Are ya winning son? NO!

 So...I didn't get around to doing this aspect of my election forecast because of rapidly changing polling last night and then today I really just didn't get around to posting this part, but I was thinking of doing a follow up article on different election scenarios. 

I did kind of describe these scenarios in my semi final update yesterday, but I was going to take my main election map and modify it in 6 different ways to estimate various levels of over and under performance. D+1, Harris flips PA and NV. D+4, she wins all 7 swing states, D+8, we might be looking at like blue florida, iowa, etc. On the flip side, R+1 flips wisconsin and michigan. R+4 doesnt flip much but throws NH and MN into tossup territory. R+8 means we lose virginia, new mexico, etc. I mean, I discussed these, but i didn't post maps. 

So...this is what we do know. 

I called florida for Trump by 8, he won by 14

Ohio, called Trump +9, he won by about 12

Texas, also Trump +9, currently Trump +14

Virginia was too close to call, I called it D+5, we currently have that but it took HOURS to call

Minnesota is too close to call, currently D+3, I called D+4

New Hampshire I called D+4, currently too close to call at D+5

New Mexico, I called D+7, currently D+5, too close to call

Maine, I called D+8-9, currently D+6, too early to call

NEW FRICKING JERSEY, I took it off my map as it was like D+16, it's D+5, too close to call

Swing states:

North Carolina already called for Trump, I called it R+1, currently R+3-4

Georgia already called for Trump, I called it R+1, currently R+2

Pennsylvania is the big one we absolutely can't afford to lose, my model had it R+<1, I called it D<1, currently R+2.5

Michigan, too close to call, I called D+1, currently R+6

Wisconsin, too close to call, I called D+<1, currently R+4

Arizona, too close to call, I called R+3, currently R+<1 (the one case of good news)

Nevada, too close to call, and too early to make any pronouncements about

Meanwhile in the senate,

Ohio, called it R+2, won R+4

Florida, called it R+4-5, won R+13

Texas, called it R+4-5, won R+10

Virginia, called D+10-12 or something, D+7-8

You guys get the picture yet?

Well, okay, how about I post a picture?

This is the R+4 map i never posted in that hypothetical article i wanted to post but didn't. And this is the scenario that most closely aligns with the current state of things.

Here's another picture. This is the Biden map when Biden dropped out.

Died 7/21/24, born 11/5/24, welcome back Joe Biden's electoral college map.

...yeah....

If things keep going as they are, these are basically the projected map. We're probably getting something close to the 226-312 scenario here. That's...how I see it. This is bad news for us. 

And right now, GA, is called, that's 235, NC is called, that's 251....

.....if PA falls, Trump gets 270. And we're behind around 3 there. This is not good. This is not good at all. 

I've kinda realized we were losing since around 10 PM or so. I've had these thoughts swirling for hours, and now I'm posting them.

So yeah, I think we're cooked. I wish I had better news. But that's where we are.

Election Update 11/5/24: my final, FINAL predictions

 Okay, so, I discussed the meat and potatoes of this in other articles, and my predictions arent that much different than last night, but I wanted a nice and easy place to access all of my final predictions that isn't messy. So, this is gonna be abridged, if you want to read my rationale in detail, check out yesterday's article.

Presidential (official)

My model officially has Donald Trump winning with 251-287 and a 54% chance of winning. I feel obligated to provide the full raw results, after what happened in 2020 with my actual prediction being so far off. 

Presidential (unofficial/personal)

However, I think Harris is going to win, 276-262. There are a lot of reasons I think this. I think the polls are probably underestimating Harris. I think there's a lot of herding and right wing poll bombing going on. I think the selzer poll indicates that the WWC vote is likely trending more blue in the rust belt. I think that the MSG rally pissed off the latino population in eastern PA, and living in one such city that is majority latino, the vibes here are very anti Trump. So I don't think he's winning PA. I also suspect NV will flip based on its tossup nature, it going blue in 2016 and 2020, and other predictions I've seen.

Senate

I think the senate is very easily going into the hands of the GOP, with them winning 48-52 with a 86% chance of them taking it. I'm letting my senate predictions stand as they are. No adjustments.

House

I think that the house is a tossup, but my official prediction is a 218-217 democratic lead with them having a 57% chance of taking it. However, my house forecast is experimental, so treat it as 50-50. It should be noted margins are 1/5/15 as I'm reusing this from a prediction contest.

Governors

Not much worth noting. I think Josh Stein will stomp Mark Robinson in NC, and in NH I think that the republican will win, probably by a margin of 1.5-2. It should be noted the yapms map is 1/5/15 as I am reusing this from a prediction contest.

Conclusion

So, in short:

Model prediction- 257-281 Trump, 54% chance

Personal prediction- 276-262 Harris

Senate prediction- 48-52 Republican, 86% chance

House- 218-217 Democrat, 57% chance

Governors- Stein wins NC, Ayotte wins NH, see map for details

What if I used 538 for my averages?

 So....I'm kind of happy with how RCP has presented their data, as it seems like they ARE kinda manipulating and massaging averages to make them more right wing. Not to mention the right wing pollsters just doing it in general. So I figured, what if I used 538? Well, here's the alternative at 538.

Here, I would have 270-268 Harris with a 52% chance of victory. Better, i guess. And the non swing states are 1-2 points bluer like I'd expect. 

To be fair it doesn't make a huge difference and given my informal prediction is D+1 on the RCP data, that does a decent job correcting for whatever nonsense they're doing to bring it in line with 538's data, but yeah. Honestly, I do think 270-268 or 276-262 are the most reasonable outcomes. And I don't think texas is up by 9 suddenly. And minnesota is only up by 4 for the dems. 

Let's compare to my own prediction:

Yeah, my own forecast adjusted from RCP's data is basically within a very tight MOE with 538's. It doesnt make a huge difference but it is the difference between a harris win and a trump win. Keep in mind the raw RCP data is 251-287 with NH only up by 3, MN by 4, and VA by 5. Meanwhile Texas and Ohio are suddenly R+9. It's crazy. R+7, that's fair, R+9? Nah, no reason for such a sudden jump. I feel like the data is being manipulated there.

Well, we'll see tomorrow what reality actually is.....

So...about RCP cleaning up their averages

 So....I've been using the 11/4 election update for my final forecast, and I've had to edit it extensively twice. The first time was due to new polls coming in, and me having to change the averages. But then some of it was also RCP cleaning their averages. They axed a lot of old polls and now the non swing states are often up to 2 points redder than they were this afternoon. We're talking MN, VA, TX, OH, stuff like that. Not a huge deal but it is a shift right.

Honestly, I dont think this is organic. Now, part of it may not be RCP's fault. The thing is...republicans ARE poll bombing the averages last minute. For some reason these trumpers seem to wanna treat polling as an information war to made their side look ahead to give the impression things are going more in their favor than they are. In 2020, i tried to correct for this, recognizing it, only for my forecast to be wrong. This time, i presented the data as is, but I did point out my actual forecast, my opinion, is D+1. And I stand by that. 257-281 Trump is what the data says, but I think 276-262 Harris is what we'll get. PA is probably swinging left, I can't see Trump winning here if my crappy city is basically the last campaign stop. People HATE trump here. As I said, people were booing his motorcade when he burned rubber up my street going to the airport. Ya know? So...yeah. And nevada, that's the one state that swung LEFT significantly today that I felt was on the edge to begin with, so yeah. 

But yeah back to the topic at hand. Trumpers....are sadly treating polling as an information war. They're trying to push right wing polls to cheerlead for their side, and it's quite clear the same few polling industries, looking at you, trafalgar, insideradvantage, TIPP, and atlas intel, are constantly bombing the averages. Some of them have been pushing new polls in the same states every day this week, and it seems like their entire goal in the past few days has been to shift the entire forecast to the right. 

And it's just so obvious. Like....okay, we had that D+3 poll out of Iowa. Well, suddenly these jokers are doing polls in iowa to push up the average in trump's direction. It really does seem like they're not treating polling as the honorable industry that it should be, finding the truth, and instead they're just using it to push their propaganda. Probably so trump can turn around and point to polls being off in his favor so he can scream it was rigged.

It's a joke. It's pissing the academic in me off. I mean, polling is an academic thing for me. I look at pollsters, i trust them at their word, and if they abuse that trust for political gain, well, it's ruining the craft. It really is. And then there's the fricking herding. It's like no one takes this seriously any more. They're all falling off a cliff and posting ridiculous and fake results and it's a joke. They're turning the industry into a joke. 

Honestly, this happened last time too, but as it turned out, those right wing pollsters were most accurate, so i ended up regretting messing with my forecast last time and promising to follow it this time.

This time, I'm presenting the data as is, but I'm also giving my own informal opinion prediction. Because error exists, and I dont think the actual data is reliable. Hence why I'm going 276-262 Harris instead of 251-287 trump. I'm not gonna jump the shark going like 319-219 Harris. I actually have no case to make for the sun belt going blue. But rust belt? Yeah i think it's gonna go blue. And I think the non swing states are more off in the republican direction too. 

Honestly, I expect the results to be more democratic than the data shows. How much? idk, but I'm going with D+1 officially. We could see up to D+4 though IMO. If we end up with D+8 or god forbid D+10 a la the selzer poll, then the polling industry needs to take a hard look at themselves, stop the bull####, and actually come back around and do things PROPERLY. None of this herding crap, and I hope to god the above outlets I called out just go out of fricking business and get stricken from the averages. Because this is fricking BS. It's ridiculous. I'm just gonna say it.

We'll see what reality is tomorrow. But yeah. I hope Trump gets his butt kicked, and I hope he doesn't come back. Let's close this dark chapter of american history. I'm ready to be done with this BS. 

Yeah, I really feel confident saying Trump ain't gonna win PA

 So, this may come as a surprise, but I'm literally in ground zero for the end of both campaigns. Both campaigns visited my city today, and while I didn't go to either one, I had an interesting event happen about an hour ago.

So, when I was finishing up my election prediction, my parents started talking about a bunch of cop cars outside. Now, I live in the ghetto, so it's not really surprising to see cop cars outside. So I didn't think anything of it, but what was weird was where they were. It was like they were blocking off the street. Okay, weird, right?

So, I finish my prediction, and when I'm on my way downstairs, i think, wait, trump is in town today, maybe those cop cars are for his motorcade? Of course, before I could finish the thought and get downstairs, my parents start going on about how trump just drove by the house. I didn't see him, we dont have any pictures. So you'll have to take my word for it, but uh yeah. Well, neighbor has a blurry mess of a pic. 

Anyway, what's more interesting about this is the reaction he got. Apparently, according to my parents and neighbors, people were booing him and throwing trash at the motorcade as he drove by. And it seems like no one on my block likes trump. Everyone is for harris. I mean, it's inner city, so it's expected, but why is this important?

I live in a majority latino city. And most latinos here are...puerto ricans. Hence why there's so much focus on my city today. Everyone is making their final pitches here to try to win over the latino vote who trump alienated with MSG last week. ANd yeah, the energy here is...well, it's not positive for trump. His rally didn't fill the arena he was at. You know how he doesnt have that big of a crowd size, and even worse, the residents in my city hate the guy and greet him with hostility. Yeah. So....

Trump is 0.3% ahead in the polls? yeah. I don't care. If it really comes down to PA, and even more so it comes down to MY CITY in PA, I'm just gonna call it for Harris. Harris was seen knocking on doors and getting positive reception from voters, while trump couldn't even drive up the street without getting booed by everyone he drove by. So yeah, confidently calling PA for Harris. 276-262, Harris wins, gg, try not being a racist piece of trash next time (see what I did there?). 

Election update 11/4/24 (SEMI FINAL)

 So, we've made it. Election day is tomorrow. So I'm gonna START making my final prediction. Now, in other years, I would use the old fashion charts where I would fill everything in myself and do all the calculations, and THAT would take me hours. But as we know, I now have excel charts and I use them for my predictions. With that said, I will post charts now, but I may edit and update them tonight and tomorrow as needed to reflect the final count. 

Tomorrow I may either just update this article or post final charts to make my predictions finalized. I really do like to wait until last minute to get ALL of my predictions in. 

Presidential

Okay, so, I've put a lot of thought into how I'm going to do this, and I decided I'm going to do TWO predictions. My formal prediction is going to be my model's prediction, based on polling. But then I'm gonna make a second, informal prediction because well, polling is crap this year, and let's face it, error happens either way anyway. 

 

So, formal prediction: my model has Donald Trump winning 257-281 with a 54% chance of victory. It's EXTREMELY narrow, and it is basically tied. PA is the deciding state, and it's a true tossup, with us having no clue what's gonna happen there. Still, the polling gives Trump a slight edge there. 

Now, I'm going to be honest, at a 54% chance, with Harris still having a 46% chance, this race is a tossup. Anything can happen. We can have movement up to 8 points in either direction and it can still be accurate. If Trump overperforms by 1 point, he wins Wisconsin and Michigan. He overperforms by 4 and he gets New Hampshire and possibly Minnesota. He overperforms by 8 and he can theoretically get Oregon, Virginia, and New Mexico. I don't think he will overperform more than that, that's outside of my 95% confidence interval, but it can theoretically happen...about 2.5% of the time. 

In the other direction, one point and Harris wins Pennsylvania and Nevada, giving us a 276-262 win. 4 points and she wins North Carolina, Georgia, and Arizona. 8 and she can take Iowa, Kansas, Maine CD2, and Florida (Ohio and Texas WERE within this range, but RCP changes the averages last minute so now they're out of the margin of error). I don't think she will outperform that. By the way. That selzer poll? The way people were framing it, it had her overperforming by 10. That's why that was so bonkers. 

Informal prediction

With all of that said, what about my informal prediction?

Well, here's the thing. I think that the energy is on Harris's side. I think that the early indicators trending toward a Harris overperformance. The selzer poll seems to indicate that she will overperform in the rust belt, although I highly doubt it's by the truly bonkers amount predicted. I think that those comedian's comments about puerto ricans and other races ended up tanking trump's chances in PA, given the large latino vote here. I think that polling this year has significant issues with herding, and while I feel obligated to stick to my model for my official predictions, unofficially? I highly suspect that they're herding toward 50-50, where we're getting massive discrepancies in the swing state and popular vote polling (harris should be about 2-3 above the tipping point state). I also suspect that they overtuned their models to overrepresent trump voters, trying to avoid making the same mistakes as 2020. 

In addition, the campaigns' internal polling seems to indicate a pro harris direction. Trump is already crying it's rigged in PA, and as some have pointed out, you don't do that if you're winning. I also heard that Trump is possibly struggling in NC, which is why he's trying to shore up down there last minute rather than spending ALL of his time in PA. You don't do that unless you're afraid of losing it. On the flip side, I've heard rumors out of the harris campaign that they're feeling confident and their polling has her winning over voters by double digit margins last minute. The reason? Again, that fricking Madison Square Garden rally. That unforced error really seems to be the October surprise. Well, that and she finally improved her messaging somewhere to focus on improving peoples' lives rather than doing the Liz Cheney crap. 

So that said, how do I think the swing states are gonna go?

Michigan & Wisconsin- I think polling is persistently underestimating Harris in Michigan and Wisconsin. My model shows them within a point, but I think they're probably up more like 1.5-2 points. Maybe even more, but I'm not gonna push it. I am relatively conservative in my predictions in the sense that I'm not gonna get super ballsy about them. But I did notice that when I tried my anti herding measures last week MI and WI should've been a good point left of where they were, and the selzer poll really kinda sealed it for me. 

Arizona & Georgia- On the flip side, I think polling is about right on Arizona and Georgia. I think that they're solidly lean republican, and probably going R by a margin of 2-3. Maybe even more. The polling seems to range from a dead heat to being up by a lot. The point is, harris isn't favored down here at all, and I would give these to Trump.

North Carolina- I would say this one is like Georgia in a sense, but a little further left. I think the R+1-2 is accurate. I think that it's going further left than it otherwise would because of the Mark Robinson thing. I think he's really tanking trump down there, and he's the reason it's not up for Trump by 3-4. But still, I'm not gonna get overly confident. I think it will still go lean R, but I'm not sure.

Pennsylvania- I think that given its combination of rust belt and northeast nature, it's gonna go Harris. On the west side of the state you got the more rust belt midwestern vibes where the selzer poll predicts an overperformance. On the east side, you got a lot of latinos and puerto ricans who are PISSED over the MSG thing. And it is making up their minds, and they are trending toward Harris. So my opinion? It's gonna go to Harris. Idk the margin, I'd be inclined to say maybe by 1, but idk, it could be anywhere from 0.1 to 2. 

Nevada- This is the one I'm having the hardest time predicting. It's not a rust belt state so it doesnt get a power boost for harris. And while the democrats won it in 2016 and 2020....it does seem like it's not going super smoothly for harris. Nevada has been all over the place. Sometimes it polls like a D leaning state, other times an R leaning one. For most of this election cycle, it's been performing closer to an R leaning state I'd say, polling most similarly to NC, AZ, and GA, so I'd be inclined to put it in that category as a tilt R.

EDIT: Nevada shifted further toward the democrats, I'm now shifting my prediction to tilt D. This shifts my informal prediction from 270-268 Harris to 276-262 Harris. 

As such, I'm going to say this, even though my model has Trump winning, informally, I think Harris is gonna win 276-262. 

Here's the map for that. 

So yeah. This is effectively D+1 relative to my formal prediction. I don't wanna overdo it and get overconfident, although I do think that Harris can overperform even this. She overperform by 2, 3, or even 4 in my estimation. This could flip North Carolina, and even Arizona, and Georgia.

But I don't see it winning Iowa or anything like that, unless the polling is so massively off Ann Selzer was somehow right about everything, and I ain't basing my entire prediction off of a single poll. No. I do think Harris will overperform in the rust belt, but I'm gonna say by 1, and maybe more, but we don't know exactly. I don't think this will trend to the south though. 

If I'm wrong on any states here, I'm gonna guess Nevada or maybe North Carolina. Nevada since it's a tossup that can go either way IMO, and north carolina, because I've seen some subtle signs that it could overperform for democrats. Still, I'm pretty comfortable with guessing 276-262 at this time. I think that's the map we're most likely to see.

Simulations (Presidential)

Doing 100 simulations, I get:

35 Harris

61 Trump

4 Ties

So, originally, I had it 48-49 in favor of Trump, but then RCP cleaned up their averages, a lot of non swing states swung right by 1-2 points, and now Trump is winning most outcomes. Oh well, this simulator is experimental and not really indicative of my final forecast, it's just for fun.

Senate

 

 Yikes. So....the senate I'm far less rosy about the democrats' chances. I've basically been predicting 49-51R for most of this cycle, outside of when I was huffing 538's copium about Dan osborn winning nebraska. It can still happen, it's just a long shot. 

And now we are losing Brown's seat in Ohio. This keeps getting better and better (for the republicans).

So, formal prediction, republicans control the senate with 52 seats, and they have an 86% chance of pulling this off. Yeah. Wish I could be more optimistic there, but we're losing WV due to Manchin retiring, we're losing Tester's seat. And now we might lose Brown's. To be fair, that's still 50-50, but the energy has been going that way for a while. 

If we overperform slightly we could keep brown's seat, but the energy has been going toward brown for a while now, and I'm not about to go against my own model on that one. It can happen, but I'm going to say I agree with my model, as that is what the evidence is telling me. I do think we stand a solid chance of defending the rest of the rust belt seats though.

Still, if we weigh possibilities. D+1, nothing changes because Ohio swung so far right. D+4, we finally flip Ohio but fall short of flipping anything else. D+8 we flip Texas, Florida, Nebraska goes to Osborn, and we even keep Tester's seat in Montana. I don't see that as particularly likely. 

On the flip side. R+1 does nothing but solidify Moreno's win in Ohio. R+4 wipes out the rust belt trio and arizona. R+8 gives them Nevada. If I had to guess, I'm guessing the odds as are. I mean, it's fricking Ohio, man. It's a red states these days. Even if it is rust belt, it's very hostile toward democrats, and we're lucky brown is holding on the best we can. When he's out, we're never getting that seat back (this alignment). 

EDIT: And since more polls now have Ohio going R+1, I'm just gonna call it for Moreno/republicans here. No informal prediction.  

EDIT2: Now it's up to 1.7, yeah, I'm gonna give it to the GOP, it's lean R now.

Simulations (Senate)

Doing 100 simulations, I get:

Democrats-0

Republicans-98

Ties-2

I originally had a much more optimistic batch with only 86 republican outcomes, but then RCP cleaned up their averages, thing swung right, and now republicans won 98 outcomes.

House

So, I'm gonna say it up front, I'm gonna say that my house forecast is experimental. I have no idea what I'm doing with that. I built as much of a forecast as I could, but if I don't have polling data, I can't predict well. I did try to compensate for using the generic congressional vote and the cook PVI to estimate the lean of the districts and where things will go, but that's an imperfect measure.

So, here's my prediction:

So, i apologize for my house forecast being hard to read, the chart is really huge and hard to fit on my screen, but basically, I have the house in a dead heat, with the democrats winning 218-217, with a 57% chance of doing so. Much like the presidency, the house is a tossup, but I do have it slightly leaning toward democrats. Still, anything can happen, and you should take it with a grain of salt. Treat it like a 50-50 tossup.

Here's a map, although margins might be wonky as I made for a contest.

Simulations (house)

So 100 simulations for the house:

Democrats-49

Republicans- 51

The simulator seems to favor republicans slightly more, although in the final forecast with more republican seats up for grabs, it's kind of evening out. As I said, it's 50-50 just about. Treat it as a tossup.

Governors

So I havent been paying attention to the governors races, as most of them don't involve my state and hardly any are competitive. But for the aforementioned contest, I made this map.

The only two I really have anything to say anything about are the North Carolina and New Hampshire ones. New Hampshire seems to be lean R in their race. North Carolina is pretty much safe D (regardless of margins shown here, keep in mind i normally operate on a 1/4/8 system, this map is designed for a 1/5/15 system), because Mark Robinson is a perverted black Nazi and he's actually tanking NC so bad Trump can actually lose it.

Conclusion

With all of that said, that's my (semi) final forecast for 2024. I might touch up this stuff tomorrow if I get new data tonight or tomorrow, but suffice to say, the presidency is up for grabs. My model's official forecast is 257-281 Trump, but I'm informally going with 276-262 Harris since I think PA and NV will go blue.

The senate is a lot more in stone, with the GOP expected to win by 52 seats. 

The house is a tossup, but I'm tentatively giving it a 218-217 win for the democrats, but yeah, treat it as 50-50.

Governors, who cares, look at the map.

Revised maps for if the selzer poll is accurate

 yeah so I kinda screwed up the maps in my OG article on this, but I did create a revised map for if the selzer poll is actually accurate. For this, I set iowa to a baseline of R+7 like was expected for a competitive rust belt, and also applied a 10 point offset for Kansas. So this map should have no double dipping.

This is bascially it. D+10, we turn Texas, we turn Florida, we turn alaska, we even make missouri a tossup, it's insane. I struggle to believe this is actually accurate because this is beyond even my 95% confidence interval. 

Even half of this would be a relative electoral blowout for harris.

I do think it helps, as I said I could see a localized improvement in the rust belt of maybe 1-3 points, but i don't actually think the selzer poll is true since if it is then the republicans are gonna face an apocalyptic beating, and it would basically mean literally all polling is not only wrong, it's so wrong it's not even within a reasonable margin of error. This is like FDR vs Alf Landon 1936 territory or something.