US #ScrimshawSix, One Week Out

On The Presidential Election And Other Races

I know this site’s coverage of the US has been lacking, but the two reasons for that remain; the polls are mostly showing everything at a tossup, which makes analysis boring, and fundamentally I find it hard to get myself up for this election from a content standpoint, because frankly I don’t know if I have any right to have super strong opinions. (Listen to my last appearance on Politics Politics Politics for a lot of them.)

This is going to be a general, incomplete set of thoughts on the US. These are not my final predictions, and everything in here is a provisional assessment and subject to change as we get the onslaught of state polls this week. I should have a final prediction out for TheLines on Monday of next week, and everything will get posted on Twitter anyways.

That said, I’m drunk, I have 90 minutes until Monday Night Football, and I have some thoughts. So, let’s break out the #ScrimshawSix and go for it.

Harris Is Favoured, Narrowly…

I don’t buy the idea that Donald Trump is favoured to win. Harris is strengthening in Michigan, where Glengarriff’s final poll has her up 3% and QPac had her up 4% last week. Trump is mostly in the game in the averages in PA because of a load of bad, right wing pollsters, and two Likely Voter screens that took D+4 RV polls to R+1.

Obviously, we’re getting a ton of Pennsylvania polls this week (Marist, QPac, NYT/Siena and  both the outstanding in state pollsters all confirmed at this point, Fox likely), and if the polls show erosion in her position I’ll change my mind. The Early Vote data in Pennsylvania looks good - Democrats have a robust lead, and it seems like they are banking a good amount of votes. I’m not really here to engage in firewall discourse, but these numbers are pretty good.

If you provisionally give those two states to Democrats, they just need one of North Carolina, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Arizona. Having multiple outs to 270 is crucial, and it’s why Harris is the slight favorite.

But She Doesn’t Have This Won By Any Means

There’s two ways Trump wins this election - either I’m wrong, and one of PA and MI goes red, or he sweeps those four states I just mentioned. It’s not impossible, and if you squint it’s possible to make the case Trump’s favoured in all four of those states.

Wisconsin polls have trended right hard in recent weeks, from being the best state of the Rust Belt Trio to the worst one for Democrats. Suffolk had Trump up 1 today, and Quinnipiac had a 4 point delta between Democratic margins in Michigan and Wisconsin. Arizona has seen Suffolk and the New York Times/Siena both show big leads for Trump. Georgia’s early vote is trending towards a slightly less Black EV than 2020, which could be decisive. And Trump’s leading on average in North Carolina and Harris has mostly ignored the state in the closing stretch (and it’s the only one Trump won in 2020).

Now, I don’t buy those arguments, but it’s not like Harris is leading by 18% in the tipping point state or some huge lead. She has narrow but clear advantages in Michigan and Pennsylvania, and good chances in the other four. Or, at least, the other three - I really don’t buy North Carolina, as I wrote for TheLines last week.

It would be nice for Harris to be ahead by more. She has plenty of outs. It’s not a guarantee. It’s also probably more than 50%.

Democrats Should Win The House

Subjectively, I can’t find a particularly robust path for the GOP to win the House. I know it is possible, and I certainly don’t think it’s a lock, but Democrats should win it. I went through the whole map yesterday, and it’s a narrow path for the GOP.

My provisional map has the GOP at 212 seats. There’s a couple of semi-controversial calls for Democrats, including Iowa 3 and New Jersey 7, but even then I’m giving the GOP Mike Lawler and Mike Garcia despite not really buying either of them are actually favoured. The district polling could be wrong, but in general it points to an environment where Democrats are probably 65/35 favourites to win the House. Left trends in suburban seats that the GOP either got lucky to win in 2022 or are facing stiff headwinds in are at risk, and I don’t think they can pick off enough Democratic incumbents to make it up. I don’t think it’ll be a huge majority, but it should be a majority.

Democrats Won’t Win The Senate

Lord knows I want to make a case for Allred in Texas, but I can’t. John Tester’s going to lose in Montana, and that’s the ballgame. Sherrod Brown is an underdog in Ohio, as he fights right trends and the slow death of ticket splitting. That Brown’s status as a God-tier candidate is mostly fraudulent anyways helps Republicans. He only outran Obama by 3% in 2012 and beating Richard Cordray’s performance in Ohio Governor by 11% in 2018 is only impressive till you realize he outspent his opponent by $25M and the NRSC and the Senate Leadership Fund didn’t spend any money post-Labor Day.

There is a better chance of Allred winning in Texas than I’ve certainly given him in public (which is to say, more than the essentially zero I’ve given him), but Texas feels like a cycle away. If Trump wins, Allred’s probably the favourite for Cornyn’s seat in 2026, but that doesn’t change the fact Cruz should win. The suburban swings we’re gonna see in the DFW Quad and the Austin metro won’t be enough to make up for the Hispanic erosion of 2020, let alone any new slippage.

And frankly, Florida’s Florida. Let it break your heart again at your own peril. Democrats are probably on 48 seats.

Dan Osborn Is A Serious Challenger

I don’t think Osborn wins his quixotic Independent challenge to Deb Fischer, but he’s doing a lot of things that make him more likely to win or get really close than either the red state Democrats of 2020 or the McMullin-Orman duo in Utah and Kansas who came up short.

Osborn is leading in his own internal polling, which is often from much more reliable pollsters than other independents. SurveyUSA and YouGov have shown either Osborn leads or incredibly tight races in polls for him, which are different and harder to dismiss than when it’s Change Research or GBAO, explicitly partisan pollsters. He also is within 2 in the Times/Siena LV screen and leading amongst registered voters, which a lot of the red state 2020 Dems couldn’t manage.

I don’t think Osborn wins, but it’s too much polling from too many good pollsters saying it’s close to dismiss the possibility entirely. I think undecideds should break right and save Fischer, but it’s not a certainty. And that’s notable.

Trump’s MSG Rally Is Terrifying

I make no prediction about whether it will matter much, though it’s clear Puerto Ricans are reacting negatively to their island being called garbage. But it is absolutely the case that Trump is a threat to democracy and is an absolute lunatic. We can’t become complacent or start failing to understand just how terrible he is. He is not just a run of the mill far right politician. He is a genuine threat to the Republic and lord knows he must not win. Please don’t fuck this up.