Quick Deepdive: Election 2024

Quick analysis on the state of the Presidential election

Intro

I’m going to keep this very short because I want it to be a snapshot of what my analysis is telling me at this point in time.

“Quick Deepdive” may sound like an oxymoron, but it’s accurate in this case because I have gone very deep into the weeds in terms of gleaning information about the state of the race from the best available sources I could find.

If you’re curious about the types of sources I follow, this list by @naval has some excellent accounts to follow for information. Click on the image for the link.

So this will be a very quick and simple analysis based on some key assumptions. It would take me far too long to take you through all the podcasts, articles, tweets, data that are relevant and by that point the analysis might not even be relevant anymore.

And at the end, I'll even try to give you some pointers about what to look for in the days ahead as well as attaching some numbers in terms of probabilities!

The Situation

The Situation: This is my best and most objective approximation of the situation as it currently stands. Again, this also includes some key assumptions based on credible consensus, but these are not meant as a stand in for facts because nobody has that data yet.

A) Both sides believe internally that the sunbelt is out of reach for Harris

B) If A is true, then Kamala's only path to victory is to sweep the "blue wall" of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan

C) While these three states have been trending towards Trump in the polling, they're still essentially toss-ups and within the margin of polling errors

D) Early voting data in the blue walls states is far less dispositive than in the sunbelt

E) Neither side considers that there are any significant polling errors in the blue wall states favoring Trump

F) Given D+E, the assumption is that these states are pure toss-ups and these races will be determined by turnout

Analysis

Analysis: When you have such limited hard data, the analysis is infinitely complex. So we’re using assumptions based on things that are coming out from both sides. In other words, the situation as described above gives you the best approximation of what the two sides can agree on. Again, this is not dispositive because in 2016 both campaigns (absent a few outliers) thought Trump was going to lose going into election day.

There are there are three parts to the analysis of the relative odds of the outcome.

1) Is the sunbelt out of reach for Harris?

The first thing you'll need to do is assess to what extent the sunbelt is out of reach for Harris. I'm telling you what's being reported widely coming out of the campaigns and from credible analysts.

This is the most critical aspect of the analysis because it would mean that you have to concede that Trump is going to win Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina (Nevada isn’t really relevant either way to this analysis).

I think there is a high probability for this to be true considering aspects like polling, early voting analysis, registration, historical parallels, and trends. But there’s really no way for me to generate probabilities for this happening without very complex modelling which is going to probably lead to the same conclusions that analysts are already coming to.

But what I can tell you is that the most important thing you should be looking at in the next few days is whether or not this (Trump winning Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina) is likely to happen because it has huge repercussions for the rest of the analysis.

So if or when you come to the conclusion that the sunbelt is out of reach for Harris, then this is the only possible path to victory for her: Sweeping the vaunted Democratic Blue Wall…which has that name for a reason.

2) Are Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan truly all 50-50 tossups?

Personally, I think Trump is currently favored because:

• He’s currently leading in the polls

• Nothing in the early voting yields any significant red flags

• Polling errors in 2016 and 2020 have favored Trump in these states by a lot

But I am willing to put these points aside for the sake of this analysis and say that they are indeed real toss-ups and that they are essentially tied.

Why? Because it doesn’t really matter than much to the final probabilities…which takes us to the last point.

3) Can Harris sweep the blue wall?

What are the odds that she can win Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan given points 1 and 2?

This is by far the simplest part to figure out. She has a one in two chance in each which means she’s got to win three coin flips in a row. It’s that simple.

That means 0.5^3 or 0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5 which comes out to a 1 in 8 chance or 12.5%.

Harris’ chances of sweeping the blue wall are currently 12.5% meaning that if Trump holds the sunbelt, as he’s currently a heavy favorite to do, then there’s an 87.5% chance he is the next President.

Conclusions

I think this gives you the simplest way to look at the election on October 31st, 2024…5 days out from election day.

First, keep an eye on whether the sunbelt is still considered unlikely for Harris. Polls in this sense are irrelevant at this point…only early voting can give you any insight at this point. And again, at this point in time her campaign is not generating enough early votes which is why there’s such confidence on the Trump side and pessimism in Harris’ camp.

Second, keep an eye on whether the races in the blue wall are still considered toss-ups heading into election day.

Finally, do the math!

You can even significantly increase Harris’ chances of winning each individual state to 60% and her odds of winning all three is still only 21.6%. In fact, you’re have to increase her individual odds of winning each state to 80% just to give her a 51.2% chance of sweeping them.

And don’t be fooled by the argument that if she wins one, then she’ll win them all because that’s how it’s happens historically. Wrong! It’s an appeal to recency bias. 10K votes either way has nothing to do with history…only chance in a pure 50-50 split which is one of the assumptions. That’s why we have point 2 of the analysis where I think it’s fair to say we’ve given Harris the benefit of the doubt in calling them true tossups. The margin is so razor thin that each state can only be viewed as statistically independent…complete toss ups as the Harris campaign will readily concede. Now if Harris were actually favored in these states, you could make the case but at best she’s 50%. So even if Harris wins Pennsylvania then her chances of sweeping the blue wall only improve to 1 in 4 or 25%.

So if you think Trump is going to win Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina, then he’s essentially got somewhere in the neighborhood of an 88% chance of becoming POTUS #47…as things currently stand.

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