I normally write my election outlook on the weekend before the election. (See my earlier commentary: Shulmaven: The State of the Presidential Race) However, this year, because of my travel schedule I am hesitantly putting it out now. When historians 20 years from now look back at the 2024 election they would note that a major political realignment between the two parties took place. (See: Shulmaven: Political Realignment is Here) Simply put, the Republican Party, by eating into the Democrats hold on Black and Latino voters, has put together a broad multi-racial working class party with a strong populist bent. This is a far cry from the business and country-oriented party of two decades ago. Lurking behind all of this is an ever-widening gender gap.
On the other hand, the Democrats have picked up voters from hitherto high-income business oriented suburban Republican voters, especially women. The Democrats are now firmly the party of the elites buttressed by Black and single women voters. The union-oriented lunch pail Democrat is a relic of the past. The Democrats are the party of women, and the Republicans are the party of men.
Part and parcel with the realignment is that the county is moving towards Trump on many issues, specifically on trade, immigration, and crime. Witness Democratic Senator Bob Casey praising Trump on trade. In contrast the country is moving towards Harris on the potent issue of abortion. It remains to be seen which dominates. What is really surprising is that the race is so close given that nearly all of the propaganda arms of the state are firmly in the Harris camp.
Further the global electorate including ours is in anti-incumbent rage. (See: Shulmaven: Incumbents Beware) This is crucial for both Trump and Harris. Whomever the electorate perceives to be the incumbent will lose. That is why Biden had to drop out. To be sure Harris is the incumbent vice president, but we have been living in the age of Trump for nine years. My guess is that the electorate will not want to witness another four years. The problem for Harris is that she is too tied to Biden, and she has yet to articulate a clear vision of the future. Her closing argument is that Trump’s narcissistic criminality has to be stopped.
The electoral college arithmetic for both candidates is challenging. For example, if Harris holds the “blue wall” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and picks up the one electoral vote coming out of Omaha, Nebraska she will hit the 270 electoral vote magic number. However, if she loses one of those states, she going to have to make it up in North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada. Given today’s polls, which is doable, but difficult. At the end of the day the key to a Harris victory is her ground game. She has paid staff and volunteers everywhere, while Trump’s campaign is sorely lacking in this regard. At least to me, if Harris loses Pennsylvania, her biggest mistake would be not picking Governor Josh Shapiro as her running mate (See: Shulmaven: Kamala Harris Fails Her First Test with VP Pick) and her failure to counter Trump’s attack on her position supporting federally paid for gender reassignment surgeries.
I also have a hunch that the election might not be as close as the polls suggest. It is equally likely that either candidate will receive more than 300 electoral votes. Stranger things have happened in the last two weeks of the election and if there is going to be a wave, I would give the edge to Harris. Recall that the polls were wrong in 2016, 2020 and 2022.
In keeping with my anti-incumbent thesis, I think the Democrats will retake the very dysfunctional House and end up with a majority of around 10-12 seats. On the other hand, the Democrats will lose the Senate with the Republicans ending up with 52 seats. Although most Senate Democrats are leading in the polls there are too many targets of opportunity for the Republicans.
Most disappointing about the election is that two particularly critical issues, the elephants in the room, are not being discussed. The first is the out-of-control deficit spending of both parties that putting the U.S. on the path of have highest debt/GDP ratio in history and the underspending on defense that will put our country at grave risk in the years ahead.
