In his two previous presidential runs trumpie has lost the national popular vote in both (and it wasn't very close in either). Nor has he ever gotten close to majority support: his vote share was 46.1% in 2016 and increased to 46.8% in 2020, shares are remarkably consistent and gave rise to the first Publocc Rule: that trumpie's share is not going to exceed his high, again, 46.8%, in 2024. Polls that show him at more than 47% are immediately discarded.
But what if trumpie increases his share in 2024 by the same amount, 0.7%, that he did in 2020? That seems sort of plausible. An increase of 0.7% in 2024 over 2020 would put trumpie's share ceiling at 47.5%.
I am going to use 47.5% as my new standard for Publocc Rule One. With 47.5%, trumpie would still have lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton and of course to Joe Biden, but he won the presidency in 2016 in the Electoral College and, given how close state races in Pennsylvania, Arizona and Georgia were in 2020, may well have won in the Electoral College again, depending on where that extra 0.7% was distributed.
To restate the three Publocc Rules with the benefit of the doubt on Rule One:
1) Publocc Trump Vote Share Rule: He will not get more than 47.5% actual vote share in 2024. Any polls that say otherwise are immediately discarded.
2) Publocc Kamala Vote Share Rule: She must get over 48.2% (Hillary Clinton's) actual vote share to win.
3) Publocc Kamala Win Margin Rule: She must win by an actual margin that exceeds Hillary's actual 2.1%.
To test the three Publocc Rules of poll interpretation I have looked at the last Biden vs Trump polls before PoJo dropped out.
Biden 43.3%-trumpie 46.3%.Publocc Rule One: Pass
Publocc Rule Two: Fail
Publocc Rule Three: Fail.
RCP
Biden 44.8%-trumpie 47.9%
Publocc Rule One: Fail
Publocc Rule Two: Fail
Publocc Rule Three: Fail
You see how close trumpie's polling vote share was to his actual in 2016 and 2020. It really is remarkable. It is Publocc Rule One that is iron-clad to me. The three polling outfits that Charlie Cook compared to the actual 2020 vote share all nailed Biden's. I assume that they are just as accurate in 2024. Therefore, Biden would have lost for a certainty if the election had been held, say on July 30, and would have lost on Nov. 5 unless an historic reversal had occurred because his vote share plummeted from 51.3% in 2020 to 44.8% in July 2024--6.5%!. It just wasn't going to happen, which is why Biden dropped out.
Now we have Kamala Harris. She has had a consistent lead in the national polls for over one month. The national polls have not flipped from her to trumpie or vice versa. Her margin has certainly wobbled but it has never flipped. I do not doubt the accuracy of today's polling margin and I am extremely confident that she will continue to lead in the polls and will win the popular vote on Nov. 5.
But she is a new candidate and we are 34 days out from the election. I stand by Publocc Rule One (as modified). trumpie's hard ceiling is 47.5%. Kamala has no such hard ceiling. She is going to get more than HRC's 48.2%, that is beyond a reasonable doubt to me, and is borne out even in today's polling (RCP 49.3%).
Kamala also will not be tortured by third-party candidates as HRC was. 5.7% of the actual vote went to candidates other than Clinton and trumpie in 2016. 94.3% voted for Clinton or trumpie. By contrast, in 2020 only 1.9% went to third-party candidates. 98.1% voted for either Biden or trumpie. RCP's current two-candidate total is 96.6%, 3.4% are either undecided or have told pollsters they will vote for other candidates. The latter is implausible in the extreme. Cornell West, where he is on the ballot, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., where he is on the ballot, Jill Stein, if she is running again I don't even know, and whoever the Libertarian is, put all of them in a basket of undesirables and they are not going to total 3.4% when the votes are counted. Those votes are undecideds. They will be late deciders but they will decide between Kamala and trumpie.
Somebody is going to win 50% plus on Nov. 5 and since trumpie is already at his vote share ceiling, that somebody will be Kamala Harris. Will it be enough to win in the Electoral College?
2024 RCP Oct. 2, 2024:
Kamala 49.3%-trumpie 47.3%.
Give trumpie his maximum ceiling as modified, 47.5% (I believe it will be a tick lower). Give 1.9% to third-party candidates (I believe it will be less than that), Kamala wins the popular vote with a 50.6% share. Her margin is 3.1%. The rule of thumb today is that the Democrat must win the popular vote by about 3.5% to win in the Electoral College. Kamala is right there. It's squeaky tight but that's giving trumpie every benefit of the doubt and parsing tenths of percents from a rule of thumb. History is also on her side. Only one candidate has lost in the Electoral College while winning 50%+ of the popular vote: (Samuel Tilden, 1876, 50.9% Rutherford B. Hayes 47.9%, +3 margin, 1.9% third parties, spookily similar to the assumptions and calculations in this post). If the election were held today, if the election had been held on most days in the past month Kamala would win/would have won in the Electoral College. The race has been stable and will be stable throughout Nov. 5 when Kamala Harris will win the presidency.
