It's not a "toss-up"
Donald Trump is going into tonight’s debate as the front-runner.
Donald Trump is going into tonight’s debate as the front-runner.
Yes, the media has done its best to portray the 2024 presidential race as a toss-up, but it’s not. It’s wishful thinking on their part.
When you look beyond the national polling numbers and dig into the details, a different picture emerges - one where Trump is in a pretty good position.
The latest RealClearPolitics polling averages show a close race nationally, currently with a 1.5% lead for Trump. But those national numbers don't tell the full story. It's the swing states that really matter in our Electoral College system. And in those crucial battlegrounds, Trump is leading.
If the polls are right — a big “if” — Trump would win in the Electoral Collage by 312 to 226 votes.
On Wednesday, Nate Silver, the polling expert who famously gave Trump a 29% chance of winning in 2016 when everyone else had written him off, just dropped a bombshell. His new model gives Trump a 65.7% chance of winning the Electoral College in 2024.
Now, Silver's no Trump fan. He's made that clear time and time again. But he's also got a reputation for intellectual honesty that sets him apart from the partisan hacks masquerading as analysts these days. When Silver speaks, people listen, and for good reason.
But it's not just Silver sounding the alarm for Democrats. A slew of recent polls paint a grim picture for Biden in key battleground states. The New York Times and Siena College found Trump leading in five out of six crucial states Biden won in 2020, and both showed a national lead of 4% for Trump. Given the electoral college map, Biden would likely need to win the national vote by about 1.5% to win re-election.
That 2016 election saw the biggest polling disaster in modern history, with experts across the board confidently predicting a Hillary Clinton victory. Their personal biases against Trump clouded their judgment, leading to a massive misfire.
They still have that bias, which is tempered only by their desire not to look like fools again. That was clear in their short celebration after Trump’s conviction in NYC when a couple polls showed the race had tightened. Looking at charts, it’s literally unnoticeable in the polling averages.
Let's be clear: many things can happen before election day. Heck, this column could look stupid if something dramatic happens in the debate.
But at this moment, Trump's in a stronger position than many in the media want to admit. The "toss-up" narrative is looking more and more like a comforting fiction for those who can't stomach the thought of another Trump presidency.
They discount Trump at their own peril. He's defied expectations before, and, right now, he’s poised to do it again.
— Ken
As Ken points out, there were plenty of stories about Biden's vulnerabilities. And you're going to see just a few more today.
Ugh, that was brutal last night. As soon as Biden lost his train of thought and mumbled something about beating Medicare, I told my wife, "He just lost the election."
High-level Democrats need to grow a spine and tell Biden, to his face, to drop out. Democrats rightly criticize Republicans for slavish sycophancy toward Trump. Are they any better? We're about to find out.
The important question is how much will the numbers change due to cheating? The polls are silent on this crucial issue.