US presidential election minus seven days

Donald Trump has a slight edge in the Electoral College, according to forecast models. Also covered: three Canadian provincial elections and electoral events in Japan, Moldova and Georgia.

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 next Tuesday, with results on Wednesday AEDT. In Nate Silver’s aggregate of national polls, Kamala Harris has a 48.5-47.6 lead over Donald Trump (48.6-47.4 in my US election article for The Conversation on Monday). Harris’ national lead peaked on October 2, when she led by 49.4–45.9.

In presidential elections, the Electoral College is decisive, not the national popular vote. Trump leads by 0.5 points in Pennsylvania (19 electoral votes), after Harris had led there until last week. With slightly larger leads in North Carolina (16), Georgia (16) and Arizona (11), Trump leads in the Electoral College by 281-251 with Nevada’s six tied. If Harris wins Pennsylvania, she most likely wins the Electoral College, although she only leads by 0.3 points in Wisconsin (ten). Silver’s model gives Trump a 55% chance to win, while FiveThirtyEight gives him a 53% chance.

I will have an article for The Conversation tomorrow that also looks at the congressional races. On Monday, my final pre-election article for The Conversation will give poll closing times for next Wednesday. I will do a live blog here that day.

Update Thursday 12:38pm Today’s US election article for The Conversation says Trump’s edge in Pennsylvania could give him the Electoral College win, and also that Biden is a drag on Harris. Congressional elections appear to be trending to the Republicans.

Canadian provincial elections

From October 19 to Monday, there have been elections in the Canadian provinces of British Columbia (BC), New Brunswick (NB) and Saskatchewan. All these elections were held using first past the post.

At the October 19 BC election, the left-wing New Democratic Party (NDP) won 47 of the 93 seats (down ten since 2020), the Conservatives 44 and the Greens two (steady). The NDP retained government for a third successive term. Vote shares were 44.8% NDP (down 2.9%), 43.3% Conservatives (up 41.4%) and 8.2% Greens (down 6.8%).

The main BC conservative party used to be the BC Liberals, who are not part of the centre-left federal Liberals. But the BC Liberals were supplanted by the Conservatives during the last term, and didn’t contest any seats under their new BC United name.

At the October 21 NB election, the centre-left Liberals defeated a Conservative government, winning 31 of the 49 seats (up 14 since 2020), the Conservatives 16 (down 11) and the Greens two (down one). Vote shares were 48.2% Liberals (up 13.9%), 35.0% Conservatives (down 4.3%) and 13.8% Greens (down 1.5%).

At Monday’s Saskatchewan election, the conservative Saskatchewan Party (SP) won a fifth successive term with 35 of the 61 seats (down 13 since 2020) to 26 for the NDP (up 13). Vote shares were 52.9% SP (down 8.2%) and 39.4% NDP (up 7.6%). Postal votes are still to be counted, but the SP has definitely won 32 seats. Late polls that gave the NDP a narrow lead were wrong.

Update Thursday 12:38pm With most postals counted, the SP wins by 34 seats to 27 for the NDP from vote shares of 52.4-40.1.

LDP-led coalition loses majority in Japan

Of the 465 lower house Japanese seats, 289 are elected by FPTP and the remaining 176 using proportional representation in multi-member electorates. The conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) with its Komeito allies have governed almost continuously since 1955, with the last interruption after the 2009 election.

At Sunday’s election, the LDP won 191 seats (down 69 since 2021) and Komeito 24 (down eight). For the first time since 2009, the LDP and Komeito were short of the 233 seats needed for a majority. The centre-left Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) won 148 seats (up 52). Two other conservative parties won 38 and 28 seats, so the LDP, Komeito and one of these parties will be enough for the LDP to reach a majority and stay in power.  The LDP won the FPTP seats by 132-104 over the CDP on vote shares of 38.5-29.0.

Moldova and Georgia

A referendum on joining the European Union was held in Moldova on October 20. The Yes case prevailed by just a 50.35-49.65 margin after No had led until near the end of the count. This referendum was only a first step towards Moldova joining the EU.

Georgia (the country) used national PR with a 5% threshold to elect its 150 seats. At Saturday’s election, the pro-Russia and autocratic Georgian Dream retained government for a fourth successive term, winning 89 of the 150 seats on 53.9% of the vote (up 5.7% since 2020). No other party won more than 11%. This election was marred by reports of ballot rigging and voter intimidation.

2,095 comments on “US presidential election minus seven days”

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  1. Voting Trends guy has a new video. I’m aware a few here dont like his modeling, however I find the way he presents info useful.

    Main take away, as usual Pennsylvania is the key and it’s too close to call. Only 25% will early vote due to their rules, Dems have a slight lead in registered voters lodging a ballot. Still will come down to election day turnout to determine the outcome.

    Based on Pennsylvania, all the other states dont count if they go the way they are trending.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SbNppmO0tQ

  3. Man Of Great Integrity Bezos would have definitely pulled the rug out from under a Trump endorsement had that been the editorial viewpoint. Wouldn’t he???

  4. FUBAR @ #401 Thursday, October 31st, 2024 – 5:52 pm

    Henry says:
    Thursday, October 31, 2024 at 8:36 pm

    You may not care about female elite athletes, but plenty do. Imagine being a young girl who misses out on an Athletics scholarship to a prestigious University because you were beaten by a male. Imagine being a soccer player who suffers a major knee injury due to a tackle by a male player and miss out on opportunities. And that’s without addressing the issues of fairness or chamgerooms.

    You would have to imagine it because evidence of it actually happening anywhere is very scarce.

  5. Dishonest people cannot be trusted. They are inherently dangerous. For women, these three factors are compelling.

    But Trump said he’s going to protect the women. All of them. Whether they want him to or not.

    Surely that fixes it?

  9. FUBAR says:
    Friday, November 1, 2024 at 10:29 am

    I’m sensitive to gas light. You produce a lot of it. Lemme think…was Clinton ever accused, charged and convicted of sexual assault? Ummm…nah. That was Trump. Yeah, that was the one, the POTUS who likes to grope and then brag about it.

  12. Historic election the first woman president maybe.Not sure mind you better than Hillary.

    Gut feel Trump will barely win or Harris wins clearly.

    Will really regret dumping Biden who beat Trump if Dems lose.

    4 days to go.

  16. Geoffrey Epstein @ #510 Friday, November 1st, 2024 – 12:12 pm

    He put a cigar in a 22 year old subordinates vag at work but in the 90s that was considered cool boss behavior

    And Trump said, “You can grab them by the pussy. They just let you do it.”

    Plus, he was convicted of a serious sexual assault by pinning a woman to the wall of a change room in a department store and digitally molesting her.

    So, your point is? Dem presidents are always worse, whatever they do, because they are Democrats?

  18. Main advertising spends in closing days:
    Dems – populist economic measures that would help the average voter.
    Republicans – transgender fear campaign, you drop little Johnny off at school in the morning, pick him up in the afternoon and his dick and balls have been removed. That’s what Kamala wants. Jeezus F Christ.

  19. pied piper says:
    Friday, November 1, 2024 at 12:13 pm

    Historic election the first woman president …

    The main thing is this: for a very large number of women the right to choose an abortion is an indispensable part of life. Women have every right to control their fertility and their pregnancies. By stacking the Supreme Court Trump and the Republicans have already deprived American women of the legal protections formerly conferred. Trump, MAGA and the utterly depraved Christian machine will take this a whole lot further given the chance. They will criminalise abortion everywhere. This would be really outrageous. Women in America are voting to protect their vital personal rights. They will succeed by acting together in this election. More power to them.

  21. sprocket_:

    Friday, November 1, 2024 at 9:14 am

    [‘Epstein hanging the hat on NYTimes polling averages

    Reminder, on the day of the 2016 election NYTimes had Hilary Clinton as a 92% of winning’]

    Are not New York Times/Siena College polls highly rated by 538’s pollster ratings?

  24. Desperate whataboutism to equate Clinton with Trump.

    Clinton was, and is, sane. He was not, and is not, demented. Clinton is not a convicted felon. Clinton is not a malignant narcissist. Clinton had coherent policies. Clinton could make a rational argument. Clinton did not routinely abuse anybody and everybody. Clinton did not make weird comments about Hannibal Lecter. Clinton is not and was not bought and paid for by the Russians. Clinton supported US democracy and US democratic institutions.

    Was he perfect? Hell no. Is Trump anywhere near even vaguely in the same league as Clinton? Hell no.

  26. As I’ve outlined a number of times in this thread previously, there’s evidence to indicate significant herding of polls in PA towards tight outcome. Even if the reality is a very close race, natural variation means we should have seen a lot more 52/48 and 48/52 results than we have done (and 53/47 and 47/53 etc).

    I’ve also discussed that the breakdown of party registration of early voting in almost all states correlates with the polling margin, but that Democrats are significantly outperforming in the blue wall, particularly PA.

    To add to this, it looks like good news for the Democrats from the early votes cast amongst people that didn’t vote last time.

    The Democrats are ahead 55k to 32k (16k independent) on this metric.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/early-voting-data-shows-new-voters-group-swing-election-rcna178187

    Now, you could dismiss this as simply being ‘this is mostly 18-21 year olds, we expect them to lean D’.

    But, there are a lot more women voting (early) that didn’t vote last time than men (54k to 46k).

    Same source looks less good for Democrats in Arizona, with them being behind on new enrolments and no gender gap, although there’s more independent registered in Arizona so we can’t be as confident what’s happening there.

    I still maintain that Pa and the blue wall is not looking good for Trump, and his main path to victory lies in a hail mary attempt at Nevada + NE-2

    Edit: source: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/early-voting-data-shows-new-voters-group-swing-election-rcna178187

  27. Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia and more likely than not also Nevada, Arizona and Florida. Texas, Iowa and Ohio are possibles, but less likely. In any case, Harris will easily win. Women will split around 58/42 for Harris. Men will split 46/54. More women than men will vote…and Harris will lead the Democratic ticket to a great win.

    In this breakdown, the decisive cohorts will be nominally Republican-registered or Republican-leaning Independent-registered women who will vote their own personal legal rights and protections ahead of party and ideology.

    This is already happening. The gender breakdowns in early/postal voting show large majorities of women voters in most States. These are highly motivated voters. They are voting to sweep Trump off the table.

  28. Boerwar says Friday, November 1, 2024 at 12:46 pm

    Was he perfect? Hell no. Is Trump anywhere near even vaguely in the same league as Clinton? Hell no.

    If you randomly assembled 1000 Americans, I daresay at least 900 of them would make a better president than Trump. Even in his own immediate family, and for all their faults, he wouldn’t be near the top of the list.

  29. So, your point is? Dem presidents are always worse, whatever they do, because they are Democrats?

    No.

    Just reflecting on how the Lewinsky thing would have gone down if it had happened in the #metoo era.

    The grab em pussy thing would have been the end of Trump if he had been running against anyone except the Clintons.

  33. Omar Comin’ says:
    Friday, November 1, 2024 at 1:10 pm

    Cheers, Omar. Likewise, I’m pleased to report. I will continue…no repose for the time being.

  34. Trump; I will protect women whether they like it or not

    Walz: Women are going to vote in this election and send a message to Trump whether he likes it or not.

    Once Bill Maher once responded to something stupid Trump said: You can hear a loud thud across the country. It is sound of palms of people hitting their foreheads.

  36. Pennsylvania will have a ceiling on early voting, around 25% (apparently), due to election rules on eligibility for early voting. It means that any early Dem lead can easily be swamped by election day voting. That is why it is lower than the other swing states currently, less than 15% whilst others are getting upwards of 50%.

  37. This election could best be described as a battle of the sexes, and given that women are more likely to vote and in greater numbers than men, my pick from the outset has been Harris. From a sporting perspective, I’m reminded of this:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9zu7g2fjf0

    Riggs bore characteristics similar to Trump: hustler & showman. There were rumours that Riggs won a heap by backing King.

  38. Ven says Friday, November 1, 2024 at 1:19 pm

    Early voting in Montana
    As of 31st October
    Number of votes: 339 thousands
    Women: 47%
    Men: 45%
    Unknown: 8%

    That’s almost half of Montana’s registered voters (789313*), so that’s pretty impressive.

    * Source: https://sosmt.gov/elections/regvotercounty/

    Edit: Montana’s counties include Big Horn and Custer, as well as Flathead.

  39. IIRC, I’m not defending Bill Clinton’s actions with Monica Lewinski mostly on the grounds of it being both morally dubious and un-Presidential behaviour. She was young, there was a power imbalance for sure but wasn’t she a willing participant at the time whereas E Jean Carroll was an unwilling victim of sexual assault?

  41. @Mostly Interested – Pennsylvania’s rules also only allow postal votes, not prepoll booth. Presumably this is why 65+ year olds are over represented in PA early voting (52% of all votes compared to 44% nationally.

    And yet, despite it being mostly old people voting, it’s still D+26 according to party registration of voter for total early votes. Because even amongst people 65+, the party registration result is D+23.

    https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/31/trump-lagging-early-votes-seniors-pennsylvania-00186612

    Late arriving postals tend to be younger than early arriving by ones. So we might see the average age of an early voter decrease, but then we’d also expect the D+26 lead to increase further.

    Trump is going to go into early voting hugely behind, with a quarter of the votes already cast, and the cohort that remains being relatively young.

  42. Trump needs this group to turn out. So far, they haven’t

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/10/31/2281376/-Trump-needs-this-group-to-turn-out-So-far-they-haven-t?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_1&pm_medium=web

    “Republicans’ sole growth opportunity is young men—the worst-performing voting demographic.

    And so far, they’re not performing any better this year.

    As of early Thursday morning, roughly 13.5 million have voted already in the battleground states, according to data firm TargetSmart, which works with Democratic candidates. Of those, the gender breakdown is 54% women and 44% men, with the rest unknown. That’s a great sign for Democrats since women lean left.

    Of that number, 8.9% of early voters in battlegrounds are 18- to 29-year-olds. It makes sense that younger voters are more likely to be underrepresented in the early vote since older, busier people and/or those with health issues will be more motivated to vote early or by mail. For context, in 2020, 18- to 29-year-olds were about 17% of the electorate, according to exit polls

    Of those early-voting 18- to 29-year-olds, women were ahead 52-43, with the rest unknown
    “

  43. ”
    Omar Comin’says:
    Friday, November 1, 2024 at 1:56 pm
    bc, Ven

    you’d think “gender unknown” would break pretty heavily for Democrats wouldn’t you
    ”

    Yeah! You could be correct Omar.
    With 80% of Republican party Ads attacking Transgenders, the Unknowns are either cowering under bed or voting against them.

  44. Depends if it’s self-reported as “Unknown/Other” or a more general “screw you, I’m not answering your questions” kind of “unknown”. The latter would be Trumpy.

  45. ”
    Voice Endeavoursays:
    Friday, November 1, 2024 at 1:57 pm
    @Mostly Interested – Pennsylvania’s rules also only allow postal votes, not prepoll booth. Presumably this is why 65+ year olds are over represented in PA early voting (52% of all votes compared to 44% nationally.

    And yet, despite it being mostly old people voting, it’s still D+26 according to party registration of voter for total early votes. Because even amongst people 65+, the party registration result is D+23.

    https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/31/trump-lagging-early-votes-seniors-pennsylvania-00186612
    ”

    BE and Omar
    As of 31st October
    PA early voting number: 1.626 million
    Out of which 52% are over 65+ voters and Democrats lead by 26% over Republicans.

    Either the pollsters are bullshitting on industrial scale with their polls or they are herding to be on safe side with Trump like Bezos did.

  46. I heard the mood in the Democrat camp is ‘nauseously optimistic’. The mood in the Republican camp is ‘aggressively confident’ as you’d expect when any expressed anxiety is considered cuckish.

  47. ”
    a rsays:
    Friday, November 1, 2024 at 2:21 pm
    Depends if it’s self-reported as “Unknown/Other” or a more general “screw you, I’m not answering your questions” kind of “unknown”. The latter would be Trumpy.
    ”

    The Trumpys of ‘Unknowns’ will be insignificant minority because Trumpys are very proud to show off their gender.

  50. One more, then I’ll shut up about Pennsylvania for a few hours maybe.

    Basically, there’s four opportunities for polls to get it wrong:

    1) they can sample randomly and be unlucky – that’s mostly fixed by poll aggregators.

    2) they can apply weightings to skew their polled registered voters to match what they think registered voters should look like.

    3) they can incorrectly apply weights to skew what registered voters are likely to vote.

    4) Poll aggregators can incorrectly weight or adjust the polls based on the aggregator’s views.

    5) Shy Whoever effect as well I guess

    It looks like Pollsters are weighting the declared 7 swing states as if they expect turnout amongst registered voters to benefit Trump compared to if all RV voted. When moving from RV to LV, this gives Trump 3-5 percentage point boost in PA,
    1-2 in Wi.
    NC benefits Trump by 1-2.
    Michigan benefits Harris by 2
    Arizona benefits Trump around 1.
    Nevada benefits Trump by 1.
    Georgia benefits Trump by 1.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election_in_Pennsylvania#Polling
    (All other links are the same format as Pa)

    Whereas if you look at the seats that are close, but not dubbed swing states by the media, there’s no difference between RV and LV. Check Ohio, Florida, Texas, Virginia.

    I can’t demonstrate that their assumption is wrong. But it looks fishy to me. If the voters in the 7 key states reflect the makeup of the RV, this is worth 1-2 points to Harris in most of them, and more in Pa.

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