Wednesday, November 6, 2024

Witnessing History

The hour is very late (or early) depending on your perspective.

However, it is difficult to sleep when you have been witnessing history.

Donald Trump again winning the Presidency is truly historic.


President-elect and former President Donald Trump at his victory speech early this morning
Credit: https://www.cairnspost.com.au/news/world/donald-trump-delivers-victory-speech-after-us-election-win/video/94c9f9f1d334a07a1f959dcbea860c11


Only Grover Cleveland in 1892 was able to rebound from a Presidential defeat to assume the office again.


Grover Cleveland


Of course, Cleveland had it easy.

He did not also have to overcome two impeachment trials, untold legal attempts to put him in prison and bankrupt him and a couple of assassination attempts.

I did not even mention the harassment that Trump had to endure in his first term when he had to continually defend himself from the fake Russian collusion hoax and a mainstream media who was intent to undermine him at every turn in his four years in office.

Or having the bad fortune to be President when a once in a hundred year pandemic was gripping the world.

However, Trump is now the President-elect with a solid mandate of the American people to lead the country for another four years.

The story of what we have witnessed from Donald J. Trump since he came down that escalator at Trump Tower almost ten years ago will fill volumes in future history texts.

During that decade Trump single-handedly transformed the Republican party from what was considered a party of rich country club business types to a broad-based populist party that has become more multi-racial and focused on working class Americans. 

Trump did it al through the force of his personality and an indefatigable spirit.

All of it is nothing short of remarkable.

As I watched the returns last night I could not help but think back to two blog posts that I wrote many. many months ago.

The first one I wrote was in July, 2021 barely five months after Trump left office in the wake of his second indictment and the events of January 6, 2021 when most pundits were writing the political obituary of the man.

In that blog post, "Trump 2024?, I wrote that those who were writing off Trump might easily be proven wrong depending on future events.

I wrote that Trump could very well make a comeback depending on how Biden/Harris performed. 

As a result, Trump might look a lot more attractive to voters in 3-4 years. 

I saw that the country could very well have an implosion of some type due to the policies that Biden/Harris were pursuing. I had no idea that it would be as bad as it ended up being.

Hard times tend to make people focus more on performance than personality.

An implosion of the country under the Democrats and Biden/Harris. Trump has many critics but hard times have a way of focusing people on what is most important. Trump's personality is the most cited reason why many did not like him. When people are in trouble they are less concerned with personality and more concerned about performance. A deteriorating situation in the country will make Trump a lot more attractive to more people than you can imagine.

That prediction appears to have been prescient.

Look at this question from an exit poll from NBC News last night.

71% of voters stated they were dissatisfied or angry about the way things are going in the country.

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/exit-polls

This was a perfect environment for Trump to contrast how things were during his four years compared to the Biden/Harris years.

I should add that Trump won even though most voters (55%) stated they thought Trump's views were too extreme. Only 46% said they thought the same for Kamala Harris.

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/exit-polls

The second blog post that I thought of last night was one in January, 2023 in which I predicted that I gave only a 1% chance that both Biden and Trump would be on the ballot in November, 2024.

I stated I also believed that Biden was the more likely to not be on that ballot.

I looked pretty foolish repeating that prediction several times in these pages over the next year and a half.

Trump won the Republican nomination handily and the Democrats spent that time covering up for Biden's obvious failing mental acuity.

However, the Biden charade came to an end in July and Kamala was immediately anointed the nominee without having to earn the vote of one Democrat voter in the primaries.

It was a very bad move.

First, Kamala was an exceptionally weak candidate to begin with.

Second, it was made worse as she had to defend the failed Biden agenda while also attempting to run on a "change" agenda.

Third, Harris made it even worse by being unwilling to state her true position on almost any issue. This would never have occurred if she had needed to run in the Democrat primary. In the end, it deprived the American people of understanding where she really stood on the issues.

However, I believe it also contributed to her undoing as a candidate. Voters did not trust her because she was not authentic and open. 

Joe Biden should have announced that he was not going to run for a second term about the time I writing that 1% chance blog post and opened it up to other Democrat contenders.

It set in motion an embarrassing showing for Kamala and the Democrats that culminated in the election returns last night.

Democrats will know have to decide where they stand on a number of issues including border security, freedom of speech, and the woke agenda that have either confused or alienated voters.

On the other hand, good or bad, the voters know Donald Trump (warts and all) and they know full well where he stands.

Whether you voted for Trump or not, take a step back and appreciate what this man has done, overcome and done again.

Take a moment and consider the history you have witnessed.

I don't know that many men have ever had to endure and overcome more than Trump has.

He is an uncommon man with an untold amount of fight and drive powering him.

May he use those qualities to Make American Great Again for everyone.

And may God bless him and continue to bless the United States of America.

Monday, November 4, 2024

The State of the Race---One Day to ED

We are one day away from what is undoubtedly the most consequential election of my lifetime.

The choices could not be more stark.

People often complain that it does matter who they vote for.  They say it makes no difference.

That could not be further from the truth in this election.

On almost every important issue the policy differences are almost 180 degrees apart.

On tax policy.

On foreign policy.

On the First and Second Amendment.

On energy security.

On border security and immigration.

On whether abortion is a state issue or federal issue.

The list is long.

In my mind, Donald Trump is the only choice when I examine those issues and his policies.

Others may disagree

Every voter needs to make up their own mind.

My objective in BeeLine is to provide data, facts and contextual analysis to assist others in critically thinking about the major issues surrounding us.

The same is true for my election analysis.

I may want Trump to win but my analysis is always going to be based on data and facts rather than on my wishes or emotions.

Four years ago I also voted for Trump but I wrote this after analyzing all of the data two days before the election.

You would like to be Joe Biden right now if you look at the polls. He is running ahead. Even better, he is looking better than Hillary did on the eve of the last election. 

According to the RealClearPolitics.com poll average, Trump is running 4.5 points worse today than he was against Hillary Clinton in nationwide popular vote polling four years ago. 

The President is doing better in the battleground states but he is still worse off by 2.5 points than he was when he beat Hillary Clinton in these states.

Those numbers suggest that Joe Biden will win.

Some of those polls showed Trump down by double digits nationally on the eve of the election.

The Real Clear Politics average showed Biden +7.2%

Several of the top election model gurus had Biden with odds of winning in the 90% range.

My final conclusion was that Biden had the advantage but that Trump would make it much closer than the polls and pundits were suggesting.

That proved to be true.

In 2016, although most of the polls and oddsmakers were predicting a win for Hillary I pointed out that there were a couple of outlier polls that suggested Trump would prevail.

In addition, almost every important swing state was polling within the margin of error. I suggested that if Hillary did not get the turnout with traditional Democrat groups like young voters and African Americans that Obama did, she would lose.

I had Democrat friends saying to me. "You don't really think that Trump can win, do you?"

The rest is history.

The 2024 election feels a lot more like 2016 to me than 2020.

The polling in 2024 is much tighter than it was four years ago. It is much like 2016 when almost every poll seems to be within the margin of error. That means anything can happen.

Based on the current polling data, early voting and the betting markets, I would handicap the state of the race this way on the day before election day.

20% chance that Trump wins with more than 300 electoral votes.

40% chance that Trump wins by a small margin with less than 300 electoral votes.

40% chance that Harris wins with slim margin of less than 300 electoral votes.

If you want me to put overall odds on the race I give Trump a 60/40 advantage.

How do I arrive at that conclusion?

I will provide you the data and factual information that led me to that assessment. 

What I find most amazing in all of this is that there are many Republican and Democrats partisans who are looking at the same data and facts below as I am and concluding that their candidate has a 90% chance to win.

Same data. Same facts. 180 degree different conclusions. I have never seen anything like it before.

Let's look at the polls first.

Trump is in a better position in the polls in 2024 than he was when he won in 2016 with 304 electoral votes

He is polling about 3 points better nationally than in 2016 and 7 points better than 2020.

Trump is polling even better in the key Rust Belt states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan than in either 2016 or 2020.


Source: https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2024/trump-vs-harris


More significantly, the early vote totals we are seeing in some of the key battleground states appear to be favoring Republicans.

Republican turnout in most states is much better than that of Democrats in relative terms.

Rural turnout is up. Urban turnout is down.

Democrats vastly outperformed Republicans in early voting in 2020.

It was expected that the overall early vote would be down this year compared to the Covid year of 2020.

That is proving to be the case.

Both Republican and Democrat early votes are generally down from 2020. However, early mail voters for Democrats are down significantly while Republicans are only down slightly because more are voting early.

For example, consider this summary of early voting in the key battleground states as of October 31 that was shared by Elon Musk on X.  I assume this is data that he got from the Trump campaign,

Source: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1852608489941553567

Republicans have reduced the Democrat early vote advantage by almost 600,000 votes in Pennsylvania, 440,000 votes in Georgia, 300,000 votes in North Carolina and 200,000 votes in Arizona.

To put those numbers in context, consider that in 2020 Trump lost Pennsylvania by 80,000 votes, Georgia by 11,000 votes, Arizona by 10,000 votes and won North Carolina by 75,000 votes.

It is hard to argue that Trump is not in a much better position going into election day in 2024 than he was in 2020 with early voting and polling.

Yes, it is possible that these early votes are cannibalizing Republican election day votes and we will not see the nearly 2:1 margin in voting tomorow that saw for the GOP in 2020.

However, let's put all of this in a larger context.

In 2020, Biden got 81 million total votes. Trump received 74 million and other candidates got the rest.

73% of the 158 million votes that were cast in 2020 were early votes.

46% of total votes were mail ballots---73 million in total.

Another 27% of total votes were cast through early in-person votes---42.5 million.

An additional 42.5 million votes were cast on election day,

In total, there were 115 million early votes cast in 2020---73% of all votes were cast before election day.

By comparison, there have only been 77 million early votes in total this year (as of 900pm EST on 11/3/24).

Source: https://election.lab.ufl.edu/early-vote/2024-early-voting/

Early in-person voting looks like it will be just slightly higher than the 2020 number of 42.5 million when we get all the final numbers.

Most in-person early voting has been completed.

That effectively means that we are looking at a total shortage of 38.5 million early votes compared to 2020 and that entire difference is almost fully explained with 38 million fewer mail ballots.

There will still be mail ballots coming in through election day and for a few days after in some states.

Notice in the data above that 67 million mail ballots have been requested but only 35 million have been returned two days before election day. Will we see a massive surge in returned mail ballots in the last couple of days ?

Whatever the final number of mail ballots is, it is an enormous shortfall compared to four years ago.

It also suggests that the total election day turnout may be much closer to 40%-50% of the total vote compared to the mere 27% it was last time.



The overall drop in mail votes appears to largely be due to lower Democrat turnout. This is particularly true for low propensity voters who might have only voted in zero or one of the last several elections.

For example, below is an analysis of those low propensity voters in the early mail vote in Pennsylvania by Patrick Ruffini who is a pollster with Echelon Insights.

In just a few key areas in the city of Philadelphia, the Democrats have seen a drop-off of almost 50% in low propensity voters between 2020 and 2024 so far.


In looking at the national vote in 2020, Democrats had a 65%-35% advantage in mail ballots.

If these voters are not voting by mail, and the vote has not been made up in early in-person voting, it means that the Democrats need a huge turnout on election day to make up the shortfall.

The Democrat machine has proven in the past that they can turnout their votes when needed. You can be assured that dedicated busses will be running in Philadelphia tomorrow to take their voters to the polls.

The other hope for Democrats is that the Republicans don't have enough voters left in the tank to turnout in large numbers on election day.

That is possible.

It is also possible that Independents break heavily for Harris.

That might be crucial because Democrat registrations are way down since 2020 across the country.

There are 3.5 million fewer registered Democrats than four years ago.

The number of registered Republicans has increased by 400,000 but Independents have grown by 1.8 million.




How those Independents vote this year will undoubtedly be critical in an election that appears this close.

One final thought on turnout.

In 2020, an incredible 94% of all registered voters cast a ballot in the Presidential race.

For context, here is a chart that shows voter turnout for the years 2000-2020.


Notice that the only other time that voter turnout hit 90% was in the fervor for Barack Obama in 2008.

The 94% turnout in 2024 simply would not have been possible but for the mailing of unsolicited ballots to all registered voters on the rolls in many states and the lax verification rules regarding those mail-in ballots.

However, many states have cleaned up the voter registration rolls since "the most secure election" in American history.

In 2022 there were 7 million fewer registered voters than in 2020.

The number of registered voters decreased from 168 million to 161 million.

Number of Registered Voters in the United States 1996-2022
Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/273743/number-of-registered-voters-in-the-united-states/


I could find no source on the number of registered voters nationally for this election. One of the reasons is that some states allow same-day registration.

However, let's be generous and assume that there will be 165 million registered voters when all is said and done.

If we are to see another 158 million votes in this election that would require a 96% turnout factor.

There is no way I can see that occurring.

My guess is that it is more likely we will see closer to 150 million votes in this election (91% turnout). Even then, that would still be a larger voter percentage turnout than in the Obama election of 2008.

However, what I see missing in this election is any strong motivating force to drive turnout for the Democrats.

It was present in 2008 in Obama's first election. However, the Democrats were not able to sustain that turnout in 2012.

Turnout surged in 2016 driven by a lot of enthusiasm for Trump on the Republican side and anti-Trump sentiment from Democrats.  However, it is hard to say that Hillary Clinton motivated a lot of turnout on her own.

2020 turnout for Biden can almost all be ascribed to anti-Trump sentiment and anger about Covid. There were few voters motivated to turnout and vote based on Biden's basement campaign.

Similarly, I don't see Kamala Harris energizing voters to turnout in large numbers in this election to vote for HER.

That is why most of her campaign has been focused on demonizing Trump rather than talking about anything she would do.

The Harris campaign is working more to energize voters to vote against Trump than for Kamala.

However, I do not see the same level of anti-Trump sentiment we saw in either 2016 or 2020 in polling data or anecdotally.

Showing support for Trump has become much more socially acceptable than it was in either of the two previous Trump elections.

The 25% of voters with Trump Derangement Syndrome still have a high level of animus towards the man. On the other side, the Ultra MAGA Trump voters that comprise another 25% still love him unconditionally.

However, I don't see the same level of dislike from the middle 50% of the electorate that was apparent in previous elections.

I believe a good share of those in the middle have come to this conclusion.

"I don't like a lot of what he says or how he acts. However, Trump was good for the economy. I felt safer and the world had relative peace when he was in office compared to Biden/Harris. There is also no doubt that Trump loves this country. I am just not sure about Kamala." 

All of the above adds up to why I see the state of the race right now providing a small advantage to Trump with a possibility it could become a decisive win based on the relative turnout numbers on election day.

I could be wrong. 

However, I am almost certain I will not be as wrong as one of the pollsters cited below who both released polls in Iowa in the last 24 hours.

Trump won Iowa by 8 points in 2020 and 9.5 points in 2016.

Emerson has Trump leading Harris by 10 points in Iowa---53%-43%.



O the other hand, a Des Moines Register poll conducted by Ann Selzer has Kamala Harris up by 3 points---47%-44%.


Both Emerson and Selzer are respected pollsters that have good track records in predicting final results in Iowa.

At least, that can be said to be true today.

It will not be true on Wednesday.

One of them is going to be very, very wrong.

That is why predicting political outcomes is a perilous pursuit.

The fact is that no one really knows until we all know after the votes are counted.

VOTE and sit back and see who was right and wrong in all of this political prognostication on Tuesday night, Wednesday morning or whenever the votes get counted.


Friday, November 1, 2024

This and That---November 1, 2024 Edition

Four days before the election and I am sure you want to read something that has nothing to do with  politics.

Here it is.

A few random observations, charts and factoids to provide some context on what is going on in the world.


The World Series

The Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the New York Yankees to win the World Series.

The only question is how was it that the Mets could not beat the Dodgers to win the National League?

You also can't help but admire the job that the Cleveland Guardians did this season in winning 92 games and making it to the American League Championship Series before losing to the Yankees with a payroll that was $210 million lower.

2024 MLB team payrolls.


One thing is certain.

There are a lot of people in Japan who are happy with the result.

Higher viewership in Japan than in the USA.



For context, the NBA Finals had 11.3 million viewers in June. A few years ago they were averaging 20 million.


 Average TV viewership of NBA Finals games in the United States from 2002 to 2024
(in millions)



123.7 million viewers in the USA watched Super Bowl LVIII earlier this year. That is the largest tv audience in history according to Nielsen.


Source: Nielsen



WNBA 

Caitlin Clark almost single handedly re-energized the WNBA this year.  TV viewership increased dramatically. However, a lot of the increase was in the games that Caitlin Clark and her Indiana Fever team played in.

Notice that the 18 most watched WNBA regular season games were all games in which Clark played in.


Source: https://sportsnaut.com/wnba-tv-ratings/


It is also interesting that four regular season games that Caitlin played in had more viewers than the WNBA Finals game between Minnesota and New York that had 2.15 million viewers.

Credit: https://www.sportspromedia.com/news/wnba-finals-2024-new-york-liberty-minnesota-lynx-espn-tv-viewership/


However, despite this increase in popularity, it is reported the WNBA will lose $40 million this year and its NBA investors are growing impatient with its lack of profitability.


What have the WNBA players done considering all of this news?

They have opted out of the collective bargaining agreement with the league in order to attempt to negotiate a larger portion of the increased revenues.

The only problem is that the increased revenues this year have still resulted in $40 million in losses.


How is this going to work out in the end?


Rising Interest Rates

The Federal Reserve lowered its key overnight borrowing rate by 50 points in September based on its assumptions that inflation was under control and the labor market was beginning to shows signs of weakness.

However, since that time Treasury bond yields have almost risen in a straight line higher.

The 10-year Treasury yield has gone from 3.642% to 4.295% in less than six weeks.



The 10-year yield heavily influences mortgage rates.

The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate has gone from 6% to just over 7% in the same time period.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/US30YFRM?qsearchterm=30%20year


Gold is also up 10% since the Fed rate cut.




The Fed has signaled that it expects to cut an additional 25 basis points in November.

How long before the Fed has no credibility left at all?

Unprecedented Heat?

How often do we hear that we are in an era of unprecedented global warming?

This graphic of all-time U.S. statewide high temperature readings provides some necessary context.

46 of the 50 states set their record high temperature more than 30 years ago.

22 of the 50 state records are from the 1930's alone.

Source: https://x.com/ChrisMartzWX/status/1851617603673866461


Can you imagine the people in the 1930's believing that these high temperatures were due to man-made climate change?

Why do so many believe it today?

Fickle Favorability

I told you I was going to avoid politics in this blog post.

There is nothing about American politics.

Forgive me if I detour a little into British politics.

The Brits voted for the Labour Party in national elections in July that saw the Labour Party take control of the government.

Keir Starmer was installed as Prime Minister.

Starmer is off to a rough start.

Shortly after being named Prime Minister, Starmer had a 61% approval rating.

Starmer now has a 69% disapproval rating.


Source: https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/united-kingdom/



In the span of four months, Starmer's approval rating has dropped to about the same level as that of former Conservative Prime Minister Sunak when he was ousted.

Favorability is indeed fickle in the world of politics no matter where you are.
 

Wednesday, October 30, 2024

The State of the Race---One Week to ED

We are one week from election day in the United States.

At this point it is hard to imagine that there are many voters who do not have a view of who they favor between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

That is why the most important factor in the last week of an election is execution rather than influence.

Turning out the voters who favor your candidate is the top priority in the final week of any election.

When the votes are tallied, and the results are analyzed, I am almost certain that turnout will be the deciding factor in this election.

Let's look at a few recent elections to see how important turnout is in the final result.

Barack Obama won the 2008 election by turning out 10 million more votes (69 million vs. 59 million) than John Kerry had just four years earlier. John McCain actually received 1 million fewer votes than George W. Bush did in 2004. The result was a landslide victory for Obama primarily due to turnout.

However, four years later Obama received 3 million fewer votes vs. Mitt Romney in his reelection bid while the Republican turned out 1 million more voters than McCain. Obama went from a landslide in 2008 to winning by less than 4 points in the popular vote in 2012.

Hillary Clinton got the same 66 million votes in 2016 that Obama did in 2012. However, it was still 3 million less than Obama received eight years earlier. In the meantime, Trump got 3 million more votes in 2016 than McCain got in 2008. 

The fact that Hillary turned out 3 million fewer votes than Obama did in 2008 and Trump got 3 million more votes than McCain was enough for an electoral vote victory for the Republicans even though Clinton eked out a 2 point popular vote margin.

Of course, all records on turnout were obliterated in the Covid year of 2020.

Trump turned out 74 million votes in 2020---11 million more than he did in 2016 but lost.

81 million votes were counted for Biden---15 million more than Hillary received four years earlier.

In total, almost 158 million votes were cast for President in 2020---22 million more than were cast just four years before.

We have never seen anything like that turnout before. The relaxed rules on absentee ballots in which voters were mailed unsolicited ballots clearly had a lot to do with it.

The large number of mail ballots together with the inherent greater risk of fraud is one of the big reasons that many questioned the results of the 2020 election.

The best recent evidence of how turnout impacts an election can be found in looking at the election results in Kentucky comparing the 2020 Presidential race and the 2023 Gubernatorial election.

Donald Trump carried Kentucky with 1.327 million votes in 2020 to Biden's .772 million. 

However, Democrat Andy Beshear won reelection as Governor in 2023 by .695 million to .627 million over Republican Daniel Cameron.

The Democrats turned out 90% of the vote in 2023 that they did in 2020.

However, Republicans only turned out 47% of the vote for Cameron as showed up for Trump three years earlier. The Trump voters stayed home and the Republicans lost in Kentucky.

Such is the power of turnout.

In 2020, the power of turnout was in mail-in ballots for the Democrats.

An analysis after the election found that 46% of voters in 2020 voted by mail.



Of the 46% who voted by mail, almost two-thirds voted for Biden.


Interestingly, Trump enjoyed the same advantage among those who voted on election day---65% of those who voted on election day voted for Trump.

Trump also won those who voted early, in-person by 5 points.

The biggest question in the last week of the 2024 election is what the turnout will be without the wide use of mail-in ballots we had in 2020.

Will Democrats be able to get the same turnout if their voters have to show up and vote early in-person or on election day?

Additional questions are how many Republicans will vote early now that it is being encouraged and will any early vote cannibalize the strong showing Republicans have had on election day in recent years.

As of October 29 at 900pm, 53 million votes have been cast nationally per the University of Florida Election Lab that tracks the vote.

27.5 million have been in-person early votes and 25.5 million have been mail-in ballots.

Only about half of the 50 states actually have voters declare party registration.

The early vote is remarkably close compared to 2020 in those states that have party registration.

Democrats have less than a 3 point advantage in early votes with less than a week to go.

Source: https://election.lab.ufl.edu/early-vote/2024-early-voting/

At this point Democrats only have a 10 point advantage in mail ballots compared to a 28 point advantage they had in 2020 one week before election day.

In-person early voting shows Republicans with 8.6 point advantage over the Democrats compared to the 5 point advantage they had in 2020.


Source: https://election.lab.ufl.edu/early-vote/2024-early-voting/

Let's look at the challenges that each party faces in turning out the vote over the next week based on early voting patterns right now.

In 2020, 158 million total voters were counted of which 73 million were mail-in votes . 65% of these mail-in votes went to Biden.

Six days before election day there have only been 26 million votes cast by mail this year,

It is clear that mail-in votes will fall well short of 2020 totals. We are talking about 47 million votes that have to come from somewhere in the next six days to equal where overall turnout was four years ago. Two-thirds of those votes the last time went to Biden. Will those voters show up in person to vote in the next week? The election might be determined on the answer to that question.

In 2020, 50 million of Trump's total votes (74 million) came from in-person early voting or on election day. Trump is doing much better with early voting this time but is that voting just pulling votes from election day?

Trump's challenge is to stay somewhat close in early voting and still win the election day vote convincingly. He is unlikely to get 65% of the election day vote this year because many votes have been moved forward,. However, if the early votes stays in the same range as it is today and he gets 55%-60% of of the election day vote, he will be tough to beat.

The early voting returns that I am seeing in the Sun Belt states at this stage looks promising for Trump.

North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada are all seeing Republican voters outperforming expectations in early voting. At the same time, Democrats are just not voting anywhere near the numbers we saw in 2020 early voting (especially by mail).

Of course, no one knows who those voters are voting for.  Registered Republicans could have turned on Trump and are voting for Kamala. Just the same, there could be registered Democrats voting for Trump.

The good news for Kamala is that women are outvoting men in early voting by pretty significant margins. The higher turnout combined with the fact that women traditionally vote Democrat in higher numbers is positive for Harris right now. Trump is going to need a large turnout of men on election day.

If there is one thing we do know based on past elections is that there is no Republican in our lifetimes that can turnout votes like Trump can.  We saw it in the primaries in 2016 and 2020. We saw it in the general elections in both years. Trump brings a lot people to the polls who would otherwise stay home.

The important takeaway from those Sunbelt states is that if Trump can sweep those four states, he only needs two more electoral votes using the 2020 electoral map as the baseline.

Trump has many paths to 270 electoral votes if he can turn Georgia, Arizona and Nevada into his column.

Trump's camp has recently signaled that they also believe he has realistic chances in New Hampshire, Virginia and New Mexico. Some pollsters have even suggested that Minnesota could be in play.

Kamala Harris has to hold all of these states and sweep Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin to tie and win one electoral vote from Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District to give her 270 electoral votes. 

This is what that map would look like.



You could say that would be akin to pulling an inside straight in a poker game.

Of course, the same thing was said about Trump's chances in 2016 against Hillary one week before election day when the electoral map was even more daunting.

Trump had to win all of those Rust Belt states but also Florida and Ohio which were still considered battleground states at that time. He won them all.

All of the polls, data and analysis mean nothing until the votes are counted.

The state of the race remains uncertain.

The trend is still Trump's friend.

However, the Democrats have the money and organization to turnout votes better than anyone, including Donald Trump.

Whether Democrats can do it in the next six days will determine this election.

Friday, October 25, 2024

Predictably Pathetic

As we enter the final ten days of the Presidential election it appears that Kamala Harris has decided that her best closing argument is to claim that Trump is a "fascist" tying him to Hitler and the Nazis.

He is "dangerous" and "unfit" for office according to Kamala.

This is the headline from a story on Kamala's appearance at Wednesday's CNN town hall.


Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/kamala-harris-calls-trump-fascist-argues-dangerous-unfit-office-rcna176713

It remains to be seen whether this closing argument will do anything for Kamala with voters.

However, it is clear that Kamala's overall performance at the Town Hall did not impress a CNN panel after the event that included a number of people who are Democrat operatives or apologists.


Link: https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/1849466189912645837

What I find most interesting is Kamala and the Democrats would revert to the same tired "Trump is a bad, bad man" in the final days of the campaign that they have used over and over the last eight years.

Does this signal how desperate they are as the election clock ticks down? 

It is predictably pathetic.

Perhaps it might work if Donald Trump was unknown.

However, Trump had been in the public eye for decades and decades before he even got into politics.

At that time he was adored by the elites.

No one ever thought he was a racist, a fascist or a Hitler wannabe.

More importantly, Trump has already been President of the United States for four years.

Does anybody except those with the most serious cases of Trump Derangement Syndrome remember any death or re-education camps, wars of conquest, censoring of the media or other Hitler-like actions by Trump over those four years?

What is especially telling is that there is nothing new in any of this.

Unfortunately, it seems that Democrats have reverted to the "Hitler", "Nazi" "Fascist" narrative over and over again through the years.

Credit to @sunnyright on X for many of the following examples.

You can actually see the same narrative being used by President Harry Truman in the final days of the 1948 election against Thomas Dewey. 

It is possible that narrative worked in 1948 as Truman won an election that appeared he was going to lose until the election day returns came in.


Credit: https://x.com/conjunction77/status/1849235370367729833/photo/1


 They also did it to George W. Bush.

Source: https://x.com/sunnyright/status/1849222305664393566


They did it to supporters of John McCain,


Source: https://x.com/sunnyright/status/1849222305664393566

Madonna did it to John McCain.


Source: https://x.com/sunnyright/status/1849222305664393566

They are doing it to Trump and his supporters who will attend a  rally at Madison Square Garden this weekend.

Source: https://x.com/sunnyright/status/1849222305664393566


They have also done it to a number of Republicans over the years who do not even like Trump.

Nikki Haley was a Nazi when she was Governor of South Carolina.


Source: https://x.com/sunnyright/status/1849222305664393566

The same for Dick and Lynne Cheney who are now on Kamala's team.


Source: https://x.com/sunnyright/status/1849222305664393566

Former GOP Speaker Paul Ryan is another Never-Trumper who has been in the Nazi club in the past according to Democrats.


Source: https://x.com/sunnyright/status/1849222305664393566

They went after Mitt Romney the same way.

Source: https://www.salon.com/2016/11/07/bill-maher-liberals-cried-wolf-about-mitt-romney-now-they-face-a-genuine-fascist/

Source: https://x.com/shoveitjack/status/1849224987124650165


Would it be different if Ron DeSantis rather than Trump had won the nomination?

Look what was said about Nikki Hailey above as well as this statement by the Democrat who ran against DeSantis in Florida in 2022.


Source: https://x.com/sunnyright/status/1849222305664393566


In the meantime, as Kamala calls Trump a fascist she refuses to state what her views are on any issues or she hides or lies about them.

Every problem over the last four years also seems to have been the fault of Trump.

It is so predictably pathetic.

How long until this is over?

The sad reality is that it might actually get worse when the election is over no matter who wins.

And that will not be due to Trump being a fascist.


Wednesday, October 23, 2024

The State of the Race---Two Weeks to ED

We are two weeks from ED (Election Day).

We can only hope that we are not two weeks from Electoral Dysfunction similar to what we saw in 2020.

If there is one thing we need it is a fair, equitable and clear cut victory for one side or the other in 2024.

However, the hope that we will see that does not seem to be shared by many people according to a Rasmussen poll earlier this year.

Two-thirds of all voters were concerned that the 2024 election outcome would be affected by cheating.

That view was also held by 55% of Democrats.


Seeing that level of distrust does not build a lot of confidence that we will see a fair, equitable and clear cut victory for one side or the other in two weeks.

That confidence is further shaken when we have seen the Secretary of State in several swing states suggesting that we should not expect final voting results for up to a week after election day.

How does that make sense considering over half of the vote in many states will be in the form of early votes?

I am at a loss as to how voting results during almost my entire lifetime were counted and tabulated on the night of the election when almost all voting was done on election day.  However, it now takes longer to get the count done when most of the voting is done early with voting machines?

This tweet sums it up pretty well.



By any measure, the Presidential race in the United States appears to be extraordinarily tight based on the polls.

In the RealClearPolitics composite average for national polls, Harris is +0.8.

Source: https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2024/trump-vs-harris

However, in the all important Battleground states, Trump is +1.2.

In fact, Trump is leading in each state in the composite average although all of them are the slimmest of margins.

Source: https://www.realclearpolling.com/elections/president/2024/battleground-states

The only clear signal in the polling is that Trump has been improving his position over the last month.

Democrats got a boost when Kamala replaced Biden but Trump has been steadily eroding that advantage.

The momentum for Trump increased right after the Vice Presidential debate in early October.


Source: https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2024/trump-vs-harris

For context, let's look at the national popular vote margins for Democrats in 2016 and 2020 compared to the 0.8 point Harris lead has in the RCP poll average right now.

Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by a 2.1 point margin in 2016 and lost the electoral vote.

Joe Biden won the popular vote by a 4.4 point margin and won the electoral vote.

The popular vote margin that Kamala has in the polling average does not appear to be large enough to translate to an electoral college win based on past experience.

It is also useful to compare where Trump stood in the polls two weeks out in the last two elections.

Two weeks before the election in 2020, Trump was down by 8.6 points to Biden. Trump was down 6.4 points to Hillary. The final results had Trump improving by 4.2 points in 2020 and 4.3 points in 2016 comparing polls two weeks before election day and the final results.

Are we going to see similar movement to Trump this year or has the polling improved to identify the silent Trump voter?

It is a huge factor in assessing the reliability of the polls.

The other big factor in the accuracy of any poll is the assumptions made on the make-up of the electorate.

It has generally been the case for many years that more voters identified as Democrats than Republicans. Therefore, pollsters sampled more Democrats than Republicans when they did a voter survey.

A typical poll in the past might have used a +2 or +3 Democrat sample.

However, recent trends have seen more voters identifying as Republicans. Republicans have also been outpacing Democrats in new registrants in many states.

For example, in Pennsylvania, Democrats had a registration advantage of 7.5 points in 2020. The latest data indicates that advantage is down to 3.7 points. That could be significant in that critical swing state.


Source: https://x.com/RealSKeshel/status/1841695712221806974

Gallup's most recent survey of national party identification actually has Republicans at +3 right now.

This is the highest it has been in a Presidential year going back to 1992.


Source: https://news.gallup.com/poll/651092/2024-election-environment-favorable-gop.aspx

If a pollster is using a +2 Democrat sample in a +3 Republican environment the chances are that the poll is going to be wrong.

Many people think back to the 2022 mid-terms and look at it as a massive disappointment and defeat for the Republicans.

It is argued that the predicted Red Wave never materialized.

However, if you actually look back at the popular vote totals broken down for  the 435 House seats, the Republicans actually won the national vote by....2.8 points.

Is it merely a coincidence that number is almost exactly in line with the recent Gallup data?


Source: https://www.cnn.com/election/2022/results/house?election-data-id=2022-HG&election-painting-mode=projection&filter-key-races=false&filter-flipped=false

The bottom line is that you can find positive news for either candidate depending on which polls you look at.

However, on balance, I would rather be Trump than Harris right now based on the trend and the party identification and registration data.

The biggest change in assessing the state of the race this year compared to 2016 is the degree to which early voting has taken hold.

We are not likely to see the same number of early and mail votes cast as we did in the Covid year of 2020 in which almost 70% voted before election day.

However, it is certain that we will see over half of all ballots cast by mail or in early in-person voting.

Source: https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/04/what-methods-did-people-use-to-vote-in-2020-election.html

This non-traditional voting is providing additional insights into the state of political races that was not previously available.

Although we do not how any one person voted, it is possible to know who voted.

Data analysts know their age, their gender, their race and if they are registered or identify with a political party. They also know whether they have been high or low intensity voters in the past.

This provides an additional tool beyond polling to better understand what outcome to expect. In most respects, early voting data is much more important than the polls right now.

In 2020, mail-in and early voting was heavily utilized by Democrats. Republicans tended to vote on election day.

You can see how large this effect was in 2020 by looking at the votes in Pennsylvania split between early voting and election day voting.

Biden won this important swing state by a margin of less than 81,000 out of almost 7 million total votes.

However, Biden had a 1.4 million vote advantage before election day even arrived.

Trump could not make that margin up and lost by 1.2 points despite garnering 1.3 million more votes on election day than Biden did.


Source: https://www.electionreturns.pa.gov/_ENR/General/SummaryResults?ElectionID=83&ElectionType=G&IsActive=0

Republicans have been encouraged to vote early this year.

However, voting early only becomes a net advantage for the GOP if they do not cannibalize their election day vote.

Democrats voted early in large masses in 2020. Will they turnout in the same numbers without Covid?

If they don't vote early, will they turn out on election day?

These are big questions to consider in looking at the early voting data in 2024.

Thus far, it can be generally stated that Republicans appear to be outperforming Democrats in expectations involving early voting.

This summary by ABC News on early voting in the key swing states provides a general idea of the state of the race.

Note first that the number of early votes in 2024 vs. 2020 at this time have dropped by some 3 million votes or 36% (5.2 million in 2024 vs. 8.2 million in 2020).

Democrats make up 50% of the early vote (down from 54% in 2020) and Republicans are at 38% (up from 32%).




However, in looking at actual early vote totals, both parties have fewer overall early votes.

Democrats are down 1.8 million votes compared to 2020.

Republicans are only down .6 million votes to the 2020 Covid year.

Early voting in Pennsylvania provides a closer look at early voting trends in what is clearly the most important swing state this year.

As I pointed out above, the Democrats won Pennsylvania in 2020 because of a huge early vote advantage. Similarly, John Fetterman beat Mehmet Oz in the 2022 race Senate for the same reason.

Oz won the election day vote by almost 500,000 votes but lost the early vote by 726,000 votes.

However, in 2024 the Republicans are not ceding that early advantage and are looking to keep the race close heading into election day.

Justin Hart in his Rational Ground substack provides this analysis.


Source: https://covidreason.substack.com/p/happenings-in-pennsylvania-latest

Democrats say they want a 500,000 vote firewall heading into ED. Some Republican analysts suggest that 800,000 is a more realistic number considering the Dems had a 1.4 million early advantage in 2020.

The Democrat firewall in Pennsylvania is a number to keep a close eye on over the next two weeks.

The big question here is whether Democrats can get the turnout they did in 2020 in the next two weeks.

They have traditionally proven to be good at getting out the vote. Are they going to be able to do it being this far behind 2020 early vote numbers and not having an electorate that has been voting late the last couple of cycles?

Any early voting shortfall for Republicans should not be as worrisome as their voters are accustomed to voting late on election day. However, how many of those early votes were just moved forward from election day voting in the past?

Again, it is not a clear picture on early voting but I would rather be Trump than Harris in looking at the data right now.

Some of the people that are looking at the data very closely would seem to be those placing wagers on the race in the betting markets.

The people who have put real money down on the outcome of the Presidential race now have Trump with a 66% chance to win the election.


Source: https://polymarket.com/elections


That is the highest Trump has performed against Harris since she replaced Biden.

Trump's all-time high in Polymarket was 72% vs. Biden in July of this year.

You can see in this graph of the long-term trend in the odds that Trump started pulling away in the first week of October right after the VP debate.


Source: https://polymarket.com/elections


Trump is also the odds on favorite in betting on Polymarket to win every swing state as we stand right now two weeks before ED.


Source: https://polymarket.com/elections


However, I am also old enough to remember when all of the bets were on Hillary to win in 2016 and it did not turn out well for her.




As I have also written before in these pages, two weeks is an eternity in politics. That is particularly true in the last two weeks before a Presidential election.

What lies ahead?

Could we see a real October surprise or a large gaffe by one of the candidates?

What external events might affect the outcome? 

In particular, what effect would an attack by Israel on Iran and the possibility that all-out war breaks out between the two countries have on the  election?

What about threats by Iran to hold the United States responsible if it comes to that?

What if Iran's response was to initiate terror attacks on American polling sites on election day to instill fear and suppress turnout. Turnout that would largely benefit Trump. Such a scenario would allow Iran to put Kamala Harris in the White House.

It is another reason to vote early.

Nobody knows what we might see over the next two weeks.

Such is the state of the race two weeks from election day.

My plan is provide another state of the race report one week before and the day before ED.

Stay in touch with BeeLine for what you need to know.