I have a bettor's mentality, which I have previously explained as evidence-based belief. Maybe that doesn't explain it. When betting on college tackle football I look at the point spreads and get an instant gut-level feel. Then I do what to me is a sufficient quantum of research, usually consisting of looking at or refreshing my memory on the teams' schedules, sometimes going into the schedules of key opponents, to confirm or contradict my gut belief. But I'm chary of over-thinking and overruling my gut.
So too in politics I get gut feelings, plural. These gut feelings are at least daily and there are X number of days before "game day" so my gut can change daily. It doesn't, but it can, change daily.
On almost every day since Kamala has been the candidate my gut feeling has been that she will win on Nov. 5. But in the last couple of weeks or so my gut has been turning. Actually, going back to the DNC, which my gut, augmented by my eyeballs, told me was too non-white, more particularly too non-white female.
This too non-white, too-female feeling was deepened with Kamala's appearance on Oprah Winfrey. This feeling became semi-irritation. I didn't see, and I don't see, Kamala even making much of an effort on whites, especially white men. My feeling received validation by other things, e.g. James Carville's comments, by the reactions that some whites had to Kamala's facial expressions toward trumpie, which I found winning and spot-on but which some whites found condescending, during the debate; by a sense that this is another "identity politics" race, white vs non-white, male vs female, and by other sensory and intellectual input that I can't give examples of at this time but all adding up to the answer to the question "How many regular white guys are going to vote for Kamala?" being "Not enough". We have elected 45 white guys as president, one Black guy, no woman of whatever melanin concentration. The nominees are a Black-South Asian woman married to a Jewish guy and a white guy married to a white immigrant woman.
There it is, identity politics. I see it now everywhere. "Is she Black? She was Indian and then became Black", trumpie's lines to Black journalists. Racist of course. She does have multiple identities though, clearly. To me that's a positive; to all-white whites that is not a positive. Kamala's identity is complex and it has created some identity confusion among whites. Some white guys think like this: "Barack Obama, that's a Black guy, I'm looking at him, yep, he's Black. Funny name, but American Black. Married to a Black woman. Good. Can I vote for a Black guy? Yeah, I can." "Kamala Harris, that's a, uh, woman. Funny first name, what is that? Is that a Black name? Heard of Laquisha. Don't know any American Black woman named Kamala. What is that? Indian, you say? Is she Indian? Is she Black? Black South Asian, you say? I thought you said she was Indian. I'm looking at her, is she Black? I mean her skin is a little brown. Is that Black hair? Obama had Black hair. Kamala, I know some Black women with white woman's hair. Married to a Jewish guy?"
You see how this plays out? If you play identity politics, and that's the game trumpie is playing, and some whites (if some white voters weren't playing it, rest assured trumpie wouldn't be). Kamala's identity is complex and if you play identity politics identity complexity is not a positive.
Black people can play identity politics, too, and there's some evidence that Kamala's multiple identities is confusing to, or making wary, Blacks, particularly Black men. Her support among Black men is not what Barack Obama's was, not even what Joe Biden's was. A lot of the same questions in reverse. "Is she Black? Why isn't she married to a Black guy, then? My mama doesn't look like her, my aunties don't. And no woman I know is named Kamala. And they were NOT married to Jewish guys. Is she Christian?"
Some important male-dominated labor unions have not endorsed Kamala-Walz. The Teamsters; most recently the Firefighters. Why not? You can't convince me it's other than identity politics.
After the initial burst of enthusiasm, a catharsis, Kamala has stalled. Maybe peaked. October is a bad time to stall or peak. She definitely peaked in the betting markets. I think her high was about +6%, that was about a month ago, from memory. The betting markets wobbled and then flipped several days ago. They have not flipped back. trumpie's forecast by these investors is brightening, today it is 51.3%-47.3%. That's ominous for Kamala.
These gut feelings have been reinforced by the research I have done, as I do in college tackle football betting. I have gone deeper than I do in football. There is no roster turnover in our opponent from 2016 to 2020 to 2024. Our roster, though, has changed: from a white woman to a white guy to a Black-South Asian woman. We won one of the prior two games, the one with the white guy. Gulp.
trumpie's ceiling is 46.8%; okay, give him 47.5%. That's evidence. Can he really get more than 47.5%? I really don't think so. 47.5% gives Kamala 52.5%. She has to win the popular vote by ~+3.5% to win in the Electoral College. In a pure two-candidate race she has it, +5! There's never been a pure two-candidate race in American history! In the Catastrophe others received 5.7% of the total votes cast. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2.1% and got smoked in the Electoral College 304-227
In 2020 others received 1.9%. Joe Biden won by 4.5% and smoked trumpie in the EC 306-232.
Right now, on Oct. 9, 2024 at 10:37 am when they published it, Kamala Harris has a 48.5%-45.9% lead, +2.6% in the weighted polling averaged by ABC/538; On natesilver.net the polling average is Kamala 49.3% trumpie 46.2%, +3.1%. On trump-biased RCP it's Kamala 49.2% trumpie 47.2% +2%. This is current polling, not the Nov. 5 forecast. But we're now 27 days out from Nov. 5 and the polling gets more accurate the closer to landfall you get, particularly, as Charlie Cook demonstrated in 2020, in accurately gauging Biden's vote share. +'s and -'s, my gut, reinforced by evidence recent and historical (see 1876) is settled, sick but: none of the big three poll averagers margins is enough for Kamala to win in the EC. Kamala is losing.