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| Former President Donald Trump (R) meeting Vice President Kamala Harris (D) at the sole presidential debate |
Which means I need to start with a confession-I don't know how I'm going to end this, which is something I have never said in a presidential election. I have been wrong about presidential elections (I missed 2004 & 2016, so yes, I have predicted a Democrat to win the White House every cycle since 2004, which given the closeness of those two elections and that the blue team won the other three, wasn't as partisan as it may sound, as there are multiple cycles where I overestimated the GOP, such as 2022), but I've always been certain at the beginning of this article whom I was going to predict to win. This year, though, I don't know where this is going.
I've never seen an election where polling was this close. Kamala Harris has a clear lead in the national popular vote, currently averaging at 2.4-points (I'm writing this a week in advance of it actually being published, so if this has changed since then, don't be mad...though given how consistent polling has been, I doubt it changed much). It seems certain that the Democrats will extend their run of popular vote victories, having taken 8 of the last 9 popular vote wins (it should never be forgotten that most Americans in the past thirty years have wanted a Democratic president). But the swing state polling in seven key swing states (Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, & Wisconsin) has been razor thin. When I'm writing this, Trump has seen some recovery in these states after Harris was having slights gains for much of the post-convention/debate period, but neither side should be confident, and honestly, I am wrestling between what my head and what my gut thinks on this front (those two body parts are currently disagreeing).
The campaigns appear to be focusing on different tactics as we head into our finale, and that leads me to do something I usually lead with-asking a few questions that won't come up in the actual predictions, but I do want to ask because they're going to decide who wins. First is around polling, and specifically how for the past year, congressional Democrats have done better than the top of their ticket. Joe Biden dropping out gave Democrats new life in this contest, and it's clear at this point that while Biden could have won, he almost certainly would be in a worse position than Harris right now (i.e. I'd have been predicting Trump to win with some confidence). But what hasn't changed is that down-ballot Democrats are doing much better than the presidential nominee. Senate/Governor candidates in swing states like Nevada, Arizona, & North Carolina are outrunning Harris by large margins, sometimes even double digits, running contrary to the past decade when ticket-splitting has gone out of vogue. This has started to bleed into the limited House polling we've seen, though I will say another major problem with predictions this year is a lack of high-quality House polling. Most polling I've seen has been largely partisan, which (while handy) is not as good as a series of consistent nonpartisan House polls would've been as I tackle the next seven days.
This has me curious-will polls be wrong, and in what direction? My gut instinct would be that while Trump will likely outrun down-ballot Republicans, he won't do so on average by more than a couple of points, and with the exception of Mark Robinson in North Carolina, Republicans will regain most of their ground, though probably not by enough to win any of these races they've been losing in in purple/blue states all year. There is, of course, the possibility that we're in a unique situation where the Republican brand AND the Biden brand is sickly, and voters split their tickets when they can simultaneously punish both (the single biggest advantage that Trump has is that voters seem to blame Biden for inflation and not him), and there's also the possibility that Harris catches up to the Democratic Senate candidates (which would result in a swing state sweep for her)...but I will be making my predictions assuming that it's a case of downballot Republicans rebounding amongst (mostly conservative) undecided's in swing state Senate races.
The second big quandary I have is around the campaign strategies of both teams. Approaches from both camps on a number of campaign fundamentals have been divergent. Harris, for example, has destroyed Trump in fundraising, raising twice as much in third quarter cash (seriously-over $300 million more), which has allowed her more advertising space and more wide-reaching spending, including sharing some of that to down-ballot state parties. Trump, on the other hand, has been more judicious in his spending, in some cases only giving to certain swing states while ignoring others for larger swaths of time (this is true of Senate & House Republicans as well, who have also had to rely upon outside funding).
Both campaigns have opposite approaches to GOTV strategies as well. Trump has outsourced much of his GOTV strategy away from local party leaders & having it be directed by his campaign team, instead deferring this to Elon Musk, his most deep-pocketed backer (Harris has stuck to a strategy of established local leaders to run her local operations). The closing days of the campaign have been interesting too. Harris has clearly had three groups she's targeting in the waning days of her campaign (Black/Latino men, rural voters, and Trump 16/Biden 20 voters), obvious problem areas for her (you can see that in the way she's doing appearances with rarely-paired figures like Charlemagne the God and Liz Cheney, both clearly intended to telegraph to very specific pockets of the electorate). She's also entirely focusing her campaign on swing states, not just going there herself, but also sending her surrogates (the Obamas, Bill Clinton, Tim Walz, & Doug Emhoff) in these same areas, targeting these same groups. Trump, on the other hand, has eschewed this strategy, going after his base & ignoring swing voters. He has refused multiple attempts to do interviews at more mainstream news organizations like CNBC and 60 Minutes, and turned down a second debate with Harris. He has not campaigned as often in swing states, hoping that appearances at Coachella and Madison Square Garden will do the same thing.
It's not clear which of these is correct, for the record, and we won't know until November 5th. It's honestly possible they both are. Harris might need to make up some of the edges for her campaign to win in swing states (the Trump 16/Biden 20 voters are 100% the key to winning Arizona & Georgia, for example), while Trump, with lower-propensity voters, needs to excite his base. But Trump in doing so is taking the bigger risk. He has two clear problem areas he didn't have in 2020-Harris has made obvious gains in polling with both white women and voters over 65 (two major constituencies), and Trump can't afford for that to materialize on Election Day. It's possible it's just polling noise, but while she's made every overture to her problem areas, he's largely ignored his...if Harris wins by more than polling has shown, this is the most obvious place the Republicans can blame the Trump campaign for not doing more.
Finally we have the Trump Fatigue question. One of the things that should be noted is that Republicans should be winning this. The attitude toward inflation under a still unpopular Joe Biden should've made this a slam dunk win for the Republicans; the last time the Republicans had such an obvious shot at a win was 1984. Had they nominated Nikki Haley, even against Kamala Harris, we'd be talking about how much Haley was going to win by, and states like Maine, Minnesota, & Virginia would be the battlegrounds. But Republicans picked Trump for the third time in a row, and it's clear to me that this was a risk that might pay off (it's his party at this point), but if they lose, they will have done so because the nation hates him so much they went with a party they didn't really want to stop him. The ironic thing here is that Trump is still outperforming down-ballot, so he's more popular than the Republican Party in its current form, but he's still behind in polling, something I think the entire ticket might have skipped had they just gone with Haley earlier this year. If Trump loses this year, it'll be because America was sick of Republicans giving them yet another sequel they didn't want, something the Democrats very publicly (when Joe Biden dropped out) ensured America knew they weren't doing.
All right, with all of that preamble done, let's get down to the main event. For those of you who are new here, I will start right out and say-I don't believe in tossups. There are definitely races here where I don't know what's going to happen, and like I said above, that is true of the presidential race, where 4-5 of the swing states I'm going in with minimal confidence (and two of them, enough to change who gets 270, no confidence at all). But I think headed into election night as a prognosticator with dozens of tossup races like certain outlets do (looking at you Cook Political Report) is for wimps. I will be making calls in every race, even though that means I'll call races that I know are down-to-the-wire that will be wrong. At the end, we'll count up what's happening, and I'll get you who I think gets the majorities...which I will find out alongside you as I'm writing this!
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| Attorney Shomari Figures (D-AL) |
President: We will start out with one of the reddest states in the nation, and seven years after the Yellowhammer State saved the Affordable Care Act by electing Doug Jones to the Senate, they will attempt to destroy it again by electing Donald Trump to the White House.
House: In one of the most unusual moves of the cycle, one that will result in two House pickups for Democrats overall, Alabama was deemed a racial gerrymander, and as a result, was redrawn to allow a Democrat to win in the 2nd district. This will conclude in some musical chairs-Rep. Barry Moore beat Jerry Carl in a primary district in the 1st, so he'll move there, and attorney Shomari Figures (the son of prominent Alabama Democrat Vivian Figures), will become the second Democrat in the delegation in the newly-drawn second district. D+1
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| Rep. Mary Peltola (D-AK) |
President: I am genuinely curious on the margin here. Alaska was decided by just over ten points in 2020, and the state continues to show some signs of being a purple state in 2028 or 2032. Trump will win here, but there's a decent chance Kamala Harris gets within 10-points in the state, the first time a Democrat has done that since Bill Clinton in 1992.
House: Rep. Mary Peltola, elected in an upset special election in 2022, is one of only five House Democrats representing districts that went for Donald Trump after the midterms. Peltola is wildly-popular for a Democrat in Alaska, but she's still trying to win the reddest constituency currently held by a Democrat in the House. The only reason she's able to do this is Ranked Choice-Voting, which will be harder to do with only one Republican (Nick Begich) against her. Peltola actually got to 50% on the first ballot in the August primary, which is why I'm going to predict her, but she's facing basically a traditional general election for the first time ever this year, and Democrats don't usually win those in The Last Frontier. It'll be close (it may be a week before we know who won here, and given the closeness of the House, that could mean we won't know the House majority for a while).
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| Kari Lake (R-AZ) |
President: Our first of the hallowed Big 7 swing states, Arizona has been one of the harder reaches for the Democrats this cycle, and honestly, is the state that I am most surprised Harris is losing. Since Trump's win in 2016, every Democrat has basically forged the same path. Krysten Sinema, Mark Kelly (twice), Joe Biden, Katie Hobbs, Kris Mayes, & Adrian Fontes ensured a shut out for Republicans in major offices in the state primarily by assembling a coalition of moderate Republicans with a united Democratic front. I struggle to see how Donald Trump (on his third try) breaks this trend, and that I can't totally understand how he's doing this is maybe the thing I most worry about (am I truly underestimating the impact inflation is having on voters who have been pretty consistently Democratic the past six years?). Like I said above-this is an easy call with Nikki Haley, with Trump, it's a tossup, but while my gut says that Harris should take this (we've done this recipe seven times now, all of them giving us a blue cake), polling for Trump is too good. I will officially predict he wins so R+1 in terms of state count, but this makes my predictors' heart uneasy.
Senate: Thankfully for the Democrats, who if I'm right will have to outrun a red top-of-the-ticket (even if it's by a small margin), the Republicans royally screwed up in their choice of Senate candidate. Kari Lake went from being the frontrunner in the 2022 gubernatorial contest (I predicted her) to a national laughingstock basically by taking a page out of the Donald Trump playbook (i.e. claim that the election was stolen even when it clearly wasn't). Proof that Republicans could struggle in the wake of a second Trump loss with their identity, this plan didn't work out for Lake, who now languishes in polls behind Rep. Ruben Gallego. Gallego isn't the greatest candidate (I think a stronger opponent like Doug Ducey or Kimberly Yee would've been able to make more of his record in Congress, definitely to the left of either Sinema or Kelly), but you don't have to beat hypothetical candidates, you just have to beat the ones who are actually against you. Gallego wins, and spends the next six years establishing himself at the age of only 44 as one-to-watch in the party.
House: All right, we are officially entering races I can't entirely comprehend. There are three House races in Arizona worth watching, and two that are totally impossible to follow. Rep. Eli Crane should take a victory in the 2nd, though polling shows he could under-perform Trump (which should still be fine in a red-trending seat). The other two seats, though, are harder to tell. Both the 1st and 6th went for Republican incumbents in 2022 (David Schweikert and Juan Ciscomani, respectively), albeit by less than 2-points. Both are in blue-friendly districts, with Schweikert getting a portion of Phoenix while Ciscomani gets much of the Tucson suburbs; these are both seats that Kamala Harris will need to win if she wants to take the Grand Canyon State. The Democrats in these races have slightly different profiles, though both come from the state legislature. Arizona has a late primary, which makes it hard for a Democrat like State Rep. Amish Shah to breakout from a splintered field against Schweikert, who has been in the House since 2011, while Kirsten Engel in the 6th has had this race to herself for two years, and has spent most of that time trouncing Ciscomani in fundraising and campaigning. I'm going to split the difference then and say that I think Schweikert hangs on, but Engel gets the win she didn't get in 2022. Given the closeness of these fields, though, it'd be easy to see either side sweeping. D+1
Arkansas
President: All of those child laborers that Sarah Huckabee Sanders has been hiring in Arkansas will have plenty of Trump ballots to count as he takes the state's six electoral votes.
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