For reference, all election ratings used in the text and maps of the article employ this color-coded system:
Safe Democratic: Dark Blue
Likely Democratic: Light Blue
Lean Democratic: Pale Blue
Tossup: Beige
Lean Republican: Pale Red
Likely Republican: Light Red
Safe Republican: Dark Red
The Final Prediction
Regardless of which candidate one supports, the last week of the election is always painful. Every poll brings anxiety, every gaffe by one’s preferred candidate seems like the end of their campaign, and the more attuned start panicking over vague prophecies derived from early voting statistics. For anyone who has decided to predict the election, however, the last week of the campaign brings about the most painful act of all: eliminating tossups from their predicted electoral map.
This is especially relevant in an election in which “tossup” seems to make up half of the vocabulary of the average pundit. To resolve their conundrum, many pundits will likely offer predictions depicting an even split among swing states—perhaps Harris wins the Rust Belt swing states, while Trump prevails in the Sun Belt, resulting in a prediction that is more or less tied. I could do this as well—certainly, the idea that the election will be incredibly close is not entirely unfounded, for it is what the polls seem to show.
A nearly-tied election, however, is not what I believe is the most likely outcome at the moment—though I don’t discount it as a valid possibility. Instead, I believe that when indicators besides polling are taken into account, and when polling is critically analyzed, it becomes clear that Kamala Harris and Democrats writ large have a small but definite advantage in the election; more specifically, I anticipate that Harris will win every major swing state (and win the popular vote by a similar margin to Joe Biden in 2020), that Democrats will narrowly flip the House of Representatives, and that Republicans will narrowly flip the Senate. Below, I will offer my justifications for each of these predictions, starting with the presidency.
Why Kamala Harris is the Favorite to Win the Presidency—And Sweep Every Swing State
What the Polls Show—And Don’t Show:
Polling Error
I would first like to establish that not only is a sweep of every swing state by Kamala Harris an entirely plausible outcome under current polling, but it is also well within the bounds of polling error that has happened in past elections. At the moment, FiveThirtyEight’s polling averages show that regardless of which candidate is leading, margins in six of the seven major swing states are within two points. In the seventh, Arizona, Trump leads by barely over two points. For Harris to win every swing state, then, the most by which she will need to overperform polling in a given state is just over two points. Considering polling error in past elections, this is entirely plausible: in 2012, for instance, polls underestimated Barack Obama by roughly 3 points. On a statewide level, polling error can be even larger: in 2020, polling underestimated Donald Trump’s margin in Florida—and numerous other states—by upwards of 6 points. Additionally, statistically speaking, it is generally more likely that a candidate will sweep every swing state than win roughly half of them, as a victory in one swing state tends to correlate with a better share of the national popular vote, which would mean a better performance in another swing state, and so on. Of course, it is not enough to say that it is possible polling averages will underestimate Harris—it is necessary to establish that it is likely. I present below two major reasons why polling is more likely to underestimate Harris than Trump.
Herding
Herding is a phenomenon in which pollsters adjust their results (either through resampling, rounding the results, or making any other kinds of “adjustments” to the raw data) to those of other pollsters to avoid being singled out for criticism. In elections where it seems that one candidate is clearly favored, this means pollsters will “herd” their results to show said candidate up, while in an election like this one, where conventional wisdom holds that it is a pure tossup, pollsters “herd” their results to be as close to a tie as possible. This may explain why (especially before the deluge of low-quality right-leaning polls, which will be addressed soon) a suspiciously large number of polling averages seemed to be converging towards an exact tie—and a suspiciously large number of polls seem to be showing an exactly tied or nearly-tied result as well. It is entirely possible that the “raw” results of polls could be more favorable to Harris, but pollsters are either not releasing these results or tweaking them to fit other polls. Why is the reverse not true? It mainly has to do with the fact that polling already underestimated Trump in 2016 and 2020, which, as noted in a recent New York Times article, “shattered many pollsters’ confidence in their own methods and data” and made them “more willing to take steps to produce more Republican-leaning results.” Of course, this operates under the assumption that polls will always underestimate Republicans, which, when looking at the broader historical context, is simply not true.
Low-Quality and Sparse Polling
The possibility of herding, while entirely plausible, can only be speculated about, given that pollsters seeking to preserve their credibility will obviously not disclose such a practice. Another issue with polling is abundantly clear: respected pollsters aren’t releasing enough polls, and low-quality pollsters—the vast majority of whom release polls that are strongly biased towards Republicans—are filling the void. Some of these pollsters include The Trafalgar Group, infamous for its highly inaccurate polls in the 2022 midterms. Others, such as Echelon Insights, Quantus Insights, and Patriot Polling, either have a consistent record of releasing Republican-biased results or have little experience with polling at all. While the Harris campaign may have reason to believe its standing is better than polling averages indicate, these Republican-biased polls could serve as retroactive justification for a second “stolen election” narrative, as Trump and his allies may use them as examples of what the “real results” look like.
What Indicators Besides the Polls Show:
Fundraising
This is perhaps the most obvious advantage Harris holds over Trump. Since January 2023, the Harris (previously Biden) campaign has raised $997 million, while Trump’s has raised only $388 million. Additionally, the biggest fundraising hauls of election season have come since Harris entered the race. When including other fundraising groups affiliated with Harris, her campaign raised over $1 billion between July and October alone, numbers unprecedented in American history. A fundraising lead does not guarantee victory for a candidate, of course, but it is difficult to argue against the advantages it grants.
The Washington Primary
The state of Washington’s primary election is known to some election analysts as a remarkably predictive indicator of the results for both president and Congress in November. Some theorize that this is because Washington’s all-mail voting system makes turnout for primaries resemble general election turnout much more closely than in other states, while others theorize that it is because when one excludes the Seattle metropolitan area, Washington’s demographics strongly resemble those of key swing states in the Midwest. Regardless, if the Washington primary is to be trusted, it presents a very positive sign for Harris: not only did Democrats do better than their 2022 performance in the state, they even exceeded their 2020 performance. If past trends hold up, this means Democrats will win the generic congressional ballot by around 4 points, and possibly the presidential popular vote by even more.
Personal Favorability
Harris possesses another advantage that seems to be less and less common in American politics: a large section of the population actually likes her. Not only is her personal favorability essentially tied with her unfavorability among the American public, it is significantly better than Trump’s—around 7 points better, to be exact. Interestingly, the difference between the two candidates’ favorability numbers and between their respective presidential polling numbers is large—this could reflect a contingency of undecided voters who hold favorable views of Harris but may not be as inclined to say they will vote for her in polling. Only time will tell, however, if favorability and voting intention will ultimately converge.
Suburban Trends
For the past four election cycles—2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022—Republicans have slowly lost ground with suburban voters, while Democrats have gained ground. This is a crucial issue for Republicans; once the party of affluent, suburban, educated voters, the party is now increasingly making overtures towards working-class voters without college degrees in rural and urban areas. Since the American public is becoming increasingly educated, and suburban voters already make up a majority of the American electorate, these trends, so long as they continue, will prove more beneficial to Democrats than Republicans—especially because suburban voters tend to make up a larger part of the electorate in key swing states (the fast-growing suburbs of Atlanta, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and North Carolina’s Research Triangle are excellent examples). If what we saw in 2022—when Republicans made gains in certain “safe states” while losing nearly uniformly in swing states—repeats itself, Democrats have yet more reason to be optimistic.
The Dobbs Effect
When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, it may not have anticipated the massive effects the decision would have on America’s political landscape. The 2022 midterms, however, showed that abortion is a high-salience issue for many voters, especially young people and women. The female vote is especially important—women vote at a slightly higher rate than men—and if Harris wins, a shift towards her among female voters will likely be one of the biggest reasons for her victory.
Why Republicans are Favored to (Narrowly) Flip the Senate
While the factors promoting a bullish outlook for Harris also apply to the Senate, this does not mean Democrats are favored to win the upper chamber of Congress. The main reason for this is that the map this year is incredibly unfavorable to them: Democrats already had to abandon Joe Manchin’s seat in West Virginia, and then had to choose between supporting Jon Tester’s bid for re-election in Montana or giving up on him as well, trying to flip a Republican seat in another state instead.
In the end, it seems that they may have made the wrong choice. While Tester’s support has collapsed in Montana, Democratic candidates in states such as Texas, Florida, and Nebraska, where Republican incumbents are most vulnerable, have failed to close the polling gap in time—and even an underestimation of their support will likely not be enough. This is partially because Democrats realized too late that the Montana election was a lost cause, wasting large quantities of money on it, and also because they did not fully commit to flipping one particular Republican-held seat. Instead, the Democratic Party’s financial arm has spent most of its money on less-vulnerable incumbents and, occasionally, paltry amounts spread out among a few Republican-held seats.
This does not mean the Senate will prove to be all doom and gloom for Democrats, however. Sherrod Brown is slightly favored to hold his Ohio Senate seat for the party, and if he does, Democrats will only be down one seat from a majority. Additionally, the 2026 map presents opportunities to flip seats in states such as Maine and North Carolina. Even before 2026, there is also the offhand possibility that a moderate Republican senator, such as Lisa Murkowski or Susan Collins, will provide support for certain key bills—and possibly even end a Republican majority by becoming an Independent.
Why Democrats are Favored to (Narrowly) Flip the House of Representatives
Though the final outcome in the House of Representatives is difficult to predict, it is still possible to hazard a guess as to which party will win and how many seats they would get. My estimate is that if Kamala Harris wins, as predicted, by a similar margin to Joe Biden in 2020, Democrats will likely win the House as well. As for the number of seats, it should most likely fall between 218 (the minimum needed for a majority) and 230—if forced to pick an exact number, I would say something exactly between those two values—i.e. 224 seats—is most likely. Democrats will likely benefit from Republicans’ failure to achieve a “red wave” in 2022, for they only need to pick off half a dozen incumbent Republicans to flip the chamber.
A Note on Governors
As noted in the first article in this series, there are very few competitive gubernatorial races this cycle. After North Carolina Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson’s campaign saw its chances of winning disappear amidst a series of scandals, there remains only one competitive gubernatorial race in the country: New Hampshire’s. Even with its relative importance this cycle, there is surprisingly little data on the race. Polling has been both close and sparse, and neither former Republican United States Senator Kelly Ayotte nor former Democratic Mayor of Manchester Joyce Craig have suffered from any notable scandals or negative news stories this cycle. In the end, I will give a slight advantage to Craig in this race, for despite New Hampshire’s reputation for ticket splitting, Harris’s coattails—and a heavy Democratic campaign on abortion—may be enough to bring Craig to the finish line.
A Final Note
Predicting elections can be a bit of a fruitless endeavor. There is always an element of uncertainty, and while “rules” for predicting them sometimes carry on between elections, surprises happen without fail. While the predictions I make here are what I think is most likely to happen based on what I have read about the election, I also don’t expect to be entirely right—no one can claim to see into the minds of over 150 million American voters. I hope I have added an opinion to the discourse over the election—i.e. that Harris and Democrats may be more favored to win than mainstream polling and punditry assert—that I think is undervalued. I believe members of the American political class are too afraid to make bold claims at the moment for fear of the backlash they will receive if they are wrong. Being wrong, however, whether in elections or politics in general, allows us to understand how we eventually might be more accurate. And in the end, all of us, taken individually, will probably get something wrong about this election. The only group that can accurately predict an election, after all, is the voting public at large.
The opinions expressed within this piece represent the views of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Jefferson Independent.
Leave a Reply