2024 Presidential Election Update, September 14th Edition

The race continues to somewhat tighten, with the electoral vote forecast now having Trump/Vance with 245 to 226 for Harris/Walz. The toss-ups are now at 61, with an edge still favoring Trump at 42 and Harris at 19. Thus, Trump at 306 and Harris at 232. 270 is needed to win. 52 days to go. 

While Harris finally moved up on the electoral count, it was more of Virginia moving out of the Toss-up range in her favor. 

While nothing is firm until after the election... Trump seems to have a firmer grip on 245 EVs, with the following odds in a few other states.

• Pennsylvania - 19 EVs... Trump odds of winning - 89%
• Michigan - 16 EVS... Trump odds of winning - 86%
• Arizona - 11 EVs... Trump odds of winning - 80%
• Georgia - 16 EVs... Trump odds of winning - 69%

Those represent 62 EVs. Harris needs 3 of the 4, whereas Trump needs 2. 

Harris has whittled away at what was once a commanding Trump lead, but can that pace continue over the next 52 days? 

Now the question is whether I will continue to track all this, as my several of my files have become corrupted, and several attempts to restore them have failed. So do I go back to square 1?

2024 Presidential Election Update, September 7th Edition

The race continues to somewhat tighten, with the electoral vote forecast now having Trump/Vance with 245 to 213 for Harris/Walz. The toss-ups are now at 80, with an edge favoring Trump at 61 and Harris at 19. Thus, Trump at 306 and Harris at 232. 270 is needed to win. 59 days to go.

Harris slipped in Georgia and held steady in Nevada. 538 has Harris with a +3.1 margin nationally, whereas I have Trump with a +0.4 lead.

It should be pointed out that Clinton was polling a +3.9 point lead nationally, just before the 2016 election. Although it should be pointed out that she lost the electoral count, due to less than 100K votes in selected states. Also, Trump lost the 2020 electoral count also, by less than 100K votes in selected states. An election that had Biden leading in the polls by +8.4 points. 

It is the electoral count that matters. AS of right now... Trump has the edge. 

Next week brings on a debate. Doubtful that the polls would include results from after the debates... for a couple of weeks. 

In a boring stage of the polling, imho. 

2024 Presidential Election Update, August 31st Edition

The race continues to somewhat tighten, with the electoral vote forecast now having Trump/Vance with 245 to 213 for Harris/Walz. The toss-ups are now at 80, with an edge favoring Trump at 45 and Harris at 35. Thus, Trump at 290 and Harris at 248. 270 is needed to win. 66 days to go.

Harris has made inroads in Georgia and Nevada and narrowed the gap in several other states. However, that bounce may be over and we have entered a plateau for both candidates. 

Should be fun to watch, imho.

2024 Presidential Election Update, August 24th Edition

The race continues to somewhat tighten, with the electoral vote forecast now having Trump/Vance with 229 to 213 for Harris/Walz. The toss-ups are now at 96. 

With RFKjr seemingly dropping from the race in battleground states, the chatter is about where those votes might drop. The discussion seems to be the idea that 50% of those votes would ease towards Trump, and 25% to Harris.

If that were to take place, the Trump lead would move to 245~226. 

The question of Trump's under polling has cropped up in the conversation. This is due to Trump doing much better in polling for both 2016 and 2020. It is likely a factor, but will it extend to this election?

We will find out in 73 days, or whenever the count is completed and the lawsuits are settled. 

2024 Presidential Election Update, August 17th Edition

The race continues to somewhat tighten, with the electoral vote forecast now having Trump/Vance with 235 to 213 for Harris/Walz. The toss-ups are now at 90. The latter being Wisconsin narrowly sliding into toss-up range last week.

Throwing the toss-ups into the mix, results in Trump/Vance 301:237 Harris/Walz. The change from last week, was Arizona moving from a slight edge to Trump/Vance, to a slight edge for Harris/Walz.

The Harris/Walz lead in Arizona translates to about 10,362 votes. Biden/Harris won the state in 2020, by actual 10,457 votes.

So yes... it is getting interesting!

2024 Presidential Election Update, August 10th Edition

The race continues to somewhat tighten, with the electoral vote forecast now having Trump with 235 to 213 for Harris. The toss-ups are now at 90. The latter being Wisconsin narrowly sliding into toss-up range.

Throwing the toss-ups into the mix, results in Trump 312:226 Harris.

Red TU (toss-up) means leaning republican, although within the MOE (margin of error). Blue TU means leaning democrat, within the margin of error. 

The margin of error is based on weighted MOEs of published polls. Which widened this past week.

The ERR, is a weighted calculation based on error rate of polls versus election results, discounting their MOE for the past 4 presidential election cycles, where available. The ERR is also based on the minimum error rate, as well.

I have previously discussed some of the potential reasons for such rates of error.

The oddity of some states with a much higher rate of error from the same pollster, still escapes me. A pollster can nearly predict Georgia with accuracy, but the same pollster completely miss the mark in Wisconsin. 

The data is based on 60 polls, dated from July 25th, to August 9th. Not all states and districts have been polled since the upheaval in the race, but there is recognition of some blue states staying blue, as well as some red states staying red.

• AZ - 6
• CA - 1
• FL - 2
• GA - 6
• MI - 7
• MN - 1
• MT - 1
• NC - 4
• NH - 1
• NM - 1
• NY - 1
• OH - 1
• OR - 1
• PA - 13
• WA - 1
• WI - 8

Only 7 of these states, with 47 polls, currently fall into battleground status, out the 11 represented in the chart.

More polls can be expected in the coming week, but will likely be heavily tilted towards the so called battleground states.

Remember when Florida, Iowa and Texas were considered battleground states? Remember when Ohio was considered a bellwether state? Interesting terminology, that a wether was a castrated male sheep/goat of a flock, with a bell hung around its neck to lead the flock. Somehow, it does sound appropriate for elections! I digress!

2024 Presidential Election Update, August 4th Edition

It has been said that opinions are like a$$holes... everyone has one. The race has tightened, so pucker up!

Overall, Harris has taken the lead in national polling and the Electoral Vote count has tightened. Last week had the Trump count at 267, with Harris at 209.

It should be noted that polling data is severely lacking from non battleground states, as well as some battleground states. Realistically, only polling that began on or after 7-22, is considered. 54 polls of 15 states during that period, with 41 of those spread across just a handful of battleground states.

• Arizona - 5
• Georgia - 7
• California -2
• Florida -2
• Michigan -7
• Maine - 1
• Minnesota - 3
• North Carolina -2
• New Hampshire -3
• Nevada - 3
• Ohio - 1
• Oregon -1
• Pennsylvania -11
• Washington -1
• Wisconsin - 5

So a lot of wiggle room, although the race still favors Trump... as the path to a victory is wider than Harris' path. 

As for a debate, I suspect the Harris campaign is giddy with the recent surge in support, but as time wears on, the need for a debate will become clearer. Attempting to hijack what was billed as a Biden v Trump, and magically appear as a Harris v Trump debate... is not as easy as forcing Biden to drop out, imho.

A Foray Into the 2024 Presidential Election, July 28th Edition

A lot can happen in 8 days. If you believe the media, Harris is surging, although it would appear that the numbers aren't much different than just before the debate. Trump leads with 267 EVs, to Harris at 209... with 270 being the magic number.

What is lacking now, that was not prior to debate... is enough data to give a clear analysis. There are many states that have not been polled this past week, but we can assume that some states such as California will be Blue, and some like my state of Kentucky... will be Red. 

There are a number of states that fall into the "battleground" definition. Texas and Florida are no longer in that realm, imho.

The issue of battleground states is important, as small numbers in some states, caused the election to move one way or another.

As an example...

A mere 42,918 votes in Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin, moved Biden to 306 electoral votes, instead of the 269~269 tie. Nevada's 33,596 would have moved Trump back into the White House.

It's interesting to note that IF Trump had won that election, neither he nor Biden would be running for re-election this year. It would also be questionable if Harris would be anywhere on the horizon. Something to think about, imho.

So battleground states are important.

States with asterisks do not have enough polling data to really differentiate candidate status, imho, with the exception of North Carolina. The TU or Toss-up is colored to indicate the slight lean... based on current data. Data is from this past week. 

Also the yellow blocks indicate states with Kennedy on the ballot. Which again, has the democrats attempting to protect democracy by removing Kennedy from the ballot. This is going on in several states.

I would think additional polls will be revealed this coming week, so I would expect some changes. As for the ERR column... this is for error rating of previous election cycles. As an example and denoted in the 2020 election statistics chart, Wisconsin has historically under-polled for republicans over the past 4 election cycles. Why? I do not know. So a polling tie in Wisconsin would likely result in a decent lead for Trump and its 10 EVs. Just not yet. 

Georgia on the other hand, has a near spotless polling to election record. My initial reaction is to add Georgia's 16 EVs to the Trump column, but a bit more data would clear the air for me.

So, I am settling with the Trump - 267 ~ Harris - 209, for now.