easy for me to understand and I respect that, just wish that could be reciprocated.

  14. I especially like his proposals on curbing the Chinese economy, just hope he comes up with a plan to stop inflation sky-rocketing more than necessary.

    You know what won’t stop inflation? Curbing the Chinese economy. Where do you think US consumers get most of their stuff from?

  15. Good to see you showing your full right wing nut job colours BTSays.

    Took a while to flush it out, but here we are.

    Desperation setting in as you begin to realise it’s not the walk up win you expected with Biden leading the show.

    I’m so happy that your friends with SME’s are going to be very upset when Harris and the Democrats win both houses.

    However they will be pleasantly surprised with the booming economy already in place and continuing under the Democrats.

  16. BTSays,
    I fear you’re suffering from the ‘Mussolini made the trains run on time’ syndrome with your support for Trump and your denial of his obvious Authoritarian tendencies.

    Also, the justification you propose for not supporting Kamala Harris, that she isn’t who she says she is is severely discounted by all the former Trump 1st Term Republicans that have come out to support Kamala Harris. I doubt they would have agreed to support and vote for her if they had detected that she had the sort of proclivities and character flaws that you think she is hiding.

    I think you’ve always been for Trump, at least that’s what I picked up on a long time ago, though you kept it in the shade, but now you’ve brought that support out into the light. I guess as a capitalist you just want to make more money and so do your friends. That’s your right. However, money has never meant that much to me and I prefer to see my taxes go to supporting the less well-off in society with programs like Medicare and the NDIS. I guess your SME friends would only see programs like that for what money they could make out of them via privatisation of those services. Such as the Republicans and Donald Trump favour. That is, using services that the state provides to the people as their means to a profitable end. But what you don’t acknowledge is the inherent corruption that ensues. Capitalists take over these services and milk them dry while giving the minimum amount of service to the client, or they charge an exorbitant amount for the service they provide and bill the taxpayer, laughing all the way to the bank.

    Well, as I said, that’s your choice if that’s the sort of thing you want to support and the candidate that will bring that sort of thing, as well as destruction of the environment and ignoring Climate Change, to America.

    Your choice. Not mine. Not in a million years.

  17. Been There

    Thanks, but I’m only going to engage with posters who behave at least semi-decently from now on.

    So I won’t engage with your comments, sorry to disappoint.

  18. BTSays would rather start a global trade war to try and punish China. Hint: it didn’t work last time, not against China per se and that’s why countries got rid of tariffs. It won’t work this time either. Trump is an idiot and is advised by economic populist idiots and contrarians like Peter Navarro and Wilbur Ross.

  19. a r @ #1129 Thursday, October 24th, 2024 – 10:18 pm

    I especially like his proposals on curbing the Chinese economy, just hope he comes up with a plan to stop inflation sky-rocketing more than necessary.

    You know what won’t stop inflation? Curbing the Chinese economy. Where do you think US consumers get most of their stuff from?

    It’s where Trump gets ALL of his stuff from. 😐

  20. I guess your SME friends would only see programs like that for what money they could make out of them via privatisation of those services. Such as the Republicans and Donald Trump favour. That is, using services that the state provides to the people as their means to a profitable end. But what you don’t acknowledge is the inherent corruption that ensues. Capitalists take over these services and milk them dry while giving the minimum amount of service to the client, or they charge an exorbitant amount for the service they provide and bill the taxpayer, laughing all the way to the bank.

    ———————-

    Cases in point – Qantas, Commonwealth Bank, Telstra. Remind me what party privatised those?

  21. BTSays @ #1128 Thursday, October 24th, 2024 – 9:24 pm

    a r 10.18

    Precisely why I said what I did re inflation in the China context.

    Yes, I misread. I thought it said you liked Trump’s China plans and his plans to deal with inflation. My bad.

    Though also, you can be sure Trump has no plan to deal with the inflation, nor the mental capacity needed to come up with one. His faculties have collapsed. Were never particularly flash to begin with (got by on populist demagoguery, hating on the right things, and getting lucky with an unpopular and complacent first opponent).

  22. BTSays @ #1121 Thursday, October 24th, 2024 – 9:19 pm

    C@tmomma

    “Look, people can support Trump, I don’t the feck care, but what I do care about is when people charge in and spend their time denigrating and abusing those of us who support Kamala Harris. ”

    That’s supremely rich, when mostly people who don’t overtly support Harris on here aren’t doing anything of the sort and those who do support Harris are the ones denigrating and abusing those they think support Trump to a scale of 100:1 compared to the other way. How blind can people be to their own nastiness? This site has been a cess pit this morning, mostly against both Trump and FUBAR. I think some of FUBAR’s comments can be quite silly, but so what?

    Who cares what you think about Trump? Or Harris. Or Albanese. Or any politician.

    Dealing in utter nastiness and vile comments to anyone who doesn’t pass the purity test on Trump is inexcusable and disgusting, can’t you keep this for X/Twitter? Do you talk like that to family members you disagree with? Must be nice family get togethers if so. . .

    “Dude, he and his nastiness outweighs the rest of us put together! It’s his schtick. Trying constantly to own the libs by being nasty and condescending.”

    How do you have the brass face to say this and actually believe it? Sanctimonious doesn’t even begin to describe it.

    You are full of absolute self-serving crap. Obviously you are ignoring paulA’s abuse of Stooge last night and Bellweather and anyone who, like you, doesn’t support Donald Trump. Like me.

    So, you can turn up late every night here as you tour around the world, but that doesn’t automatically give you the right to pontificate the way you do. Especially when you’re just plain wrong. So I think I’ll take a leaf out of your book and not bother replying to someone as unreasonable as you.

    Oh, and I talk to my family, even though they are spaced all around this nation and the world every day. Thanks for asking.

  23. C@tmomma

    Some of what you say is unfounded. Still:

    “your support for Trump and your denial of his obvious Authoritarian tendencies.” – where do you get this from?

    Re capitalism / personal gain etc, that’s a fair observation and I agree that that’s what my post suggests.

    However, I am happy to confirm that I am very socialist when it comes to caring for the poor and needy, especially those disabled. My solutions might be different to yours, and I would harness capitalism to fund those solutions were it in my power to do so.

    I am also a strong believer in much higher minimum wages than anyone offers thus far. Businesses that would go broke over it have underlying bigger problems that mean they are not getting ahead, frankly, and a paradigm shift on this is needed.

    Likewise, pay pensioners properly – so many are on the breadline and most of what they are paid goes straight back into the economy anyway, partly for that reason.

    I think one must remain tough on crime – law and order has to be a ‘given’ – but I would strongly support and fund proven rehabilitation programmes, especially for youth.

    So I don’t really fit a mould. People love simplistic pigeon-holing on this site, but it doesn’t work that well with real people.

  24. Stinker @ #1137 Thursday, October 24th, 2024 – 10:34 pm

    I guess your SME friends would only see programs like that for what money they could make out of them via privatisation of those services. Such as the Republicans and Donald Trump favour. That is, using services that the state provides to the people as their means to a profitable end. But what you don’t acknowledge is the inherent corruption that ensues. Capitalists take over these services and milk them dry while giving the minimum amount of service to the client, or they charge an exorbitant amount for the service they provide and bill the taxpayer, laughing all the way to the bank.

    ———————-

    Cases in point – Qantas, Commonwealth Bank, Telstra. Remind me what party privatised those?

    Are you kidding me? I was talking about social services and you come up with businesses that the government of the day wanted to get out of. Anyway, I know which party abused privatisation on behalf of their mates and did it by stealth to any service they had purview over.

  25. C@tmomma 10.37

    Nice. Just when I was engaging with you too.

    More completely unfounded accusations and insults based on jumping to conclusions (and a pre-conceived fixation that you cannot be in the wrong, therefore you don’t even consider my – admittedly strong-worded, but non-abusive – appeal to you).

    I’m not here to pick on every poster, paulA or whoever (yes he’s provocative sometimes, and does to the leftie posters what they do to others, even then not quite as badly or as often as any neutral observer would surely testify), why should I?
    It was the blatant hypocrisy of your remarks I picked on.

    Touring the world?? – I’ve not stepped outside of the UK for years! (though ironically I will be for all of the 1st half of November and far too busy to do bludging)

  26. BTSays @ #1139 Thursday, October 24th, 2024 – 10:40 pm

    C@tmomma

    Some of what you say is unfounded. Still:

    “your support for Trump and your denial of his obvious Authoritarian tendencies.” – where do you get this from?

    Re capitalism / personal gain etc, that’s a fair observation and I agree that that’s what my post suggests.

    However, I am happy to confirm that I am very socialist when it comes to caring for the poor and needy, especially those disabled. My solutions might be different to yours, and I would harness capitalism to fund those solutions were it in my power to do so.

    I am also a strong believer in much higher minimum wages than anyone offers thus far. Businesses that would go broke over it have underlying bigger problems that mean they are not getting ahead, frankly, and a paradigm shift on this is needed.

    Likewise, pay pensioners properly – so many are on the breadline and most of what they are paid goes straight back into the economy anyway, partly for that reason.

    I think one must remain tough on crime – law and order has to be a ‘given’ – but I would strongly support and fund proven rehabilitation programmes, especially for youth.

    So I don’t really fit a mould. People love simplistic pigeon-holing on this site, but it doesn’t work that well with real people.

    And the sort of pigeon-holing you are also engaging in doesn’t describe me at all. I’ve successfully run a small business or two in my time and I’m not a socialist for that reason. I’m a social democrat. So I don’t believe that the government should own the means of production and that’s why I was fine with Hawke/Keating selling off Telecom, the Commonwealth Bank and QANTAS. However, I don’t go as far as full privatisation of social services. I believe that the government should have Aged Care, Disability Care and Job Services and Welfare Payments under government control, but with private providers able to sub contract to the government so that the outrageous rip-offs that have been uncovered within the NDIS don’t occur, for example. Same with Aged Care, as the Royal Commission exposed.

    I also agree that any sort of Welfare Payment should be in line with the Poverty Line. However, as most of the money is spent on food, clothing and shelter, there also needs to be controls over the companies that provide those things to the consumers, as the ACCC and the government is showing are necessary now wrt Coles and Woolworths. Which is another reason I don’t support Trump. He’s all for ripping off consumers. It has been his life’s work. In the political game for what he can get out of it.

    In the end it comes down to character. Donald Trump’s character is malign, malignant and malevolent. All things Kamala Harris isn’t.

  27. Vlad

    It’s the refusal by the dominant set of posters on this thread to countenance an alternative opinion to theirs, even when expressed in a mild way, and insistence on grievously insulting those who do (all whilst denying/oblivious that that’s what they’re doing), that grates with me.

    Maybe I live in a cocoon (twitter and FB not for me) but I’ve never come across anything like it. It’s only the glimpses of psephology that has kept me addicted, but I’ve increasingly questioned my sanity for it.

  28. BTSayssays:
    Thursday, October 24, 2024 at 10:27 pm
    Been There

    Thanks, but I’m only going to engage with posters who behave at least semi-decently from now on.

    So I won’t engage with your comments, sorry to disappoint.

    Your choice, but it doesn’t mean I’m not going to stop highlighting your Trumpism disguised as psephology!

    Not engaging means you have no argument to present.

  29. C@tmomma

    “And the sort of pigeon-holing you are also engaging in doesn’t describe me at all.”

    What pigeon-holing?

    Apologies if I slipped into that, I don’t recall it.

  30. BTSays @ #1146 Thursday, October 24th, 2024 – 10:56 pm

    Vlad

    It’s the refusal by the dominant set of posters on this thread to countenance an alternative opinion to theirs, even when expressed in a mild way, and insistence on grievously insulting those who do (all whilst denying/oblivious that that’s what they’re doing), that grates with me.

    Maybe I live in a cocoon (twitter and FB not for me) but I’ve never come across anything like it. It’s only the glimpses of psephology that has kept me addicted, but I’ve increasingly questioned my sanity for it.

    I’ve replied to your post in a calm and measured way by laying out my perspective @10.53pm. Obviously you were too busy agreeing with someone who called me ‘it’ to notice. I also note that that didn’t seem to bother you.

  31. BTSays @ #1149 Thursday, October 24th, 2024 – 10:59 pm

    C@tmomma

    “And the sort of pigeon-holing you are also engaging in doesn’t describe me at all.”

    What pigeon-holing?

    Apologies if I slipped into that, I don’t recall it.

    Your comment was addressed to me and you wrote:

    People love simplistic pigeon-holing on this site

    As the attacks from yourself and others have been directed at me and your comments to me have been declamatory I simply assumed that was another one.

  32. BT says,
    Just stick to the main thread, or the measured discussion on the QLD thread.
    The U.S. thread has turned into troll park.
    It is very highly strung, as you have noticed.
    Meher, if you are reading too, stick around please.

  33. Looks like we need some actual polling……

    The Psephology has been replaced with scatology.

    Did I accidentally log on to the main thread?

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