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. The MSG hate rally fallout continues. Nicky Jam renounces his earlier support for Trump because of the race hate.

    This is now day 4 of the media cycle still focusing in this. Day 4 with 6 days left until election day.

  2. Arnold@Schwarzenegger
    ·
    5h
    I don’t really do endorsements. I’m not shy about sharing my views, but I hate politics and don’t trust most politicians.

    I also understand that people want to hear from me because I am not just a celebrity, I am a former Republican Governor.

    My time as Governor taught me to love policy and ignore politics. I’m proud of the work I did to help clean up our air, create jobs, balance the budget, make the biggest infrastructure investment in state history, and take power from the politicians and give it back to the people when it comes to our redistricting process and our primaries in California.

    That’s policy. It requires working with the other side, not insulting them to win your next election, and I know it isn’t sexy to most people, but I love it when I can help make people’s lives better with policies, like I still do through my institute at USC, where we fight for clean air and stripping the power from the politicians who rig the system against the people.

    Let me be honest with you: I don’t like either party right now. My Republicans have forgotten the beauty of the free market, driven up deficits, and rejected election results. Democrats aren’t any better at dealing with deficits, and I worry about their local policies hurting our cities with increased crime.

    It is probably not a surprise that I hate politics more than ever, which, if you are a normal person who isn’t addicted to this crap, you probably understand.

    I want to tune out.

    But I can’t. Because rejecting the results of an election is as un-American as it gets. To someone like me who talks to people all over the world and still knows America is the shining city on a hill, calling America is a trash can for the world is so unpatriotic, it makes me furious.

    And I will always be an American before I am a Republican.

    That’s why, this week, I am voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

    I’m sharing it with all of you because I think there are a lot of you who feel like I do. You don’t recognize our country. And you are right to be furious.

    For decades, we’ve talked about the national debt. For decades, we’ve talked about comprehensive immigration reform that secures the border while fixing our broken immigration system. And Washington does nothing.

    The problems just keep rolling, and we all keep getting angrier, because the only people that benefit from problems aren’t you, the people. The only people that benefit from this crap are the politicians who prefer having talking points to win elections to the public service that will make Americans’ lives better.

    It is a just game to them. But it is life for my fellow Americans. We should be pissed!

    But a candidate who won’t respect your vote unless it is for him, a candidate who will send his followers to storm the Capitol while he watches with a Diet Coke, a candidate who has shown no ability to work to pass any policy besides a tax cut that helped his donors and other rich people like me but helped no one else else, a candidate who thinks Americans who disagree with him are the bigger enemies than China, Russia, or North Korea – that won’t solve our problems.

    It will just be four more years of bullshit with no results that makes us angrier and angrier, more divided, and more hateful.

    We need to close the door on this chapter of American history, and I know that former President Trump won’t do that. He will divide, he will insult, he will find new ways to be more un-American than he already has been, and we, the people, will get nothing but more anger.

    That’s enough reason for me to share my vote with all of you. I want to move forward as a country, and even though I have plenty of disagreements with their platform, I think the only way to do that is with Harris and Walz.

    Vote this week. Turn the page and put this junk behind us.

    And even if you disagree with me, vote, because that’s what we do as Americans. http://vote.org

    https://x.com/Schwarzenegger/status/1851627802027758005

  3. One theory about the little secret Trump has with Johnson that he mentioned at his hate rally. Am I the only one who thinks Merrick Garland is the worst possible AG they could have in an election like this one?

    Most educated guesses assume that Trump and Johnson are “secretly” talking about installing Trump as president through a “contingent election,” whereby the House of Representatives, not the Electoral College, determines the president. I think the plot goes deeper than that, but let’s start with the contingent election idea.

    To understand how this could work, you have to understand the 12th Amendment of the Constitution. Here’s the key language: “The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote[.]”

    This is what people are talking about when they mention a contingent election. What the amendment means is that, if no candidate wins a majority of the Electoral College, the House gets to decide who the president is. The key here is that the process is based not on a vote of the full House but a vote of House delegations, with each state getting an equal vote. Currently, Republicans control 26 of the 50 House delegations, meaning they could hand Trump the presidency in a contingent election scenario.

    Current Issue
    Cover of November 2024 Issue
    November 2024 Issue
    That would be a neat trick for Trump, but I don’t think the Republican plan even requires them to get to a contingent election where the House chooses the president. I think the plan is to steal the Electoral College outright by getting states Trump loses to refuse to certify the results of their election. That’s because the 12th Amendment provides that the president is the person who wins the majority of the “whole number of Electors appointed.” That “whole number” is supposed to be 538. But one potential reading of the amendment is that Trump doesn’t have to win 270 Electoral College votes but just a majority of however many electors show up. Trump’s goal, I believe, is to decrease the number of electors appointed until he wins.

    This reading is untested. Nobody has yet tried to win an election with fewer than a majority of the Electoral College votes by decreasing the overall number of electors appointed after the election. But it’s an argument the Trump team could put forward, and it’s an argument Democratic lawyers and experts are preparing for.

    https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/little-secret-trump-johnson-election/

  4. Badthinker says:
    Wednesday, October 30, 2024 at 9:05 pm
    Well, Harrisneros, you can have it either ways.

    Perhaps Biden called all Trump voters garbage, perhaps he singled out one person and used the MSM to attack the guy, potentially putting the guy’s life in danger.

    ———————————————————————————————

    Well the bloke will know better, won’t he. What he said wasn’t funny but he thought he was safe in a venue surround by like minded people. The goose forgot this was being televised nationally. What a dick!

    And I believe he tried the same joke in a comedy club the night before and all he got was groans from the audience, that should have been a warning.

    But hey once an idiot, always an idiot.

  5. ‘Fess,
    You need different qualities to be a Supreme Court Judge (well you used to) to those required to be the Attorney General. Merrick Garland was right for one but not the other.

    You know who I reckon Kamala Harris should pick for AG, if she wins? Jack Smith. 🙂

  6. List of exit polls so far of those who already voted ️

    ABC/Ipsos: Harris 62-33
    CNN Poll: Harris 61-36
    NYT/Siena: Harris 58-40
    HarrisX poll: Harris 61-32
    USAToday/Suffolk: Harris 63-34

  7. NEW CNN/SSRS poll of likely voters

    Michigan      
    Harris 48%
    Trump 43%

    Wisconsin     
    Harris 51%     
    Trump 45%

    Pennsylvania  
    Harris 48% 
    Trump 48%

  8. You know who I reckon Kamala Harris should pick for AG, if she wins? Jack Smith.

    He’d certainly make Republican heads explode!

  9. I think we all know Trump will claim victory early in the count on Tuesday night, that will be straight out of his 2020 playbook.
    Undeniable too that Putin bankrolls the Republican Party and has Trump firmly in his pocket.
    Thank goodness we are not America – our voting and elections are far fairer and far better regulated.
    I recommend Morning Joe on MSNBC to those of an anti-Trump persuasion. Today they canvassed the very subject of election boards being stacked with pro-Trump surrogates.

  10. 538 forecast model now Trump 51 Harris 49, I think it was 55 45 last weekend. Aggregated polls aren’t great at showing where the race stands today, there’s an inbuilt lag. But they do identify trends and the trend is your friend. Maybe the MSG rally was too salty, pun intended, for the independants, undecided and wavering Republican voters.

  11. I’m so glad that Joe Biden isn’t the candidate for the Democrats any more.

    True C@tmomma, but we have to be thankful for Joe too, he showed up to work every day and did his job and didn’t cry like a pathetic loser on twitter 24/7.

  12. “sprocket_says:
    Thursday, October 31, 2024 at 7:23 am
    List of exit polls so far of those who already voted ️

    ABC/Ipsos: Harris 62-33
    CNN Poll: Harris 61-36
    NYT/Siena: Harris 58-40
    HarrisX poll: Harris 61-32
    USAToday/Suffolk: Harris 63-34

    Noble Predictive Insights: Harris 60-38

  13. Elon Musk didn’t think twice about wasting $44b on boning Twitter.

    A few billion to influence by whatever means the election is just chump change found at the back of JD Vance’s couch.

  14. CNN
    Those who say they have already cast ballots are included in each poll’s group of likely voters, and across all three states they break heavily in Harris’ favor.

    MICHIGAN

    Harris 61% Trump 35%

    WISCONSIN

    Harris 60% Trump 38%

    PENNSYLVANIA

    Harris 57% Trump 40%

  15. Both candidates were in NC earlier..

    Local North Carolina media reports that Kamala Harris filled up a 20,000 seat venue, while Trump drew 4,000 for his event.

  16. Omar Comin’ @ #167 Thursday, October 31st, 2024 – 7:42 am

    I’m so glad that Joe Biden isn’t the candidate for the Democrats any more.

    True C@tmomma, but we have to be thankful for Joe too, he showed up to work every day and did his job and didn’t cry like a pathetic loser on twitter 24/7.

    But we are in campaign mode now and it’s for an election which will decide who gets to do the business for the next 4 years. 🙂

  17. sprocket_
    Do we have to go into what’s lurking beneath the cushions on JD Vance’s couch? Some of us haven’t eaten breakfast yet.

  18. Bellwether @ #166 Thursday, October 31st, 2024 – 7:34 am

    538 forecast model now Trump 51 Harris 49, I think it was 55 45 last weekend. Aggregated polls aren’t great at showing where the race stands today, there’s an inbuilt lag. But they do identify trends and the trend is your friend. Maybe the MSG rally was too salty, pun intended, for the independants, undecided and wavering Republican voters.

    I just listened to the Substack conversation between Sarah Longwell and Dan Pfeiffer and they made the point that the late-breaking deciders generally go for the person who has the better favourability rating. That is the candidate who they like the most. It seems like a simplistic paradigm but it’s a definite thing that has been quantified.

  19. C@tmomma, Sprocket, Omar and others
    On polls and more

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/10/30/2280922/-On-polls-and-more?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

    From Josh Clinton from Vanderbilt U, a poli sci professor & co-director of their polling institute
    “After poll data are collected, pollsters must assess whether they need to adjust or “weight” the data to address the very real possibility that the people who took the poll differ from those who did not. This involves answering four questions:

    1. Do respondents match the electorate demographically in terms of sex, age, education, race, etc.? (This was a problem in 2016.)

    2. Do respondents match the electorate politically after the sample is adjusted by demographic factors? (This was the problem in 2020.)

    3. Which respondents will vote?

    4. Should the pollster trust the data?”

    Then, he gives examples of how things can change depending upon how you answer these questions, where the results can be margins for Harris ranging from 9% down to 1%.

    “the gender differentiation in 2020 and in 2022. In 2020 the actual votes Women 52% and men 48%. In 2016 election 63.3% of women turned out and 59.3% of men, and in 2020 68.4% of women resgistered voters turned out versus 65% of males. In the 2020 census 50.9% of population was female, and 49.1 was male. The older the age cohort, the more women within that cohort. In 2022 64% of women voted versus 58% of men. ”

    “as of 9:38 PM on Oct 29, a total of 53,460,802 folks had already voted either by absentees received or in person voting (btw, this equals about 1/3 of the total vote in 2020), of which the gender breakout was Female 54.1% while male was 43.9%, or a margin of 10.2%.”

    My analysis:
    In 2020, the actual votes Women 52% and men 48%.
    With 1/3 votes cast as of 29th October, the actual votes Women 54.1% and men 43.9%.

  20. Now here’s a turn up in the respected aggregator The Economist – a 6 point point shift towards Harris in key swing states..

    The most influential polls yesterday were concentrated in four states: Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In those states, Ms Harris’s forecasted vote share rose by an average of 0.4 percentage points (see chart)—a small move that was nonetheless sufficient to increase her chance of victory by an average of six percentage points across the four.

    On the surface, the new polls did not look unusually good for Ms Harris. Most showed results that were close to a tie. However, the firms that released surveys yesterday—particularly AtlasIntel, Quantus and Trafalgar—have tended to give Donald Trump better numbers this year than have other pollsters who surveyed the same races at similar times. Our model shifts all poll results to counteract such biases. And on average, these adjustments nudged vote margins in yesterday’s swing-state polls around half a percentage point in Ms Harris’s direction.
    …..

    The other main source of uncertainty in our model, aside from polling errors, is the time remaining until the election. The forecast works by estimating the candidates’ current positions with the available data, and then simulating movement that could occur each day until November 5th. With just six remaining, there is little movement left to make.
    The effect on our forecasted probabilities is counterintuitive. There are few opportunities for big changes in public opinion, meaning polls published now have greater weight. As a result, the forecasted probabilities may change more substantially from day to day than they would earlier in the cycle. The slight movement in Ms Harris’s favour today is harder to reverse in the next six days than it would have been a month ago.

    https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/10/30/why-kamala-harriss-chances-of-victory-just-jumped

  21. James Carville just made a very good point. If you look at how many people, 250000 at last count, cancelled their Washington P{ost subscriptions in the wake of Jeff Bezos putting his thumb on the scale for Trump, then that gives you a very clear indication of the energy in the campaign. That people will go through the rigmarole of going to their WaPo account page and going through the process to cancel tells you something insightful.

  22. Continuing from 8:08 am
    Gender gap in 2020: +4 women
    Gender gap as of now in 2024: 10.2%

    One consistent theme of any poll, which gives gender break down.
    Trump has substantial lead amongst men
    However, Harris has substantial lead amongst women. And as of now gender gap is +10.2% women.

  23. Fellow folks of this fine forum, please convince me that Trump isn’t going to win.

    I currently feel like that short of himself completely screwing things up in the next few days (very possible) then it’s looking like a win for him.

    Sending Richie Torres to Michigan is probably the most braindead move I have seen from a political party in a very long time

    I just hope the likely voters pull through on this one.

  24. lol FUBAR, isn’t it funny that the party of Reagan sold out democracy and jumped in bed with Russians because Ukraine wouldn’t provide fake dirt on Hunter Biden…what a bunch of losers.

  25. Nevada is looking promising. It was said today by Sarah Longwell that Non College Educated Nevada Women would heavily vote on abortion according to her focus groups there.

  26. FUBAR doing the dumbcluck hot take. Hmm, maybe the ‘leak’ occurred to send a message to Putin? I’ll see your North Korea and their troops and raise it with the most lethal weaponry below a nuclear bomb, in the world.

  27. Probably neither here nor there, but Dick Togs’ response to JB’s garbage supporters comment was to say that his supporters are much higher quality than KH’s. Sounds like Dick Togs thinks KHs supporters are garbage too :/

  28. There was late breaking poll movement in 2016 and 2020, made upwards of 2-3% different in the outcome that the polling didn’t catch. Both went Trumps way. Doesn’t mean it will happen again, but the late breaking polling move is certainly a thing to keep an eye on.

    Edit: it happened in the last week before the election

  29. Presidential Polling:

    Harris (D): 49%
    Trump (R): 47%

    YouGov / Oct 29, 2024 / n=1310

    Presidential Polling:

    Harris (D): 48%
    Trump (R): 47%

    TIPP Insights / Oct 29, 2024 / n=1302

  30. C@tmomma says:
    Thursday, October 31, 2024 at 9:15 am
    FUBAR doing the dumbcluck hot take. Hmm, maybe the ‘leak’ occurred to send a message to Putin? I’ll see your North Korea and their troops and raise it with the most lethal weaponry below a nuclear bomb, in the world.

    The only problem with your comment is the Biden Administration has point blank refused to supply them. They aren’t even letting Ukraine use the British manufactured and supplied Stormshadow in Russia.

  31. Rupert with his thumb on the scale…

    FOX News battleground polls:

    MICHIGAN:
    Harris 49
    Trump 49

    PENNSYLVANIA:
    Trump 50
    Harris 49

    NORTH CAROLINA:
    Trump 50
    Harris 49

  32. It’ll be a miracle if Kamala wins more than two out of the seven swing states. She has alienated too many core Democratic constituencies to have a realistic chance of winning. I hope that Democrats who can’t vote for her but have respectable Democratic options they can vote for in other elections – House, Senate, state legislatures, state governorships- will vote in those other elections to constrain a Trump presidency.

  33. sprocket_ literally, the LV result is the reverse of the RV result:

    Fox Poll

    RV
    MI – Harris +4
    NC – Harris +1
    PA – Harris +2

    LV
    MI – Tie
    NC – Trump +1
    PA – Trump +1

    If that’s a reflection of early voting responses then it’s contrary to exit polls

  34. Ven @ #170 Thursday, October 31st, 2024 – 7:03 am

    CNN
    Those who say they have already cast ballots are included in each poll’s group of likely voters, and across all three states they break heavily in Harris’ favor.

    MICHIGAN

    Harris 61% Trump 35%

    WISCONSIN

    Harris 60% Trump 38%

    PENNSYLVANIA

    Harris 57% Trump 40%

    Those PA numbers are terrible if true. The early vote in that state is 58% democrat and 32% republican by registration. So Harris is losing 1 point off the Dem vote, while Trump gets +6 off of ‘Other’. That’s a disaster if it’s not a bad poll. Harris should be at least 65/35 there.

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