With Election Day upon us, some new numbers suggest that Harris has a slight advantage

Cherry-picking the data while trying to maintain my sanity: With Election Day looming, I want to share four sets of numbers suggesting that Kamala Harris really will dispatch the Orange Menace once and for all.

First, The Economist’s election model, which has showed Donald Trump with slight edge in recent days, has flipped again, giving Harris a 52% chance of winning and Trump 48%.

The model is similar to what FiveThirtyEight and Nate Silver do: it’s based on some high-level math that takes into account polls, poll quality and other measures and then runs multiple computerized simulations. You may recall that similar models gave Hillary Clinton a 70% to 95% chance of winning in 2016, so obviously this needs to be taken with several truckloads of salt. Still, it’s better to be at 52% than 48%.

Second, the latest Marist Poll, which FiveThirtyEight judges to be of high quality, gives Harris a lead of between 2% and 3% in the all-important Blue Wall states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Again, that’s not much, and it’s well within the margin of error. But it’s better to be ahead than behind.

Third, The Washington Post’s polling average —that is, an actual average of polls rather than a FiveThirtyEight-style simulation — also has Harris slightly ahead in Wisconsin and Michigan (by 2%) and in Pennsylvania (by less than 1%). The Post’s averages have consistently tilted more toward Harris than The New York Times’, but there’s no reason to think that the Times is doing a better job with these than the Post.

Finally, the Gallup Poll shows a 10-point enthusiasm gap favoring Harris, with 77% of Democrats and voters who lean Democrat saying they are “more enthusiastic than usual” about voting and 67% of Republicans and Republican leaners saying the same. As with all these numbers, it’s impossible to say exactly how that’s going to play out, but it’s better to be at the higher rather than the lower number.


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7 thoughts on “With Election Day upon us, some new numbers suggest that Harris has a slight advantage”

  1. I’m watching fav/unfav, which gives a slight edge to Harris, although her negatives have been rising recently, probably due to Trump ads filled with lies like she will raise taxes on the middle class.

    On Tuesday, weather will be unpleasant near Milwaukee, and windy in Michigan and Detroit. This might give more weight to those who voted early, which obviously favors Harris.

    How much chaos will Trump’s brownshirts cause on Tuesday and the weeks after? What un-democratic actions will officials who support Trump commit to interfere with a Harris victory? I think the official interference in GA will be worst.

    This (un)civil war will be obscene and could crash the economy.

    1. If Harris wins, she’ll become president no matter how much violence Trump’s goons unleash. But no doubt it could get very ugly.

      1. I have zero faith that Mike Johnson would not try some trickery. Although he might lose control of the House on Jan 3, which would be a very big deal.

          1. I realized today that Harris will preside over the joint session to certify the election. If she wins, Republican senators will try to create some kind of nonsense and throw grenades to make it appear she is electing herself over the will of the electors.

            If Trump wins, it will be some of the most painful proceedings the Senate has ever broadcast.

  2. Revise my comment. The cert takes place in the House. ‘some of the most painful proceedings the Congress has ever broadcast’.

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