So, there seems to be a lot of debate and discussion lately about whether Biden is dropping out. The party is going against him HARD right now, and apparently he just caught covid. He said he would drop out "if he had a medical diagnosis", but we all know that meant parkinsons or another dementia related illness, not COVID. This is like comparing Trump's 34 felonies to a parking ticket, I mean, come on now. Anyway, it the situation in the party is bad enough where he's asking "Can Kamala Win?"
Now, I was gonna do an election update on friday where I attempted to answer this question, but by Friday, we might see the dam break and Biden already announcing he's not gonna run. So I want to answer the question "can Kamala win?"
Now, before I get started, I'm going to say this. The data I have on Kamala Harris's would be candidacy is limited. A lot of the data is limited and months old. While there is some new data, it's mostly on the federal level. But I did try to compile the best chart possible on the matter that I would use to predict elections, and to be blunt: no, no she can't. Here's my electoral data on Kamala Harris.
All of this is from real clear politics, it's as recent as I could get, although a lot of it is month's old. The tipping point of PA, for example, is an average of the Trump +4 poll that I recorded in my previous attempt to look at Harris, and a Trump +9 poll from February. That's not good.
The Florida poll at Trump +10 is from today. For reference, Biden is at Trump +6 in the same poll.
Georgia, she's at Trump +10 there too due to recent data. Biden was at Trump +3.
I know I saw a virginia one a while ago on 538 that was either Trump +3 or Tie, while Biden was either Tie or Biden +3. I forget the exact margins except one was tied, and the other was 3 points behind the other.
Polls like that give me pause. because the last thing we need is to swap out Biden, who is already losing, and who by my current metric is at a 13% chance of winning, with someone who does even worse and has a 5% chance of winning.
At the same time, on the national polls, Biden is at Trump +2.5, while Harris is at Trump +1.8. So Harris IS beating Biden there by about 0.7%. Is that significant to winning the election? Only if it's really close. Remember Hillary 2016, if she had ONE MORE POINT, Donald trump never would've become president. So if we get that again, MAYBE Harris could pull it off while Biden can't.
But that DOES assume that Harris can hold the swing states, and that's where I'm less sure. Nationally, ok, she does slightly better than Biden. But in several individual states, she does several points worse. Here's the current Biden data for comparison.
So, Harris does better in Michigan but there's also a lower sample size there. We're talking an old poll from last November vs new polls. And if we recall, Biden was doing better back then too. Remember my original election prediction with Harris vs Biden? Biden was markedly better on the whole, even back then. Maybe not in Michigan, but everywhere else, eyah.
New hampshire, Harris was losing it, Biden was winning it handily. Still the same old data. One poll has Biden doing as bad more recently hence why the average is down to Biden +3 there, but there's still enough of an average of polls to keep it in the biden column.
Virginia, yeah Biden seems to be struggling here. Not sure Harris would do better there, no actual data from RCP on here, but i did recall a poll from 538 where she was doing worse than Biden there.
Pennsylvania, oh god, even with as much as Biden has slipped there, he's still ahead, although again, old data.
Wisconsin, let's call it a wash.
In the sun belt Harris seems to do embarrassingly bad, even in newer polls.
So...what's my prognosis on Harris? Well, it's that she sucks. Now, as a politician, I dont have anything particularly against her. She's not progressive enough for me but no establishment politician is. I've actually liked her in the recent past as far as establishment dems go. She's tried to position herself between the centrist and progressive wing of the party and much like Biden I believe she can be pulled left. I'd be willing to give her a shot. But in terms of electability?
NO! HELL NO!
This is why I'm leaning toward being pro Biden. It's because no matter what we might think of Biden's odds, Harris's odds are EVEN WORSE.
Last time, we were talking a 31% chance vs a 16% chance. Right now, we're talking a 13% chance vs a 5% chance. And I admit, to be fair, the public data I have is limited. This is all RCP polling averages for the most part.
A lot of the data the dems are looking at is internal polling data like that open labs poll, and that seemed to tell a different picture. Of course, it has Biden down even more, to the point of being buried under a Trump +7 lead in Pennsylvania, and flat out losing states like Virginia and even New Mexico. So really apocalyptic stuff that not even my prediction would suggest, as dismal as it actually is. And in those polls, Harris and even Whitmer, who trails Biden by 1.4 points in the popular vote, cleans Trump's clock relative to Biden, not that victory is certain in general.
I mean that's the thing. Their internal polls might be telling the dems different things than mine. We saw that a few weeks ago with the openlabs poll, and now we're seeing data from a similar firm leaking out suggesting replacements could outperform Biden by 3 points.
Now, 3 points is significant. 3 points would take us from a 4.5 point deficit translating to a 13% chance, to a 1.5 deficit with a roughly 35% chance. And if Biden returned to a 2-3 point down scenario like he was pre debate, where he's at 23-31%, someone else would bring the dems up to a 0-1 point lead, which would net them a 50-60% chance. None of this is certain at all. Again, my own data seems to contradict this. I see replacing Biden as making a bad situation worse. They might see it as taking us from a bad situation and putting us in a position where we might actually win. It's hard to say.
Anyway, as such, based on my own data, I do not recommend replacing Biden with Harris at this point, and I think it's, again, making a bad situation worse. However, I admit I'm making this call on limited data, so if internal polling says differently and it's more reliable than what I have, by all means consider it, but yeah, to answer Biden's question: no, I don't think harris can win, or perform statistically significantly better than Biden currently is.
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