Does Trump Have Momentum?
Does Trump Have Momentum?
And what does “momentum” mean in the context of an election forecast?
Nate Silver's polling tracker now has Trump slightly favored to win (50.2%) the election. While this shift appears small, it has drawn attention because it pushes Trump just past the halfway mark in forecasts for winning the Electoral College.
Silver explains that while Trump’s rise over recent weeks is significant, and his polling model, is designed to minimize overreactions to new data to provide more accurate long-term predictions (i.e., it's likely a "real" effect), this doesn't in any way mean Trump "will" win, and the race remains highly competitive, especially in key states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, which are critical to determining the outcome.
You're viewing a single thread.
Yes, Trump appears to have momentum, but it also appears to be a phantom momentum driven by right leaning polling organizations.
https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/the-hungry-harris-campaign-early?utm_source=publication-search
"I now count 27 Republican or right-aligned entities in the polling averages:
American Greatness, Daily Mail, co/efficent, Cygnal, Echelon, Emerson, Fabrizio, Fox News, Insider Advantage, McLaughlin, Mitchell Communications, Napolitan Institute, Noble Predictive, On Message, Orbital Digital, Public Opinion Strategies, Quantus, Rasmussen, Redfield & Wilton, Remington, RMG, SoCal Data, The Telegraph, Trafalgar, TIPP, Victory Insights, Wall Street Journal.
In September 12 of the 24 polls of North Carolina were conducted by red wave pollsters. Check out the last 4 polls released in PA on 538. All are red wavers."
This is part of the plan, to induce doubt. "We couldn't possibly have lost a fair election! We were ahead!"
Hopefully.
He makes a pretty convincing case for both the idea that "momentum" is kind of meaningless, but also that Trump slowly gaining for the last 30 days is not. Part of what pushed it over the line (Silver is quick to point out that 49.8 and 50.2 is basically meaningless like the difference between a 49th and 50th birthday; we like round numbers) is the Fox News poll.
As he demonstrates, there is no detectable right-wing bias in Fox News polling despite the obvious bias of their news reporting. I can't speak to the others, but I'm not ready to dismiss all polls based on the political identification of the organization, if the polling is of high quality.
My gut tells me Trump is going to pull this out somehow. But, then again, my gut literally has shit for brains.
My personal opinion is that it's going to be far closer than anyone is really comfortable with.
I mean, look at 2020... BOTH candidates got more votes than any other candidate in history. 74 million people out of 330 million voted for Trump. 22.4% of the entire population went "Yeah, he looks good!"
Reminds me of that comedy video with the dude in a hospital bed who can't decide between having a surgeon or a clown do his life-saving surgery (spoiler: he chooses the clown because he's something different and he felt hospitals need that).
What makes me think Trump will lose again is the issue of women's rights/abortion.
I don’t think the people most affected by that are the ones answering poll questions, so I don't think their thoughts are being fully represented in the polls.
God I hope so, but Trump's continued support, specifically with white women, the largest demographic, is just BAFFLING to me.
I do see some older middle-aged women Trump supporters here, but most of the Trump supporters I see are the guys with the flags on their trucks and stuff.
Amazing. Thank you for your hard work!
a few things.
Nate Silver is not fivethiryeight. Silver Bullets is a totally different thing. Nate departed fivethiryeight over contract issues years ago. Since then their models have gone off the rails.
Second, you are fooling yourself if you ignore the reality that Harris has lost all momentum and is backsliding. It's in all the polling data, and when Nate references high quality polls, none of them vary significantly from the aggregate. Even Quinipiac shows her on her heals.
Third, almost none of those polls (that you mentioned) are used in Nates analysis. I think Fox and Trafalgar and TIPP, but that's it.
So like, conflating 538 with Nate Silver is an issue. I mean 538 had Biden at 60% to win when he was polling at 38%. Don't get rely on 538 for anything. Also, there is no significant differences between the so called RW pollsters and everyone else among high quality polls. I can drop that analysis for for you.
Reality is that Harris bungled the campaign thinking she could claim the center and this would motivate voters. America is divided as ever and no one is changing sides. Harris isn't in a race against Trump and she never has been. She's always been racing against apathy and the couch, and her rightward shift during and after the convention are what people will see in hindsight as obvious mistakes.
There are still two weeks left. But she blew off Muslim and ME voters early on. And now she's struggling with black and brown voters who are the apartheid that Palestinians live under as commiserate with their lives experience. I just don't see how she wins with effectively a prozionist foreign policy in today's political atmosphere. And it may only be 3-5% of typically democratic voters who are moved in that issue, but that's more than enough to lose this election, and it's been a clear signal in the data since the first or second week of September.
If Harris doesn't distance her self from the foreign policy disaster which has been the administrations support for Israel, I don't see her pulling this one out.
I don't see disagree about what you said regarding the polls, but by that same token, the fact that they are in a virtual tie should read to you she has a way to win just as she is.
Harris needs to be +5 in the aggregate of national polling to be tied. Her being in a virtual tie, is her losing badly. This is just established fact as a function of the American electoral system.
If only there was a prominent issue she could change on that would net a +5 swing in her favor...
If only there were some block of voters, who are still "uncommitted", that she could offer a concession to get them to commit...
The polling in question is based on electoral math.