If you read my earlier article on polling tonight, then you already know that there are different ways to interpret the data, depending on which way you shine the light on them. But sometimes it’s important to look at more general numbers, with a long history of accuracy.
Let’s start here. If over the last decade or so you’ve watched national news networks, then you already know from everybody from Steve King at CNN to Steve Kornacki at MSNBC that we are an evenly divided country. Every time a presidential election rolls around, they all posit that the country is basically divided equally at about 45-45, which equals 90%. And they tell you every damn time that the election will be decided by that tiny 10% in a handful of swing states.
OK, fine. We’ll take it on faith that they actually know what they’re talking about, which can be a risky business with the media, but they’ve been saying it for decades now, and normally it tends to hold up. The basic premise is that whether the candidate is Jesus Christ of Barney the Dinosaur, they’re each going to get an approximate 45% of the vote, leaving it up to the 10% mushy middle to make the rest of our minds up for us. Democracy. What a concept, huh?
So let’s just start with that. Each candidate in our fractured electorate is going to get 45% of the national vote, come hell or high water. Those votes are locked in. But is there anything in what’s left over that can help us get a clearer view of the current electorate?
Maybe. And once again, for this insight we can thank my good buddy, Democratic strategist and pollster Fernand Armandi. And being vased in Florida, a purple state trending red in recent elections, he has to have his sh*t together.
Taking the 45-45 split as polling gospel, which in my experience generally holds true, Trump’s national floor is 45%. The same thing holds true for Harris. But with Trump we have an advantage we don’t have with Harris, namely national vote history. And with that history in hand, we can assume that Trump’s nationwide electoral ceiling is 47.9%. He hasn’t topped that significantly in either one of his two previous presidential elections.
I’ve already written tonight about Kamala Harris’ sudden rise in the polls, both nationally, as well as in the battleground states. She is performing well above the margin of error across the board, in some battleground and national polls even passing Trump.
Which begs the simple question, Where is Trump’s sudden burst of Battleground state and national polling surge coming from? Nationwide, as well as in the battleground states, Harris has surged on Trump’s outside the margin of error leads in both the battleground state as well as nationally. Where is this glut of votes coming from?
Most certainly from that 45-45 gridlock, those are baked into the cake. Which leaves only one place. That 10% mushy middle. Which is made up of several different factions, the soft disaffected Democratic voters who will listen to the last one to whisper sweet nothings in their ears, the Never Trumpers, the dual haters that didn’t want either Biden or Trump on the ticket, and of course the true Independents.
No matter how you cut it, it’s sh*tty news for Trump. His best hope would be the soft Democratic and GOP voters. But if Harris is wooing them over with a message of hope and aspiration, and Trump is still peddling the same old snake oil, what would woo them back?
The never Trumpers are never going back to Trump, which is why turncoat Nikki Haley desperately ordered her backers not to go for Harris. And the dual haters have a new Sheriff in town, only one ass clown left to hate.
Also, all of the air is going out of the third party candidate balloon, especially since RFK Jr’s idiotic Bear-cub-in-Central-Park tale. He’s down to nupkis, and Jill Stein is taking a hit as well. Whatever they have left is coming from disgruntled Trump supporters. Which can tip the scales.
The keystone is that sliver of true independent voters. They are notoriously late breakers, keeping their powder dry until the last 3-5 days before the election before making up their minds. But what makes them so critical is that once they make up their minds, they’re pretty much unmovable. If you start to see national and battleground polling with independents breaking heavily for Harris, then Traitor Tot is in the hurt locker.
There you have it. I am not the Oracle of Delphi, and I make no prophesies. My goal is simply to provide you with intelligent information so that you can observe, and critically make up your own minds as to what you’re seeing. But as a hack prognosticator, I like the trends I’m seeing.
I thank you for the privilege of your time.
Where do the stay at home votes figure in your argument? My sense, accepting the 45% notion, is that a goodly % of Republican’s share may not show while the apparent Democratic momentum and better organisation may increase that %. Further, how valid is this analysis in swing state by swing state?