Nate Sliver applied convention bounce adjustments to Trump and Harris, both negative. What happens if the Harris adjustment is removed?
By the way, I purposely phrased the question to produce a yes answer, even if barely.
I do that about half the time. Betteridge’s law of headlines is an adage that states: “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.”
Oops the Adjustment Disappeared
Please consider the Silver Bulletin Oops! I made the convention bounce adjustment disappear.
Without the adjustment, she’d have a ~50 percent chance to win the Electoral College rather than ~40 percent, a ~70 percent chance of winning the popular vote rather than ~60 percent, a ~35 percent chance of winning Arizona rather than ~25 percent, and so forth.
Why wouldn’t she be favored? Part of it is the narrowness of her lead in the Blue Wall states. Without the convention bounce adjustment, the model projects her with an average of 277 electoral votes versus 261 for Trump. But it also has her losing a lot of elections in agonizingly close fashion — so the median rather than the average outcome is basically an Electoral College tie. Her biggest problem remains in Pennsylvania, where she barely has a lead at all. Without Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes Georgia and its 16 electoral votes wouldn’t be enough to give her a winning map, even if Harris retains Michigan and Wisconsin.
I don’t think it’s correct to say that the polls taken “as is” today (without any convention bounce magic) show Harris winning.
Personally, I’m probably closer to the 45-ish percent probability that Polymarket shows for Harris rather than our model’s 38 percent.
But the convention bounce adjustment has been part of our model since its inception in 2008. The whole point of building a model is that you set up rules ahead of time so you aren’t tempted to make ad hoc adjustments, which might reflect your political leanings or what your readers want.
And the fact is that if you’d asked me a few weeks ago where I thought the polls would be today, I’d have thought Harris would be polling better than she is — say, a 4- or 5-point lead in national polls and 2 or 3 points in Pennsylvania. You’re welcome to debate the precise mechanics the model uses, but directionally, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that she’ll need the debate not just to hold serve but to regain momentum.
The Blue Wall Remains a Problem
Trump can can afford to lose Georgia if he wins Pennsylvania.
Alternatively, Trump could lose Arizona and Nevada if he wins Pennsylvania.
Trump has many ways to win. Harris need a clean sweep of the Blue Wall (Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania).
Is the Silver Model Biased In Favor of Harris?
That’s another Betteridge gotcha. The answer is clearly not despite the following admission from Silver.
“Personally, I plan to vote for Harris, and while I haven’t done a comprehensive survey of Silver Bulletin subscribers, I suspect they lean something like 3:1 for Harris over Trump.”
Recession Adjustment
If you want to complain that the headline answer is no on the basis of a tie instead of Trump is ahead, I would suggest that Silver has not properly accounted for the state of the economy at recession time.
Silver Bulletin Economic Index
I have no idea how that works, and I rather doubt Silver does either. The only way to find out for sure is for Silver to run a projection revising all of those except the CPI more negative.
I expect big improvements in the CPI and will write about that soon.
On the negative side, my opinion is nonfarm payrolls will look nothing like a positive adjustment by election time and they are not already.
My economic adjustment to the Silver model suggests Trump will be ahead even if Silver calls it a tossup.
Thus, my answer to the lead question is yes, not maybe.
Recent Economic Data
September 3: Construction Spending Growth Slows in May, Stops in June, Negative in July
September 5: Small Businesses Reducing Workers for the Last Four Months
September 5: Fed Beige Book Shows Flat or Declining Economy in 9 of 12 Fed Districts
September 6: Key Recession Indicator Gives Stronger Recession Signal in August
I see nothing positive in this. And weakening economies, especially recessions, are generally not good for the incumbent.
If Trump can avoid major gaffes he rates to win.
Bombshells
Genuine bombshells are rare. But there is a potential for one on Friday November 1. Just days before the election, Trump will be blessed with a BLS jobs report.
That could easily tip the election if enough people still have not cast votes.
Meanwhile, please ponder the current report: Payroll Report: Manufacturing Sheds 24,000 Jobs, Government Adds 24,000, Big Negative Revisions
I remember when I posted a graph of the amazing hocky stick Biden overnight vote comeback on Facebook. Can’t recall now which state. My only comment was “Amazing comeback.” Facebook edited the comment, adding an explanation of why this was legitimate. Why do this, unless….?
Anyway, I exited that garbage social media scam right after that.
If there is a recession, 125 economists will say it was Trump’s doing.
The stats confirm Harris’ strategies of avoiding press conferences and talking off script are her best strategies. Public appearances that are scripted and managed give her a chance to polish her presentation while changing only her accent and wardrobe.
lichtman is correct. silver is just a clerk. i remember when he was a sports taut. it’s harris win in the bag. the real question is will harris leave whitehouse. if trump squeaks out some slim marginal wins in PA or GA………i don’ think the Ds and deep state will allow that to stand……………trump through down the gauntlet with jan 6th. trump was just an amateur and left the whitehouse. all empires fail. not if, just when.
“and deep state will allow that to stand……………”
As if they care. They’ve won either way, once the field is reduced to these two brain dead, almost to a tee exactly the same aside from nominal party membership and gender, “saveee the deep state syyyystem at all cost” lackeys.
“Nate Silver Bounce Factor”
aka
“Clickbait for Clueless Media”
Trump was always ahead. By a large margin. This election never was, still isn’t, and never will be a horserace. IT’S OVER. IT WAS OVER MONTHS/YEARS AGO.
Polls & media hysteria @ polls = pure clickbait masquerading as “analysis”.
I think Dems can’t stand the idea that all their tricks aren’t working. Then again Trump is his own worst enemy so you never know what’s the next stupid decision he will make after his terrible choice of VP.
Vance is terrible? compared to what?
Walz? Harris? Biden? Cheney? Gore? Quayle?
What planet are you living on?
Trump has the MAGA crowd in his pocket no matter what, so his choice for VP should have been someone who can win over those on the fence. Vance does nothing for this cause, plus he really can be weird at times.
Rubio would have won over comfortably Haley’s voters. Gabbard would have divided democrats.
Yup, I agree with all of what you said. It’s really troubling to see so many folks put rose colored glasses on when it comes to thier candidate of choice. Pandering to your base doesn’t win elections. Trump would have this election all but wrapped up if he didn’t act like such an asshole most of the time. His personality is toxic and, compared to Harris, his favorability rating is not good. Favorability matters. I believe Trump is the only candidate in history to win with a net unfavorable rating compared to thier opponent (2016). Could he do it again, sure, but I wouldn’t place much of a bet on it happening twice. He’s more well known now than he was in 2016 so that is another obstacle for him. This isn’t an endorsement of either candidate. Just calling it like I see it.
correct on all accounts
No one cares about the VP pick. Just politicos like you and people on here. The rest of the country just sees Harris and Trump
I hope you don’t make important business decisions at your workplace.
“Vance does nothing for this cause, plus he really can be weird at times.”
Trump has the MAGA vote. Agreed.
Trump is gaining serious ground with black males.
Trump is gaining serious ground with Hispanics.
Trump is peeling off 3-5% of the black female vote.
White soccer mom’s have a simple choice: repeat their mistake of 2020 or hold their nose and vote Trump. My guess is many will choose the later and listen to their husbands this time.
With all of these interviews he’s doing with these young / hip influencers of all stripes, he’s gaining ground with the under 30 crowd.
The Nikki Haley never Trumpers will face the same choice as the white soccer moms. Again, they’ll likely vote for Trump and then lie about who they voted for. Only the really committed, Romney & Cheney types, will abstain, write in an alternate candidate or go Kamala.
While, I’m not going to say Vance was a better choice overall than say Rubio or my favs, Donaldson or Stefanik, he will prove to be a master debater, which the self-aware, educated independents will appreciate.
However, he was brought on board to ensure the working moderate, middle class had someone to identify with, including a portion of the union vote.
Assuming the Trump wins the debate, either by just letting Harris talk and, or she lands some word salad zingers, these are the certainties:
The System will ensure Trump loses.
There will be a lot of irregularities and shady WTF moments like the last time.
Like 2020, there won’t be a single judge willing to stick their neck out despite the potential for absolute legitimate legal causes to do so. They will be more concerned about lighting the match that sets the whole System ablaze than doing what might be the right thing.
Vance is at least an order of magnitude less “weird” than Waltz or Harris.
Best analysis so far. Not sure about the election tricks. Several groups have put systems in place for instantaneous analysis/monitoring of ballot collection and pre-electoral assessment of vote by mail address confirmation and residency. Probably others who we don’t know about. The same could be said for those entities who put in place the systems that instigated the cheating in 2020 and what they are up to this time.
Dr. Ben Carson was always the best pick- by far. But my candidate, DJT, proved in his first administration he does not pick well.
Vance is probably the greatest VP pick ever. In fact if the positions were switched he would win in a landslide.
I really don’t care who wins the Presidential election just as long as Swifty wins the Super Bowl. That all that matters!
Expect at least one vote for Ron Paul in 2024.
“Trump will be blessed with a BLS jobs report.
That could easily tip the election if enough people still have not cast votes.”
Mish, every single person that I know, no matter econ conditions or other econ data: IF THEY’RE BLUE, they REMAIN BLUE and IF RED, they REMAIN RED. These die-hard voters are ALWAYS THE SAME, ALWAYS.
People have been BRAIN-WASHED to remain loyalists to party. It is a sickness.
KAMALA COULD SPORT FANGS AND SQUIRT ACID FROM HER EYES, BURNING BABES IN ARMS and people will still vote for her.
independent voters are the majority. voters that no longer recognize their D party will be fanatically anti Harris, like people who change religion. just bc she is a woman and black isn’t a reason to vote for her.
How do you square this rant to Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney and numerous other Republicans who have publicly stated they are voting for Harris?
Dick and his daughter are the spawns of Satan. Sick sobs. I would expect them to vote for Harris as Trump called out his lies and corruption in propagating the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. His type should roast in hell with their creator forever.
How do you square former Democrats now voting for Trump?
I did the work for you that SHOULD have accompanied your post.
Q. Which prominent Democrats have publicly supported Trump
A. Based on the search results provided, there are very few prominent Democrats who have publicly supported Trump for the 2024 election. The most notable examples are:
1. Rod Blagojevich, former Democratic Governor of Illinois, endorsed Trump after receiving a pardon from him. Blagojevich called himself a “Trumpocrat”[4].
2. Vernon Jones, a state representative from Georgia, spoke at the 2020 Republican National Convention in support of Trump. However, Jones was a relatively low-profile figure on the national stage[4].
3. Nine Democratic mayors from Minnesota’s Iron Range region endorsed Trump in 2020, citing concerns about trade policies and environmental regulations. However, these mayors represented very small communities with a collective population under 28,000[4].
4. Gary Doty, a former Democratic state legislator and independent mayor of Duluth, Minnesota, endorsed Trump, saying the Democrats have “gone so far left”[4].
It’s important to note that these endorsements are not necessarily for the 2024 election, as most of the information provided is from the 2020 election cycle. The search results do not show any current, high-profile Democrats publicly committing to vote for Trump in the upcoming 2024 election.
The majority of the endorsements listed for Trump’s 2024 campaign come from Republican politicians and officials[1]. The lack of prominent Democratic endorsements for Trump suggests that cross-party support for him remains limited among high-profile Democrats.
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/how-many-prominent-dems-have-c-zvly_RqaTbiwcvAVA_prZQ#1
You might also be interested in this:
Explain the Obama Landslide
OK I will explain it for you
You don’t know everybody
You had some NASCAR dads that crossed the aisle or the line and voted for Obama.
I think some of it was they thought give Obama a chance to save them from further economic collapse, and also it was a feel-good vote. He just seemed somewhat likeable and a lot more than Hilary Clinton (and now Kamala Harris).
Plus Chuck Schumer was on TV every day from early August to election day about how the economy (and stock market) were in dire straights.
The same system that talked down the economy in 2008 (and 1992 with pickle head James Carville and his news media chorus) seems to be doing the opposite this election as far as bamboozling the public about the economy’s health.
The mass fear in 2008 caused a lot of independent voters (as well as NASCAR dads) to put their faith in Obama when casting their vote in the metaphorical voting booth.
Don’t forget the war mongering Ahole who was running against him. Another sick sob who I have no sympathy for. I voted for Ron Paul that election.
Right. McCain was a POS in the same line of the Bushes, Romney’s, and every other necon-fake job. So tired of the Republican establishment of thieves and liars.
It’s unfortunate for the Republican party that the best representative they could find to replace the establishment Republicans that you disdain was huckster Trump.
A tad simpler than that imo.
Those people that have “Nothing” will believe lies promising something (anything is more than they currently have).
Those people that have “Something” will believe lies promising something (anything that lets them keep what they have).
Those people that find it all exhausting, to a point that they feel “Nothing” ever changes, simply don’t care (Go along, to Get along, and hope for the best).
A bit OT, but election related.
CIA News Network (CNN) has gone off the deep end with a story about those ‘sinister’ Russians.
“Now, the Justice Department is alleging that some of the biggest stars in right-wing social media were, unwittingly, part of a sinister Russian operation to influence the 2024 US election.”
Straight out of the handbook for banana republics. Anything to silence the opposition.
There is no longer any meaningful “opposition”, once the indocrinati has been rendered so completely uncritical and pliant, that they accept the utterly idiotic premise of this nonsense: That “Russians” seeking ti “Influence” a US election is somehow a bad thing, while “Americans” doing the same thing, is somehow a-ok.
Russians casting votes in a US election would be a problem. But Russians simply providing information voters can freely choose to accept or reject, is no different from anyone else doing so. What matters is freedom of speech. Anyone saying anything to anyone anywhere, without any restriction.
The reason America is now reduced to just another totalitarian bunghole likely even worse governed than Russia, is specifically that the pliant indoctrinati has allowed themselves to sink so low as to no longer recognize this; instead blindly and uncritically allowing some self serving gaggle of deep state “syyyystem” beneficiary trash to “referee” who gets to say what.
Yes: What “The Russians” say are 100% selfserving lies. ANY, literally, correlation with reality is purely accidental.
But exactly that same is true for CNN, Any organ of the US government, any US political party, any US “journalist” etc. As well as any Chinese and Venezuelan ditto.
There is NO difference in a priori accuracy between any of them. Anything any of then spew, is purely fake news. To exactly the same; 100%; degree.
So great: If “The Russians” wants to add to the pile of whatever drivel gets bandied about by the critical indoctrinati, great! More information is always better than less. Even if none of it has any value at all, beyond simple entertainment. Or perhaps as inputs to some silly language model or whatnot.
So I guess Putin really is rooting for Kamala!
“Personally, I plan to vote for Harris….”
brain dead.
libertarian for Harris.
Libertarians are what brought us Trannies in the education system. Get off the fence and stand for something other than pleasing yourself.
“Libertarians are what brought us Trannies in the education system”
No it’s not. Trivially so, since it is specifically the prevalence of idiots too dumb to be Libertarians, which is the reason there is such a thing as an “Education” (newspeak for indoctrination…) “System” in the first place.
Hence, if it was up to Libertarians, there would be no such totalitarian “system” for “trannies” to be in, in the first place. Just as there was none, back when America still aspired to be a somewhat free and civilized country
1. Just days before the election, Trump will be blessed with a BLS jobs report.
This is likely to be the most dishonest report of the entire Obama 3rd term.
As if your average voter cares about the BLS report.
Especially when they’ve already experienced it 6 months a priori! Just useless conformational information with little to no value except economists and politicos.
There are 5/7 millions illegal immigrants that compete with the lower quintile of wages. They are mostly black and Latinos. The immigrants replaced middle age and old workers. These forgotten people care about crime, the southern border and inflation.
They all need to be rounded up and sent off.
The FED has seemingly capitulated to calls for an interest rate cut and backed itself into a corner necessitating that it follow through.
So far, we have achieved the so-called “soft landing” and there is no great pain among the general economy that warrants an interest rate cut.
Regardless, any cut is going to be positive for Harris and will upset Trump.
CPI may look good coming up, but previous price increases are baked in and everyone knows it. If the CPI runs negative, well that would be another matter. I do not expect that.
Odds of a negative month-over-month CPI in one of the next two months is above 50 percent IMO
But that’s is not exactly great news if it is due to collapsing demand
Consumer spending is rising because 5/7 millions illegal immigrants earn money. They are not in the data. Blacks and latinos are worse off in the last four years of Kamala/Biden. U might add millions of Jewish voters in medium size cities like PGH. Jews no longer recognize their D party. They have been tossed out like blacks and latinos. Zeldin, a jewish candidate, almost defeated NY gov Hochul. That was the first warning sign.
And yet, The System will guarantee a Harris victory.
Harris could have a 2024 Biden 2.0 debate and still win.
Harris could come out with a 3-point plan that includes raising SS & Medicare taxes to 28%, and she’d still win.
Harris could be caught on a hot mike about being the anti-Christ and still win.
The System will not let Trump 2.0 happen.
Exactly. People haven’t been paying attention to the last 8 years of government tyranny. As if being locked in your house and forced to wear a diaper on your face wasn’t enough. And that was just the beginning of the tyranny people have memory holed.
The only way Trump wins if each swing state is above 10 points. Otherwise they will all cheat no matter the cost. They already tried to kill him and that failed. The next steps are going to be worse.
If CPI goes negative, it will be interesting to see how it is spun.
You must be new here. The CPI-W has gone negative month over month FOUR times in the last year. The BLS is able to hide that by reporting “seasonally adjusted” figures to the press.
Yes, you are correct. I was thinking of the cumulative.
All one needs to know about Mr Silver, is he had recently become partner in a major betting firm that is working the election and running the odds. He is having his cake and eating it too. He can’t lose, but he can skewer the odds in his favor from the people duped enough to waste their money betting in one direction or the other. Conflict of interest, but no one cares anymore about such things.
That’s bullshit
Nassim Taleb basically called him an idiot. But it doesn’t surprise me that there’s an element of crookedness in there too. After all, he’s a democrat.
I wouldn’t trust Nate Silver with predicting the outcomes of the 1973 Triple Crown Races. He’s a paid shill.
Agreed. Polling today is an extension of Big Tech which is an extension of The System.