Okay, so...I've been positing a theory lately that if the election were held, say, in August or September, maybe Harris would have won. I base this on the fact that Harris seemed to have better energy at the time, and might have generated more enthusiasm. However, I have a fancy election model, and an ability to simulate alternative outcomes, so let's actually think about it.
First of all, this is the electoral map at Harris's peak, on 9/20/24. I reconstructed the map from my election update around that time, as I kept track of that stuff. The graphic I used wasn't as fancy at the time as it was from back before I integrated my electoral college map into it, so I used a modified spreadsheet to reconstruct it.
This map actually seems somewhat favorable to Harris. She had a de facto 60% shot, and while it was still considered a tossup, this was the strongest tossup one can get before you go into the lean category
If I run 100 simulations using this map, I get:
63 Harris outcomes
36 Trump outcome
1 Tie
The simulator was also throwing out A LOT of blue texas/florida maps, as well as a lot of maps that functionally amounted to a sweep for Harris, it was a totally different ball game with the simulator than the last days of the campaign were, where I was generally getting something like 42 Harris outcomes, 57 Trump outcomes, and a tie, give or take.
But....we know the result of the election. Trump won, and he overperformed. So the real question is, would she have won, at her peak, given the same polling error? I mean, simulations are nice, but those simulations assume we don't know the actual general error of the result, which before hand, we don't. But now we do. And based on the popular vote, Trump overperformed by about 1.7. So....would...Harris...have won....if Trump overperformed by the same degree he did in the actual election?
WELLLL......
Honestly, based on the data, this election was always a lost cause. Unless the polling error would've shifted a different way too, we can't say that harris would have won. Even at her polling high water mark, Trump was still potent enough to probably pull it off. And even more so, he probably would've gotten roughly the same electoral map that he actually did. Michigan is disputable, although let's look at that another way. Michigan was expected to go 0.5% for harris on election day. It went 1.4% for Trump. So Trump actually overperformed by 1.9% there. Which means he would have won there too. So yeah....we never had a chance. 226-312 was inevitable.
As such, I must conclude that Harris never could have won the election. She still put up a hell of a better fight than Biden ever did. And once again, to throw shade at Allen Lichtman, no, Biden wouldn't have won. Biden was not only losing all 7 swing states, but also virginia when he pulled out. He was also at risk of possibly losing Minnesota, New Hampshire, and even Maine. Some internal polling had him losing New Mexico, with the unleaked stuff that we now know about having him even losing New Jersey, New York, and Illinois, all of which were way closer than expected.
The fact was, we just faced too hostile of an environment to ever win.
This isn't to say that Harris did as good as she could have done. I think her moderation on economic issues and gallavanting around with the cheneys was cringey and caused her to slump an addition 1.5% even on top of the above map. BUT....yeah. Let's face it, Biden left the democrats in such a hole we just couldn't overcome the fundamental forces behind the election. The dems were historically unpopular due to inflation, and even at her peak, she probably couldn't have defeated Biden. 2024 was always a lost cause, assuming Trump would have overperformed to the extent that he did anyway.
No comments:
Post a Comment