Thursday, October 17, 2024
PMT: The Final Approach
A tumultuous election season is coming in for a landing, and it is pretty scary out there no matter which side you are on. Nate Silver says that with a 2.8% national lead, there is a 50% chance that Kamala Harris will win the electoral college and become president. According to that expert (and most others) we are in pure tossup territory. All of the swing states have a margin of 1% or less except Arizona (which is 1.5% for Trump).
A lot can happen between now and November 5, of course, but it is unclear if any of it will matter much. People are dug in, and there just aren't a lot of people out there who haven't made up their minds AND are likely to vote. The candidates are scraping around for any advantage.
In the end, one of two things will matter. First, there might be a bump one way or the other by news or circumstances, like Jim Comey's dumb announcement about Hillary Clinton's emails on the eve of the 2016 election. Second, there might be something that affects turnout, such as a storm that hits either the rural or urban part of a swing state.
It's going to be close, unless the polls are terribly wrong-- and they probably aren't.
