Election Eve

I am (nauseously) optimistic

So here we are on the eve of probably the most consequential election in my lifetime. I know partisans on both sides make that claim every four years, but this time it really does feel true. We’ve never had another candidate who provoked an insurrection or promised to be a dictator or threatened to use the military against US citizens.

I have written and re-written a half dozen versions of this post. I even considered not publishing anything at all right before the election. Who cares what I think? And why risk backlash from readers or make predictions that could be proven wrong within 24 hours? Most people are absolutely sick of this of this drawn out race and don’t want to hear another word about it. But dodging news this big would be cowardly and dishonest. Besides, I know my readers pretty well, and suspect a lot of you would fall into the category of “people who secretly refresh the 538 polling averages during TV commercial breaks.” I will spare you the longer and more pretentious version that included quotes from the founding fathers and Alexis de Tocqueville (cringe, even for me) and keep this short and sweet.

The physicist and Nobel laureate Niels Bohr once quipped: “Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.” So why go out on a limb? For me, writing is both cathartic and a great way to work through and challenge my ideas. In addition, I feel compelled to be transparent and put down my thoughts on the record for accountability. So here are mine:

• I think Kamala Harris will win the Presidency

• I think the Democrats will lose the Senate

• The House of Representatives is a toss-up, but if forced to pick a binary outcome, I think Democrats are sliiiiiiiightly favored to eke out a slim majority

Below is my electoral map prediction (shaded by degree of confidence) that is almost certain to be somewhat off. I don’t think it will be a blowout, but I also don’t think it is going to be a photo finish, either.

Why am I optimistic?

Because Trump’s rhetoric has become more extreme (and increasingly violent). People are sick of it and have been voting accordingly since 2020. The 2024 election is on track for extraordinarily high turnout. Georgia and North Carolina broke records for early and mail-in voting. The early vote in swing states is skewing heavily towards older female voters, and they are PISSED about the Dobbs decision overruling decades of precedent about bodily autonomy. Some percentage of moderate Republicans and Haley voters are crossing the aisle to support Harris, and there is evidence that undecided voters are breaking for Harris in the final days. Democrats have a robust get-out-the-vote operation while the GOP has largely outsourced its GOTV to inexperienced grifters. And most importantly, Democrats have a huge advantage in enthusiasm, which is as high as it was for Barack Obama in 2008:

(Source)

What about the polls? Currently, the averages show a dead heat with both candidates within the margin of error in key states. While it is generally not being a good scientist to argue against data you don’t like—that road leads to confirmation bias and conspiracy theorizing—the polls have struggled to capture voter sentiment accurately since at least 2016, and there is a lot of … weirdness going on right now.

Nate Cohn at the NY Times has written about the highly suspect statistical choice most pollsters are using this year to weight by recalled vote, which both tends to inflate the vote share of the loser of the previous election and forces results to look close to 2020. Then there is the flood of low-quality right-wing polls that could be skewing the averages (the impact of this specific issue is likely small as aggregators like 538 and Silver Bulletin give those surveys less weight). Finally, there has been some recent murmuring from people who know their stuff that it seems like there may be significant “herding” of poll results, where companies hold back outlier data or massage it into alignment with the group consensus. Here is

Nate Silver

on that point:

Based on a binomial distribution — which assumes that all polls are independent of one another, which theoretically they should be — it’s realllllllllllllly unlikely. Specifically, the odds are 1 in 9.5 trillion against at least this many polls showing such a close margin.

The problems are most acute in Wisconsin, where there have been major polling errors in the past and pollsters seem terrified of going out on a limb. There, 33 of 36 polls — more than 90 percent — have had the race within 2.5 points. In theory, there’s just a 1 in 2.8 million chance that so many polls would show the Badger State so close.

In Pennsylvania, which is the most likely tipping-point state — so weighing in there is tantamount to weighing in on the Electoral College — the problems are nearly as bad. There, 42 of 47 polls show the Trump-Harris margin within 2.5 points — about a 300,000 to 1 “coincidence”.

There’s more herding in swing state polls than at a sheep farm in the Scottish Highlands

That said, it is still very possible for Trump to win, and we should take nothing for granted. If you have not already voted, please, Please, PLEASE make sure to get to the polls to cast your ballot tomorrow! As always, I’m not going to tell you how to vote, that is an intensely personal decision. Still, I won’t lie, I hope you don’t vote for the wannabe authoritarian who kept a book of Hitler’s speeches next to his bed (Really).

For the rare reader who is still undecided, I hope providing you with some facts will help you make the best decision. I previously wrote about the stakes for education, healthcare, and science policy. If you are most concerned about the budget, you should know that non-partisan analysts found the Harris plans will cost about half as much as Trump’s and she provides more concrete details about paying for them. Harris has promised to codify the reproductive freedoms established in Roe v Wade and will sign the bipartisan border bill to address immigration (which Trump blocked to score political points). Lastly, if you are one of the millions of Americans concerned about inflation, you should know that the non-partisan (though arguably conservative-leaning) Tax Foundation found that Trump’s proposed tariffs would raise the cost of almost all goods:

“Trump’s proposed tariffs would raise taxes on US imports, burdening consumers and unprotected industries with higher taxes and lower incomes and redistributing some of those losses to protected firms. Using tariff policy to reallocate investment and jobs is a costly mistake—that’s a history lesson we should not forget.”

You should know that it may take several days for the race to be called. We’ll need to be mentally prepared for shenanigan during this time. Regardless of the election results, Trump is likely to declare victory and try to dispute any states he loses with lawsuits alleging false claims of voter fraud. Don’t let this rattle you. Decades of data prove election fraud is exceedingly rare, and when Trump tried this in 2020, he uniformly lost in court. He has even fewer levers to pull in 2024; he is not in charge of the federal government and the Electoral Count Act passed in 2022 cleaned up some of the loopholes he tried to exploit four years ago.

Whatever happens tomorrow, we will get through it together. America is a country built by immigrants on the radical belief that everyone is equal and entitled to the same freedoms, especially the rights to free speech and to vote. Our young democracy was birthed in revolution and survived the Civil War, two World Wars, economic depressions and recessions, and more. I am confident we will weather this storm, too. My fervent hope is that Harris wins so we can put the divisive Trump era behind us and begin to heal as a nation. However, if Trump does win, we will continue the fight to limit the damage and protect the vulnerable. We can do it, and we must.

See you on the other side on 11/6 🫡 🙏 🇺🇸

—Eric

I am out of state this Election Day, but voted by mail weeks ago!