The Briefing, Vol. XII, Issue 43
This week:
- With the Harris hype dried up, Democrats are back to June 26
- Trump has never been favored to win an election before this one
- Senate Republicans have put Ohio into play, look next to Wisconsin
President 2024
Last week marked an important milestone for Democrats in the 2024 election.
As experienced political reporter Mark Halperin remarked in an interview with Tucker Carlson, the Democrats are roughly “back to where they were when Biden was the nominee, before the debate.”
This is true in multiple senses. Halperin, the first to report that Biden was dropping out, specifically meant it in the sense that, like Biden, replacement nominee Vice President Kamala Harris probably now has to win all three of the tossup states in the Great Lakes region in order to win the presidency. In other words, she probably has only one path to 270 in the Electoral College, and it involves winning all three out of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania — all states where she trailed in the RealClearPolitics average as of Friday.
In fact, Harris trails in all seven of the swing states in that polling average. But in contrast to Halperin, we would point out that the race is close enough in North Carolina that she might still have more than one path.
There is another sense in which Democrats are back to where they were before Biden’s fateful debate. Last Thursday, Donald Trump’s odds to win the presidency rose to 100-to-61 (that is to say, 61 percent odds), the level they rose to at 8 pm EDT on June 27, one hour before the infamous debate that ended Joe Biden’s political career. Betting odds should not be given too much weight, since events considered to be unlikely do happen — for example, Trump’s win in 2016. They do not work like polls. Instead, imagine flipping a coin with 61 percent odds of coming up heads — you would not be surprised if it came up tails on the first flip, since it should do so nearly four out of ten times.
Yet the odds markets do at least offer a clear picture of what the public is expecting. And no one but the truest of true believers has ever expected Trump to win a presidential election before this year. This time, most people are expecting it. That alone says something.
Trump favored? It is important to point out that Biden was losing the election badly before the June 26 debate, which really just became the Democrats’ excuse to cast him aside. We had been pointing out since March that the Electoral College math wasn’t adding up for him.
Today, although the situation is more ambiguous with more states contested more closely today, it is still impossible to plot a path to 270 for Harris without assuming she will win in multiple states where she is currently both trailing in the polls and favored to lose. This is an uphill climb, especially for the candidate who is effectively the incumbent in the race.
There is also a widespread perception that the momentum from her accession this summer has vanished and even perhaps reversed. The vibes are bad now, and it’s no longer enough to call JD Vance “weird” in order to seem cool or brat or whatever.
Compounding Harris’s problem has been her inability to make headway by giving more access to the media. Her friendly-media tour was disappointing — almost disastrous — if only because it produced the clip from The View where she said she couldn’t think of a single thing she would do differently from Biden if elected. Her Fox News interview with Brett Baier went even worse when she was asked about her participation in the coverup of Joe Biden’s mental decline for the first three years of his presidency.
The Trump effect: In 2016, Trump’s win came as a shock to everyone, perhaps including even himself. In 2020, he was again widely expected to lose. The only surprise was that he made it as close as it was. Joe Biden held a commanding lead in every poll. It was as if the pollsters had gotten even worse.
This time around, Trump leads not only in all of the states that matter, but also in four of the last six nationwide polls, at least as this is being written. Again, this is something that never happened in 2020 or 2016. Biden led in the averages by 7.5 points at this point, and Trump had not topped him in a single national poll since September. Trump also almost never led in national polls in 2016 — Hillary Clinton led in the national average at this point by more than six points.
This doesn’t guarantee a Trump victory — indeed, all of the state-level polls still show a very close race, even if Trump leads narrowly in each state (in some by less than a single point).
But unless the pollsters have recently found a cure for their chronic underestimation of Trump’s performance in past races, and are in fact overcompensating in his favor, he is the leader, at least for the moment.
The Electoral College map, taken simply from no-lean polling averages and odds (they agree in all cases), looks like this:
Although it would probably be wiser to leave North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Michigan blank, this would be our prediction today if forced to fill in every state.
Nevada: Early reports suggest that Democrats are underperforming 2020 in building up a margin from the early mail-in vote. Some also point to evidence that Republicans, rather than merely turning out their usual high-propensity Election Day voters by mail, are banking mail ballots from lower-propensity voters who did not vote in 2020 and those who voted early in-person. Those are promising signs.
Despite one outlier poll showing Trump up by six points, the Silver State will be about as close a race as anywhwere. A victory in Nevada may not matter, but it keeps an additional path open for Trump in the Electoral College, just in case. In the event that he were to lose North Carolina or Georgia, for example, Trump would have the option of replacing the 16 electoral votes from either with the 17 combined electoral votes of Nevada and Arizona (where he leads more convincingly).
North Carolina: A new statewide survey looking at all the races on the North Carolina ballot should provide some context for Republicans fearing the complete implosion of their statewide ticket due to Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson’s (R) personal scandal.
The survey shows the narrowest of Trump leads (less than one point), Robinson losing by double digits, and then Republicans leading in only five out of the ten statewide races downballot (including a state Supreme Court race that could give the GOP a 6-to-1 majority).
To sum up, Robinson’s fall is definitely dragging the GOP down, but victory is still well within the margin of error in almost all of the other statewide races for either party.
Senate 2024
Ohio: Polling from both Republican and non-partisan sources confirms that Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) is trailing in his re-election race against businessman Bernie Moreno (R).
Moreno, who had been Trump’s choice as the GOP nominee, leads Brown by three points in a Moreno campaign internal poll leaked to Axios Thursday, and by one point in a new survey released by Morning Consult on Thursday. For any incumbent to trail at this point is an ominous sign.
As we noted previously, Republicans have been piling on here with resources, sensing a weakness and an opportunity to guarantee a Senate majority regardless of the presidential outcome. Ohio is the insurance policy against an unexpected disaster someplace like Nebraska or Texas.
Although Brown still narrowly leads (by less than a point) in the RealClearPolitics average, that average doesn’t include either of these more recent surveys. With Trump at the top of the ticket and expected to win Ohio’s 17 electoral votes by nearly ten points, it may be too much to expect Brown to survive.
Texas: Sen. Ted Cruz (R) had a very strong debate performance last week, and it appears to be standing him in good stead. Despite earlier fears, he leads challenger Rep. Colin Allred (D), 51 to 44 percent, in the latest Universtity of Texas poll. This would have Cruz outperforming Trump, who only leads 51 to 46 percent.
All along, the concern about Cruz has been that he will not perform as well as Trump with South Texas Hispanic voters — a Democratic demographic that is becoming increasingly Republican in its sensibilities and voting habits.
Wisconsin: This is yet another race Republicans are very eager to put into contention, although it is unclear whether they can. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D) still leads, but by an uncomfortably narrow margin — one to three points, small enough for a late-stage surge by businessman Eric Hovde (R) to overcome.
