The Best Cycle-To-Cycle Comparison I’ve Seen So Far. And Likely Will

Finally! I’ve been nibbling around the edges of this for you guys for the last week or so now, but just couldn’t quite put it all together. That’s because I didn’t go far enough back.

Sorry. Let me try making sense for a change. What I’m talking about is that over the last week or so, I’ve drawn broad contours for you all, but didn’t connect the dots. Things like distrust the closeness of the polls. Look at voter enthusiasm. Don’t compare 2024 to 2016. Don’t watch what they say, watch what they do. Mainly watch their body language and messaging. Look at the closing messaging.

I got sick of hearing 2024 compared to 2016 simply because it was a stupid and senseless comparison. But I couldn’t find another cycle that compared with the intensity and closeness of this one going into the last 10 days.

But Matthew Dowd did, and I’m eternally grateful to him. For those of you unfamiliar with Dowd, he was the campaign manager for George W Bush’s 2004 presidential campaign, the last time a GOP President won the popular vote. He is the founder of Country Before Party and a MSNBC political analyst. And he nailed it.

If you want to compare the 2024 race to another presidential campaign, don’t compare it to 2016, they’re nothing alike. Instead compare it to the 2012 Obama reelection campaign. In the last five days of the campaign the national polls were a dead heat, and the battleground polls were all pretty much toss ups. 

And yet the Obama campaign was confident and upbeat, and Romney almost in desperation mode. That’s because the Democrats had something new, turnout projection models. And those models showed Democratic intensity higher than GOP, and strong Democratic early voting. And on election day Obama won by 4 points and pretty much swept the battleground states.

BANG! That comparison dovetails almost exactly into what I’ve been taking apart piece by piece by piece last week and ties it all up with a bow. Let’s just compare a little deeper what I’ve meant all along;

• 2012 was pre the 2016 debacle so people still trusted the major polls
• 2012 was also pre Big Lie so many more GOP voters voted early, keeping the national and battleground state tallies close
• In the last week or so, Obama’s closing argument was positive and forward looking, while Romney’s was the more traditional failed administration change mantra
• The Obama surrogates and campaign staff were walking around loose and confident while Romney trudged around with a forced smile like he was the guy who had to fart in church
• The turnout model matrices are almost eerie. In 2012 Obama held a wide voter enthusiasm bulge over Romney. At last poll Harris was +13 in voter enthusiasm. And the Democrats far outpaced the GOP in early voting, giving the GOP an insurmountable mountain to climb on election day
• Last week undecided voters broke heavily for Obama on election day, sealing the deal

What have I been saying? The Democrats are blowing the doors off in early voting, while the GOP is claiming victory just because some of their base election day voters are showing up early. And when it comes to the turnout machine, Nevada politics guru Jon Ralston said yesterday that comparing the Reid Machine to the Musk Mess wasn’t even a fair fight. And guess what? It isn’t a fair fight anywhere else either, especially with critical swing state GOP start parties are cold stony broke.

But best of all, Matt gives graphic illustration to something I’ve been feeling the last few days, and even spoken of, but couldn’t nail down for you. But Dowd did it for me.

From her first day as presumptive nominee Harris’s message was consistent, Let’s be clear, we’re the underdogs here, and that means we have a lot of work to do. But we like hard work, hard work is good work. But in the last 10 days or so she’s dropped the underdog line. I opined that in the final push she didn’t want to depress turnout with a specter of possible defeat.

She made a subtle change. She still says We like hard work, hard work is good work! But now she tops it off with, But we have 12 days left to go, and if we’re willing to do that hard work for the next few days, then we will win! We will win! And I’ve written twice now that there was something in her face, something in her eyes, something in the confident tone of her voice that said this wasn’t arrogance, cockiness, or false bravado. She knows something.

And I think that Matt Dowd told us what it was. The turnout models. Funnily enough, the GOP is actually helping the Harris team by having so many of their stable base of voters show up early to vote. Team Harris pretty well knows how many likely GOP voters are out there, just like they know how many likely Harris voters there are. And they sure as hell know that the voter intensity factor is firmly in their favor.

One last thing. I’ve said this before, there are no undecided Trump voters out there. If they were going to vote for Trump, they would say so. They just like deluding themselves that both sides are drooling all over them. They’re staying home on November 5th.

However, there is still a small but critical Nikki Haley voters out there that Harris can reach. Their decision is different. They’re either going to break late for Harris or stay home, they’re not voting for Trump. This is born out by today’s New York Times/Sienna poll that shows that late breaking undecided voters are leaning towards Harris by a 44-31 gap. Harris has the potential to pick up a chunk of 44% of undecided voters, while Trump is going to get roughly 0% of undecided voters.

I feel so much better now. I’ve been fumbling around for a week now trying to baste this suit together, but I didn’t have a form. But Matt Dowd gave it to me, and now it all fits together. 11 days to go. Keep punching and keep the faith.

I thank you for the privilege of your time.

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