Democrats cannot comport themselves like adults. They can't seem to help it either.
October 24, 2024
October 23, 2024
Trump's Rogan podcast appearance could seal the deal
President Trump is going to sit down with Joe Rogan on his podcast on Friday. Could this seal the deal for Trump? It might. It won't hurt, that's for sure.
Tulsi Gabbard's surprise announcement
It seemed like this was inevitable, eventually. This is a great thing; Tulsi Gabbard confirming her team.
October 22, 2024
My swing state view as of Oct 22
This morning I read the TIPP national tracking poll that showed over the weekend the race was tightening. It had this to say:
Trump's weekend momentum has fizzled out, and Harris and Trump are locked in a tight contest. Despite Trump's earlier momentum, the TIPP tracking poll shows former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris tied at 48%.
My first thought was okay it's a tracking poll, there is a daily fluctuation that shouldn't be taken as gospel. So I decided to look further, and I discovered two things. Firstly, despite the rounding, overall the details show Trump with a fractional lead at 48% and Harris somewhere around 47.7%. That is still a Trump lead, however small. The second thing I discovered was that within their tracking poll, Trump did indeed drop from 49% to 48% on the rolling score while Harris gained from 47% to just under the 48% mark. That could be anything from a weekend Democrat response bias to real movement. It's hard to tell.
Keep in mind this is a national poll. If Trump is even in a national poll, he is in a strong position to win the national total vote count, which is of course, merely bragging rights. Perhaps it's a little more consequential this time around but that's a discussion for another time. What's interesting is that it matches a couple of my updated swing state results. What really matters is the swing state polls.
Taking a look at the RealClearPolitics battleground state polling average (which are not the gold standard and why I try to average the polls a bit differently than RCP does) we see the following:
- Pennsylvania - Trump +0.8%
- North Carolina - Trump +0.5%
- Georgia - Trump +2.5%
- Arizona - Trump +1.8%
- Wisconsin - Trump +0.4%
- Michigan - Trump +1.2%
- Nevada - Trump +0.7%
October 21, 2024
My swing state view as of Oct 21
Here's what I see when I look at the polls and include only polls from the last 10 days, with only Likely Voters, only polls of 700 or more respondents, and with a margin of error less than or equal to 3.5%. Just like RCP, I'm seeing a swing state sweep for Trump.
This would equate to a significant electoral college sweep for Trump. There's good news and worrisome news in this. Firstly, Georgia and Pennsylvania look like they are approaching outside of margin of error leads for Trump. The worrisome part, the other states are all tin to razor-thin leads. The momentum is in Trump's favor BUT...
The Kamala Harris honeymoon was almost certainly a product of media and push-pollster hype. The polls 100% had to move towards Trump because the Harris leads were pure vaporware wishful-thinking, pie-in-the-sky unicorns and fairy dust. Which means that the polls have in reality, probably moved very little towards Trump. I don't doubt he's leading, but the margins may indeed be slim in these key battleground states. And if that's true, vote tabulation malfeasance is a risk.