A guest post by Yolkovermarmite, a conservative Kiwi living in the US, who supports Kamala Harris in this election:
Everyone highly interested or concerned about the election tonight will be experiencing their own copium today, from avoidance of all discussion and staying off social media, to burying themselves in work, or, in my case, giving into the ‘fun’ of burying into it for the last few months around the edges of my actual life. This election has been another wild ride with the sudden change of horse against the guaranteed madness of King Trump.
This race is likely close, though maybe not as close as all the herded polls would tell you. I think I can make a strong case for why either candidate can win, and for Trump that would include consumer confidence lagging the improving economy, combined with hazy memories of the ‘good’ Trump economy, continued fears over inflation, a definite fear of immigration, and maybe even some of the culture war stuff connected to Trans issues. However, as I hate Trump, to the bottom of my core, I don’t want to break down what could lead him to win, other than to acknowledge that I see and understand those arguments. What I would rather do, as a much more enjoyable exercise for me on election day, is to set out the reasons for why Harris can and will win, then set out election night predictions and my final, optimistic, electoral college split for Harris.
Reasons why I think Kamala Harris will win (from most important to least):
The Gender Gap
The most important reason that Harris will win the election, is that the gender gap is the most pronounced of my lifetime, with more women supporting Harris than men supporting Trump. Has been the case ever since Dobbs and the rolling back of abortion rights across so many states, exacerbated by Trump’s clear misogyny and general creepiness towards women (“support women whether they liked it or not”), surely reminding many that he has been a proven creep from the pussy grabbing tape, to the Jean Carroll rape case, to this week’s revelations about the sexual assaults that Trump performed in the presence of his “good friend” Jeffrey Epstein. I think it’s clear that pollsters that are herding together for comfort by basing their voter screens on 2020, are potentially missing a quiet political realignment post Dobbs, amongst older women, especially Boomer women, focused initially on abortion, and now broader reproductive rights aligned to the threats to IVF and female contraception that Project 2025 has brought sharply into view. Joining these older women who in their youth fought for those rights, is a sharp incline of newly registered voters, disproportionately featuring young women, who understand that the rights secured for them by boomer women, directly impact their reproductive rights today.
Incredibly, given that there are more women than men in the national voter pool, and women are higher propensity voters than men, rather than trying hard to reassure women that their rights are safe with him, Trump decided to focus on turning out a matching lead amongst men, especially young men, even though the voters with the lowest propensity for voting are young males. I do not think that’s generally a winning strategy and right now that is reflected in the early vote, where women have voted at a percentage 10 points higher than men.
If you take in the cross-tabs from how the Democrats blunted the feared ‘red wave’ in 2022, along with the outcome of special elections and abortion referendums in red and purple states since 2022, and the surprising high quality polling from top notch pollsters in Kansas and Iowa, it’s clear that women hold the key to this election, and Harris has certainly noticed this, with abortion and Project 2025 being heavily featured again in the last couple of weeks of the campaign. The Selzer poll in Iowa may not actually play out with a Harris win, but if it is directionally accurate, then the Trump campaign can look back on Trump’s disdain towards women and their rights, as a key reason for why he lost.
The (usually accurate) Selzer poll that has Harris leading in Iowa, states that her surprising lead is driven by an underrepresented percentage of the population in herded polls, which are older postmenopausal women who fought so hard to get reproductive rights in the first place, now deeply concerned for their daughters and granddaughters and are aware of the stories of the many young women who have died unnecessarily in states like Texas. This is especially true of women who live in red states that have recently imposed six-week abortion bans with little or no exceptions for circumstances. The extent and enthusiasm of gender gap alone can really harm Trump this election.
Economy & Inflation
One key issue that initially pointed to Trump being a runaway winner, no matter who the Democrats ran against him, was the perceived state of the economy and undeniable impact of high inflation on voters. This was despite the US economy under Biden, performing much better than almost all other countries in the same timeframe. Crucially, the economy and inflation continuing to recover since Harris entered the race, along with her disciplined messaging on the economy, gave Harris the chance to draw even with Trump on the economy, allowing other issues to take greater primacy, like reproductive rights and democracy.
Running an Excellent campaign
Whatever happens tonight, it must be recognized that Harris, in a very short time, stood up and ran an excellent campaign. Harris hit it out of the park with each of the critical set pieces that feature in every campaign – the launch including her choice of Vice President, the convention, the debate where she thrashed Trump, her interview with Fox News, and her close. Not since Obama of 2008, have I seen any Presidential candidate manage these set pieces so successfully.
Has the campaign been perfect? Of course not, in the middle of her campaign, after she had built a slight lead, she perhaps fell into the trap of playing ‘prevent defense’ being too cautious and middle of the road in her messaging. I think it was unfortunate that she pulled back from I think were populist messaging winners such as attacking price gouging. I also think she could have used Tim Walz a bit more, because he is great on television taking on Republicans. But these are minor things, and in so many ways I think she has been an outstanding candidate, and I have no doubt that if Biden was still the nominee, especially after that ‘garbage supporters’ gaffe he made recently, we would be facing a run-away Trump win.
I think her performance as a candidate, and her campaign team’s discipline, has put her into the best possible position to win tomorrow night and if she does not win, I do not think it is because of the campaign that she ran, rather than the underlying factors like Biden’s unpopularity, that will be largely to blame.
Get Out The Vote (GOTV)
Connected to running an excellent campaign is building, in a tight race, a well-funded, very professional, very disciplined GOTV campaign through all of the campaign, building on what Biden bequeathed her as he had invested early and heavily in the ground campaign, once it became clear that he would struggle to get re-elected. Trump on the other hand, has relied on a couple of bros in Elon Musk and Charlie Kirk, who are not professional campaigners and have little to no experience in getting out the vote in swing states and that could mean they under-perform their own GOTV by an extra point or two. Elon Musk hilariously fired all of his Michigan canvassers from one of these groups over the weekend, because it turned out that not enough of them had been canvassing voters but had been faking knocking on doors to just pick up the cheque, which was only discovered after reporting from the Guardian newspaper.
Avoiding Explicit Identity Politics
I think it has been smart that in this election, that Harris has avoided the temptation of overt identity politics on her gender and ethnicity. I think Hillary Clinton did Harris a great service in this regard, breaking through the glass ceiling with her historic run in 2016 meant that when Harris got into the race, she did not need to belabor the point that she would be the first female president and able to avoid most of the dumb questions that Hillary faced, such as ‘could a woman be suitable as a commander-in-chief?”.
Not having to rehash those types of questions, Harris avoided the potential downsides of making explicit references to her gender and ethnicity as arguments to support her candidacy, focusing on more inclusive (and generic) arguments relating to why and how she would work for us and highlighting the dangers of re-electing Trump. At the same time, she made implicit and positive references to her gender and ethnicity, with high-profile appearances and endorsements from iconic black female entertainers and leaders, highlighting women, and her case with women, while not denigrating men or white people in the process. It is how a candidate can send a dog-whistle to some of their most highly motivated base, without agitating other parts of the electorate into voting against you. I would vote for a bucket of flaming turds over Trump, and that is what I am almost solely focused on, however, if Harris wins, I will look forward to enjoying America’s long-overdue ascension of a woman to the most powerful political position in America, and therefore the world.
Ironically, it is Trump who is leaning hard into white male grievance politics on anti-immigrant racial politics and gender, something that worked for him in 2016, but likely more counter-productive this time.
Tariffs
“Tariffs baby, big fat tariffs” there’s nothing that Trump seems to love more than a tariff. He even peddled this insane idea that he could remove domestic income tax entirely and replace it with tariffs, as that is how much he loves tariffs. Problem is, you know who does not love tariffs? American farmers, who he hurt with unfocused tariffs the first time he was president. In rural mid-western states like Iowa, after abortion, his proposed array of new tariffs may further depress some of that farm-led support. I think it was smart of Harris to call those tariff proposals “Trump’s Sale Tax” she clearly thought it would hurt him a bit with producers and consumers alike, and I agree.Predictions
Harris wins the Popular Vote
I think recent polls and special elections in Kentucky, Iowa, and Kansas, makes the MAGA trumpeted notion that Trump finally wins the popular vote fanciful, because of the ongoing opposition to those bans driving conservative older women, and newly registered younger women to turn against the GOP. Is that opposition enough to see Iowa turn blue tonight? I don’t think so, but it is likely enough to depress the winning margins for Trump in those red states, to more than offset the gains Trump has made in New York and California where he has recently campaigned, probably to help drive another ‘stop the steal campaign’ by winning (or just losing) the popular vote if he loses the Electoral College. I think that Marist Poll of Harris now winning by four points nationally, is likely correct, or close to it.
Trump Underperforms his Polls
Not enough has been made, I think, of Trump underperforming his polls since his overperformance in 2020. For instance, in the Republican primary season this year, yes he won the Primary, but consistently underperformed his polls in state after state against Nikki Haley, even after she dropped out but remained on the ballet. I think that weakness within the GOP is reflective of Non-MAGA conservative women’s unease with Trump and I think that will cost him again. In the 2022 midterms, the most Trumpy candidates, selected by Trump, competing in swing state races in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona for the midterms, all badly lost, underlining the voter realignment post-Dodds, and the first time Trump began paying a price for delivering Dodds and potentially his attempts to thwart democracy on January 6th. Democrats, since Dodds have consistently overperformed in all special elections across various states. This shows the continuing potency of Dodds.
Early Vote going for Harris
There is a danger in over-interpretating early voter data, however, it is encouraging that the split of the early vote shows potential softening of Republican Registered vote for Trump, underlining the theory of the case above may already be holding true, that enough Haley Primary voters, especially conservative women, are moving away from Trump. We shall see.
Late Breakers are also going for Harris
That final Marist Poll (A rated), showing a 4-point national spread to Kamala Harris (51% – 47%, the biggest lead of their cycle, which they put down to late deciders breaking decisively for Harris. 4 points nationally would more than likely be enough for a narrow to moderate EC win.So… finally, proof in the pudding, my Electoral College total and Electoral College Map. It would be more prudent to follow the majority of pundits and wager Harris to win with an EC total of 276 (Blue Wall + Nevada), but what is the fun in that? I’ll go with the much more ambitious total below:
Harris: 308 Trump: 230
https://www.270towin.com/maps/GjdlZ
Harris wins all the swing states other than Arizona, and only loses by a handful of points in Iowa.
In the final analysis, I believe women will deliver this election to Harris, especially older white, conservative leaning women, on Dobbs, Democracy, and sufficient comfort with the upward trajectory of the economy.
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