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PaperclipPerfector  12hr ago (text post)   399 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 18, 2024

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US Election Bold Predictions Thread

Give me your hot takes about the results of the upcoming US Elections. These should be BOLD, don't just follow the prediction markets or the odds, and probably not about who wins the electoral college since the current best guess is that it's anyone's guess who wins. I should preface all this that on the POTUS front, I'm expecting a narrow Trump win, with a very low confidence in that prediction.

For me:

-- Trump is going to lose North Carolina badly, significantly underperforming his polling numbers. The very best recent results for Mark Robinson have him down by ten points after the Nude Africa, "I'm a black Nazi," "I write erotica about my sister in law pissing on me" scandal. Most of his staff has abandoned him. Reverse coat-tails normally don't work out, but Robinson's complete lack of any campaign infrastructure is a different animal than just being disliked. The Robinson campaign won't be doing any of the GOTV work that you'd expect from a gubernatorial campaign. I expect Robinson to do better, thanks to Trump, than his poll numbers indicate, he's probably not going to lose by 20 points. But I expect Trump to do a couple points worse than his averages, thanks to Robinson.

-- Deadlocked Senate. I don't know how, but I expect the Dems to pull out one upset in a red-leaning seat. They've overperformed in statewide elections since Dobbs, and I just think they'll pull one out somewhere. Trump is harmed less by abortion than virtually every other R candidate, because a lot of people who like him just don't believe he's pro-life. R senate candidates are getting crushed on the issue. R candidates for competitive seats like McCormick are trying to swing back towards pro-life, but it's not going to work, it's just going to make them look weak and unreliable.

I think Trump wins narrowly, low confidence.

One thing that he has against him is his fragile coalition. Although he is ahead in all 7 swing states (projecting for 312 electoral votes), his lead in each swing states is razor thin.

After those 7 states, there is no 8th state which is really in play. Virginia comes closest, but Harris is up by a whopping 6.4 points. That's actually less than Trump's lead in Texas (5.7 points).

So Trump could, just, squeak through, but this coalition is brittle. Texas is just one amnesty away from being flipped Blue forever like California was in the 1980s.

Is Republicans take even the house a bold take?

I think they will, personally, though I'm not sure what the protections are.

If the Senate is a deadlock and trump underperforms that much in NC, I don't think the Republicans will take the house.

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