The State of the Presidential Race & Bibi Strikes Again – Top 3 Takeaways – October 18th, 2024
- Fact or fiction? Is it fact or is it fiction that Donald Trump is as well positioned to win the presidential race today as he was on the day that Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race? Is it fact or is it fiction that polling has improved since the 2016 and 2020 elections? Is it fact or is it fiction that Donald Trump has effectively seized control of the presidential race and is poised to cruise to victory from here? My father once told me that a wise man knows the answer to 90% of the questions he asks. I can’t say that I necessarily live by that standard, I’m not sure it’s a practical standard, but I do take the principal behind it to heart. The idea is to be relentlessly learning and if you are you should already have an answer for most questions that might come up with topics that you’re interested in. Having that kind of command can lead to asking better questions of people but it also allows for quick character assessments. In my experience, when asking questions, most people appear to assume that I (and this is likely true with you too), don’t have the answers. It’s easy to see who knows what they’re talking about and who’s BSing. It’s easy to see who’s on the level and who’s posturing. Once you’ve established that you’re dealing with someone who’s both knowledgeable and credible, you can then move on to those next level questions that you genuinely don’t have the answer to. I thought of that philosophical exercise that I’ve been developing for over 30 years because it’s my job to have the facts and it’s my job to find the answers. As we sit here today, with only two more full weeks in this presidential race, I have the facts behind the three questions I asked to start today’s takeaways, but I most certainly don’t have the answers. But my top takeaway today is worth exploring because what we’ve experienced politically this week is one of two things. This week will have either been the week that Donald Trump sealed the deal on his way to winning the presidential race, or it will prove to have been the ultimate head fake if the election goes the other way. I’ll explain by breaking down each of the three questions I posed. On the question as to if Donald Trump is the best positioned to win the race as he was the day Joe Biden exited the presidential race...the reason I ask that question is this.
- The betting market odds are now the best they’ve been for Trump since the day Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race. On that day, July 21st, Trump’s odds of becoming the next president, according to the betting markets, was 58.4%. As of yesterday, Trump’s odds were posted at 58.1% (to 40.9% for Harris). It was only two relatively short weeks ago that Kamala Harris was still shown with an advantage in the betting markets. Something significant has changed here. Remember the way the presidential race felt after the 1st Trump assassination attempt and at the end of the Republican convention with Joe Biden still in the race? The betting markets are saying that’s effectively the current state of this race. The only major macro catalyst was the VP debate and what we’ve seen play out in the two weeks since suggests that it may have been the first VP debate that mattered. Of course a big part of the reason why the betting markets have broken hard in Trump’s direction of late is because polling data has increasingly been breaking his way. And that takes to my question about whether the polls have genuinely improved since 2016 and 2020. Obviously we won’t have an answer to the question until after the election. But what’s happened this week is that the polls are the best they’ve been at this point for Donald Trump in any of the three presidential elections. If you take the straight polling averages from the swing states Donald Trump is shown with a 302 to 236 Electoral College vote advantage. If you adjust for the margin of error in the swing state polls over the prior two elections Trump’s advantage grows to 312 to 226. Again, this is the best it’s been in the polls for Donald Trump since the day that Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race. If the polls are accurate this time around it would appear to be good news for Trump. If they’re off the way they were the previous two presidential elections, it’s great news for Trump. The lone risk here is that pollsters “overcorrected” from their misses in 2016 and 2020 and are oversampling Trump’s support as a result. With that said, as I frequently check the sampling of the polls, I find this to be unlikely because they most commonly are still significantly oversampling Democrats relative to Republicans. But from Trump’s perspective that is the risk in the numbers we’re seeing today. As for my third and final question about whether Trump has seized control of this race, that’s something I’m also uncertain about. The data suggests the answer to that question is yes. Kamala Harris’ quick shift in media strategy making her way to Fox News and her effort to get on Joe Rogan’s show suggests the answer might be yes (there’s no way she’s doing those interviews if she felt comfortable in her position)... But for me, the feel of this race isn’t at the level that it was when Biden was effectively forced out of the race and Trump and Republicans should be cautious about becoming overconfident here. This cycle has the feel of being one in which the more I think I know, the less I feel like I know about what’s really happening. Elections always come down at a certain level to turnout. That to me is what I feel most uncertain about. I currently have this election coming in with lower turnout than the 2020 election, but higher than the 2016 election. In 2016 turnout checked in at 60.1% in Trump’s win. In 2020 it stood at 66.6% in Trump’s loss. Without getting overly wonky, I think you can roughly split the difference and have an idea about how this election is going to go. If the final turnout is 63.4% or less, I think Donald Trump wins. If the turnout is 63.5% or higher, I think that’s probably good news for Harris. That’s due to Trump’s base of support being fired up about voting for him, while Harris’ base is mostly fired up about voting against Trump as opposed to for Harris. That worked for Biden in 2020. If Harris is to win that’s going to be the reason again.
- This isn’t over. But yet again another major battle and victory has been won. It was just on Wednesday, in that day’s takeaways that I mentioned DJT and Bibi can prevent WWIII. And the reason I covered Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel on Wednesday is because yet again the Biden-Harris administration was attempting to apply maximum pressure on Bibi and Israel to stand down and sign a permanent cease fire with Hamas. The evil terror organization founded on the destruction of Israel and the eradication of Jews. As a reminder here’s what’s stated in Hamas’ charter: The Islamic Resistance Movement is a distinguished Palestinian movement, whose allegiance is to Allah, and whose way of life is Islam. It strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine. Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it. Palestine is an Islamic land... Since this is the case, the Liberation of Palestine is an individual duty for every Moslem wherever he may be. The day the enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In the face of the Jews' usurpation, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised. so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement... Those conferences are no more than a means to appoint the infidels as arbitrators in the lands of Islam... There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by Jihad. Again, that’s the organization that Biden and Harris just on Tuesday demanded Israel sign a cease fire with. But instead, as I covered on Wednesday Bibi said no stating instead that Israel would act in its own national interest. On Thursday that’s exactly what he and Israel did as they killed the leader of Hamas and mastermind behind the October 7th terror attack. It’s almost uncanny how consistently wrong Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are on foreign policy. One of the world’s most evil people, and importantly Hamas’ leader specifically, is dead today, because Benjamin Netanyahu continued to do what the Biden-Harris administration as recently as Tuesday tried to stop him from doing. As I said on Wednesday. DJT & Bibi can prevent WWIII. No one wants to mess with them.