Election Day Prediction: Trump Ekes It Out

Get out, vote if you haven’t, and pray that regardless of who wins this thing, the country will get back on track.

In less than 24 hours, the most hotly contested election of our lifetimes will hopefully begin to wind down. For whatever reason, the United States stands alone in stretching Election Day into Election Week into Election Month. 

I do, however, think Americans will be relatively clear on where the balance of power will stand. And I think that President Trump will return to power. 

This is by no means an iron-tight prediction. Since Kamala Harris ascended to the nomination on the back of Joe Biden’s rotting corpse, the race has oscillated between Trump and Harris highs before finally settling on about a 50/50 shot for either. 

Polling legend Nate Silver detailed how close this thing is with his final election day prediction. “Out of 80,000 simulations, Kamala Harris won in 40,012 (50.015%) cases. She did not win in 39,988 simulations (49.985%),” Silver wrote.

Margins this close are almost unheard of. And yet, I still think the trends both nationally and internationally favor a GOP return to the Oval Office. Not only that, but I predict a GOP trifecta. 

Let’s dig into why. 

Starting with the polls, trends have been indicating that it is Trump gaining momentum in swing states and not Harris. Harris might be slightly better off in national polling data, but the recent slate of swing state polls has been nothing but positive for Trump. Polling aggregator Real Clear Politics has Harris up by a sliver of a percent in national polling, an advantage that actually moves to Trump when third party candidates Jill Stein, RFK Jr., Chase Oliver, and Cornell West are included. 

Meanwhile, looking at the invaluable swing states, Trump is ahead. Per Real Clear again, Trump leads in Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia. Harris leads in just Michigan and Wisconsin.

Even less favorable aggregators for Trump still have the former president in a formidable position, just not as much. 538 has Harris up by just .2 points, well within the margin of error for the polls and meaning essentially the state is a toss-up.

There is, of course, the existence of certain outliers. A poll by gold star Iowa pollster Anne Seltzer made waves when it bizarrely claimed that Harris was up by 3pts in the Hawkeye State. Democrats seized on the poll and argued it showed that Trump’s dominance in places like rural Pennsylvania and Ohio were at risk. 

Except no. The poll is interesting given how Seltzer has exhibited almost Nostradamus-like powers when it comes to predicting margins in the state, but there’s a few explanations I think make it less likely this poll bears out. 

One, the poll is a massive outlier. Even with the accusations that pollsters this year are herding, or keeping their polling conclusions similar to other pollsters to avoid looking dead wrong, this is a pretty massive discrepancy. Emmerson polling released a poll the same day that had Trump up by 10 points. Someone is really wrong here and I think it makes sense to assume Iowa isn’t going blue any time soon. 

Two, the poll heavily oversampled Never Trumpers. When you self-select for people that by their very nature will not vote for the former president, that obviously has an impact on the final numbers. 

Third, and somewhat more big picture, there’s a strong possibility that even if this poll is dead on accurate and Harris does take Iowa that means little for the swing states around it. The general consensus I’ve seen on this poll is that it doesn’t reflect who will win Iowa, but who will win Pennsylvania. The logic is that Iowa and Pennsylvania are similar demographically and thus Iowa would serve as a bellwether for the far more critical swing state.

Again, a little more complicated. Iowa recently enacted a six-week abortion ban, giving female voters that polling has already shown backing Harris by large margins another reason to come out to vote. As Seltzer had Trump up in her October poll, and this would represent a massive swing, one could conclude that the abortion ban might be a locally based event that wouldn’t extend to neighboring states. 

Phew, alright polling is out of the way. What else do we have? 

Internationally, incumbents are getting utterly obliterated come Election Day. Ruling parties in France, Germany, the U.K., Portugal, India, Japan, Botswana, South Africa, and Senegal have all seen their power severely diminished by a wave of anti-incumbent rage. Why should the U.S. be the exception? 

Though Harris has tried to paint Trump as the incumbent in this race, she actually is the one whose boss is sitting in the White House. She has been the one with the keys to power at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave and the one who was determining policy for the last four years. If those trends extend to America, Harris and the Democrats are in a world of hurt. And there’s definitely evidence to suggest that’s the case. 

Biden stands as one of the least popular presidents in modern history. Up until her coronation, Harris also had popularity ratings in the toilet. And now that the Harris honeymoon has seemingly come to a conclusion, her popularity is starting to wane back to pre-coronation levels. 

Not a good place to be. 

These are just the two strongest collections of evidence for a potential Trump win, but there are certainly others. Early voting numbers seem good for Republicans and the economy, which has traditionally been the key benchmark for determining the president, is bad for Democrats. 

But at the end of the day, this is a toss-up election. I’m not going to pretend this is a Trump shoo-in, only that he’s favored to win. 

In less than 24 hours we will hopefully have some clarity on the trajectory of the most powerful country on Earth.

So get out, vote if you haven’t, and pray that regardless of who wins this thing, the country will get back on track.