Thursday, September 26, 2024

"Kamala Harris Will Win the Popular Vote"--Michael Podhorzer

Yes. And that and a dollar will buy you a bag of peanuts.

I want to underscore the significance of this. This will be Democrats’ fifth consecutive popular vote win, which has happened only once before since the Civil War (Truman in 1948). It will also mark their eighth popular vote win out of the previous nine presidential elections, which has never happened before. ...

 Now, in a rational democracy, that would be the end of the story. But we live in America. We cannot be as confident of the result in the Electoral College states....

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...the Electoral College outcome – that it will likely come down to six battleground states3...

He excludes North Carolina, which I agree with, and for the reasons he cites in fn 3, which I also agree with.

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...the media and commentators rigidly resist any attention or study to who doesn’t vote and why, instead poring over what seems like a dozen polls a day which only speak – unreliably – to the first question.

Thus, the political press has missed one of the most important election stories of the last eight years: Who votes in the MAGA era is different from who voted before.

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...for nearly a century, turnout rates remained within a +/- 3 point range for decades at a time – but after 2016, as the three bubbles on the right show, we’re not in Kansas anymore.6  

That is, 2016 was within the century-long norm. It was 2018 (congressional elections),  2020 (general election), and 2022 when turnout exploded: anti-trumpie turnout.

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..Biden would have lost the Electoral College in 2020 without the support of [people who had not voted before or who had been occasional voters.]. 

New Voters are Much More Anti-MAGA

That is his sub-lede, his font size, his bolding.
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 The difference between Democrats’ losses in 2016 and subsequent victories has been the infusion of those new voters. ...In 2020, Biden flipped Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin because of the infusion of new anti-MAGA voters.

Pause: I am only about one-fifth through this article, I have read the conclusion, and I don't understand why the anti-MAGA vote that fueled D wins in 2018, 2020 and 2022 would stay at home, in 2024. Having read the conclusion, it is because "the media and civil society" have not sounded the alarm bells loud or constantly enough. He can prove me wrong, but it seems to me EVERYONE knows who trumpie is and what he's capable of. I think turnout will again be higher than the century norm through 2016, that is, turnout will be higher than that norm, as it was in 2018, 2020, and 2022--because of anti-MAGA!

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Active Voters

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  • New voters. Those who did not vote in 2016 but have since. As you will see shortly, these are the voters who have driven historically high turnout rates.

I'm not clear on whether "new" includes both newly eligible voters and those eligible but unmotivated until until 2018, that is, after the Catastrophe. However, either way, these are by his definition anti-MAGA voters. Unless he thinks all those now-18 year olds registering to vote are doing so with intent to vote for trumpie. Which is not what he thinks or any sane person thinks so again, I don't understand where or how the anti-MAGA vote shrinks in 2024.

 Potential Voters [Okay, now he makes it clear.]

  • Newly eligible voters. Those who were not eligible in the last presidential election and who did not vote in the recent midterm. These voters have consistently been about 11 percent of the eligible population, not less than 10 or more than 12 percent.

  • Non-voters. Those who have been eligible since at least the last presidential election [So, those who were eligible in 2022 and didn't vote in the mid-terms]  but have not cast a vote in a federal election.

    Okay, respectfully Michael Podhorzer, that is a lame def of "non-voter". Who votes for the first time in a mid-term? Who rushes down to the voting office to register to vote in a congressional election?

    ...

    ...the number of new voters 12 jumped significantly ahead of 2020, and has done so again ahead of 2024 after more people voted for the first time in the last midterm.

    Right, just as I expected. So where's the worry part, Michael? These are MAGA voters? No. These are anti-MAGA voters? Yes. So how "low info" are they? They have enough info to 1) know that they're anti-MAGA, and 2) they do something about it, i.e. register to vote anti-MAGA. He's not convincing me there's something to worry about and I'm about 40% through the article.

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    ... Harris starts “tied,” and about 3 and a half points behind in the Electoral College battlegrounds.

    No shit, Michael! That's like modern poli sci, 101 man. Publocc readers, how many times have you read me write, Kamala must win pop vote by ~3.5 points to win EC?

    ... in the Electoral College battleground, Harris cannot win unless she wins a majority of those who are not [his emphasis] habitual voters. By how much? In the Low [turnout] scenario, she has to win the remaining voters by 4 points; in the high turnout scenario she needs to win the remaining voters by 3 points. 

    Not that it matters much but guess where turnout is projected to be in 2024? Right, WAY UP. En passant, I have not had this happen much before: where I agree with a blurb of an article, in this case, "Where's Kamala?", and am not convinced, ~ 60% through the article, that it matters where Kamala is. She is going to win the "not habitual voter" cohort HANDILY, MORE than by 3%-4%.

    Okay, I'm done. Good night.