The 2024 US election is just around the corner, with Kamala Harris representing the Democrats and Donald Trump representing the Republicans. The election is to be held on November 5th, but it is quite widely accepted that the result is unlikely to be called on the day.
This should be interesting.
Prediction: Trump will win.
Maybe I am wrong, but this is my prediction. I’ve done this quickly because the election is rapidly approaching and I want something to reflect on later.
Polls
The polls have been all over the place, and have not shown a clear winner. I certainly didn’t based my prediction on them.
The national polls shows by 538 show that two days before the election, Harris is favoured by 1.0%. The problem is that this is well within the margin of error.
There are a few things that can throw polls out, which may include:
Shy voters - Some voters may not want to reveal their preference, even to random strangers claiming to be pollsters. There can be lots of reasons, but usually it’s because people may have a strong opinion about their candidate and they want to avoid the resulting social consequences of vocalising their preference. I believe this particularly seems to favour Trump.
Not opponent voters - Some voters are not specifically keen about their voting choice, but they will vote for them anyway as long as it’s not their opposition. In the UK the Labour Party were essentially voted as the “not the Conservatives”. I believe everybody can agree that Trump is a divisive figure, in this case favouring Harris.
Inability to find voter demographics - Some of the voters are harder to find than others. If you’re running polls from 9-5 and that’s when you poll people, if there is some bias in this group you may miss them. Some people in rural areas who live very isolated lives may not be contactable at all.
Bias of the poller - The poll-taker themselves can introduce bias by purposefully making it seem like less or more people are voting in a given way. The benefit of this could be to make a candidate seem more popular, or to encourage people to vote for a candidate lagging just behind in your polls.
If previous polls have taught us anything, especially in the Trump vs Hilary election, they actually don’t mean all too much at all.
It appears that Trump is slightly favoured to win using ‘simulations’ (whatever that really means and how closely that tracks to reality is a guess). It’s all within margin-of-error and any last second changes could flip a vote either way.
Annec Data
If not polls, how can you predict as you do?
I see a few factors that may affect who wins or loses (roughly in order of importance):
Economy - Things have gotten worse for the average American under the Biden-Harris regime, and they are looking for things to get better. Fundamentally if you want change and the opposition is offering better times, the temptation is there. This greatly favours Trump.
Immigration - When there are bad economic times people are looking for a scapegoat, and immigrants, especially illegal immigrants, are likely to be resented. They are an easy target. Whether or not there is any truth there is another matter altogether, but people do draw these conclusions, and it is difficult to convince them otherwise. This also favours Trump, who promises to be tough on immigration.
Charisma - Often elections are setup such that you vote for the Party and not the candidate, and yet, people tend to vote for the candidate. Trump is fundamentally more likeable than Harris, he has great charisma and demands the attention of a room. Even the EU leaders were falling over themselves to shake his hand and speak to him during summits. When he holds rallies, he makes jokes to the crowd who feel incorporated into his speech. Many years on TV and doing business has made him excellent at performing. Harris on the other hand is wet around the ears, she often reverts to defensive rhetoric and well used phrases when she gets into trouble.
Abortion - Harris has this topic in the bag for young progressive women, but it’s unclear how big of an issue this will actually be for Trump. Many progressive people live in progressive states, so their vote was never on the table anyway. The real question is how many progressives live in swing states that will be voting. In any case, it is not ideal for Trump.
Predictions
In either case:
The losing side will claim the election was stolen. This is just a given now, the insane hype around both campaigns directly results in extreme emotions.
Claims of election interference. Trump would claim the UK (provably) interfered, Harris would claim some random foreign actors such as Russia or China helping Trump.
Based on a Trump victory:
Kier Starmer steps down as Labour leader.Starmer met with Trump, whilst behind his back saying discouraging words about him. Trump has a good memory for what people say about him. Trump will also remember the Labour party sending 100 activists to help Harris, apparently in their spare time. These people were sent out weeks ago, which would represent a lot of their holiday period, somehow got visas very easily (and can easily get more), have funds available to fully house people and have abused their connections with the Harris campaign. Could you imagine China, Russia, etc, sending out people? Or non-hostile countries such as India sending people? It’s just not appropriate for the persons of one government to have any part or influence in the election of another.
Biden, or representatives, explain the coup that occurred. There have been several hints, but I think Democrats will be asking “what went wrong”, and not selecting the strongest candidate is an extremely clear line of questioning. Somebody is always looking for a book deal, especially as Biden will almost definitely retire after this election.
Based on a Harris victory: I am completely unsure.
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