I Expect A Blue Wave Election DESPITE Poor Congressional Candidate Quality

Coattails Included! by Nancy Ohanian

A few days ago, Jonathan Chait wrote that Kamala should cut Biden loose and go her own way. I think she’s playing it the way she has to play it to consolidate the voters she needs to get to the White House. The one policy she did abandon Biden’s position on— capital gains— she went in the Republican direction. Biden proposed a modest 39.6% rate; she dropped that down to an abysmal 28%. And with the DCCC having lined up a roster of really conservative candidates if there’s a wave election, we’d be lucky to even get to 28%!

As for a wave election… I was on a call yesterday with a progressive group I work with. At one point I said, ‘I know no one agrees with me on this, but I feel there’s a good chance there will be a blue wave.’ I was surprised that although the professional prognosticators disagree, most people on the call, said they feel the same way I do! And then someone sent me a piece Fortune had just published by Shawn Tully: Could there be a Kamala Harris landslide in November? The data scientist who correctly called the last election is betting yes. Wow! He’s talking about Thomas Miller from Northwestern. His model got the Biden in right— and the two shocking Senate races in Georgia. Tully wrote that “Miller’s view merits close attention for two basic reasons: First, it’s based on numbers-crunching that’s arguably a lot more scientific than the voter surveys almost always cited to chart the contest’s trajectory, and second, he achieved pinpoint accuracy four years ago.”

Miller’s approach vastly differs from the most of political prognostications by relying not on polls, but the prices established by Americans wagering their own dollars on the candidates they reckon are most likely to prevail. “Political betting sites are the best at predicting the wisdom of the crowd,” he told Fortune. He states that while polls tell you about the past, the odds on the betting sites map the future. “Polls are as snapshot of the recent past,” he adds. “They typically canvas small samples of 500 to 1,500 people. And the pollsters are asking respondents whom they’re planning to vote for at that moment, which may have changed a few days later when the results are posted. Most polls are around four or five days behind.”

That lag, he says, causes a lot of noise or variability that disguises the actual picture. Another problem with polls: Miller reckons that a better question than “Tell us which candidate you’ll vote for?” is “Which candidate do you expect to win?” And while the pollsters don’t pose that query, it’s just how the bettors are making a market.

For the 2020 Biden-Trump face-off, Miller deployed the pricing posted on the largest U.S. political betting site, Predictit…

Before the Biden-Trump debate, the Republican was far ahead; on Miller’s chart, he stood on top of the ski slope. Trump looked to command almost 400 of the 538 electoral votes in mid-June. After the onstage match on June 27, Trump got even more dominant, and he peaked in the days framing and during the Republican convention at a share of almost 500. The Democrats’ odds rose sharply after Biden withdrew on July 21, and by the time Harris secured the nomination on August 6, the Democrats were solidly in the lead at around 325 electoral votes. They kept gaining over the following two weeks, hitting 400 in a stunning reversal by the time their convention ended on August 22.

Then, Trump staged a comeback. In the days before the September 10 Trump-Harris debate, Harris was still ahead, but Trump had nearly caught up. “At that point, the race was essentially a tossup,” observes Miller. “The forecast for the Democrats was 288.” It was the onstage battle in Philadelphia that wrecked the 78-year old former POTUS, according to the Miller numbers. Within a day after the candidates left the podium, Harris had jumped to exactly over 400 electoral votes. The Harris endorsement from Taylor Swift, secured the day of the debate, probably helped sink Trump’s chances, according to Miller. Since then, Harris has maintained for 400-plus vote total.

… [The] odds translate in 55% of the popular vote for the Democrat according to Miller’s model. If the situation persists, Trump faces an absolute rout. “It would be somewhere between the defeats of Barry Goldwater by Lyndon Johnson in 1964, and Bob Dole by Bill Clinton in 1996,” says Miller. “We’re talking about a blowout where Harris gets over 400 electoral votes and wins Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and every other swing state.”

Miller notes that at least in recent history, America’s never witnessed a reversal of fortune remotely as dramatic as this one. “It’s gone from a drastic landslide in Trump’s direction to a drastic landslide for Harris,” he marvels. The distance is now so great that only another epic swing would bring Trump back into contention, and Miller predicts that right now, it looks like Harris will win big on November 5. As a coda, he recalls a slogan the Johnson campaign used to bash Goldwater: “In your gut you know he’s nuts.” Miller’s markets-based analysis posits that the people betting their own money are right in predicting that by the time the candidates left the stage on September 10, millions of voters likely to back Donald Trump abandoned the ex-President, starting the shock waves that could cause an avalanche for Harris that as of now, few see building.

You probably noted that the Fed cut interest rates by a half percent yesterday. That didn’t help Trump’s social media stock, DJT, which sunk to another all-time low— $15.62 a share (down another 3.22%). That’s quite the ride for people who bought in at $72.00. Since last March the stock is down 76.5%. The market… and Trump supporter are betting against Donald J Trump.

Will she have coattails? Enough to save the Senate? That means Tester has to win in a state where Trump is polling comfortably in the double digits. Or can Allred beat Cruz? Trump’s ahead by 5.7% in Texas and Cruz is doing nearly as well. Florida is such a worthless joke that it isn’t worth mentioning. But what about Nebraska, where Dan Osborn, a union-backed populist running as an independent, is neck and neck with useless incumbent Deb Fisher? Trump’s going to sweep most of the state and he’s leading Kamala by anywhere between 5 and 17 points. But a lot of Cornhuskers are telling pollsters they plan to split their tickets, voting for Trump and Republican Pete Ricketts and also for independent Dan Osborn. If Kamala wins the White House and Tester loses in Montana, the Democrats will be down one seat and the GOP gets to run the Senate… unless Osborn wins. He says he’s not going to caucus with either party but his website makes it crystal clear that he’s pro-choice, pro-freedom, pro-worker, anti-corporate money in politics. If he wins, Schumer’s and Thune’s lives are going to be a living hell. Help make that happen here. Trump leads Harris 54-37% but look at this:

And what about the House? Well, as long as we’re in Nebraska, this same poll shows Democrat Tony Vargas beating GOP incumbent Don Bacon 46-40%. It’s asking district— mostly Omaha and its suburbs— and Kamala is ahead of trump by about 5 points.  A new RMG poll of voters in the upstate NY district that Marc Molinaro won in 2022, shows Josh Riley beating him 42-39% and one from GQR shows Laura Gillen beating Anthony D’Esposito (NY-04) by 3, Vargas beating Bacon by 4 points, Brandon Williams losing to John Mannion in NY 22 (Syracuse) by 7 points, Democrat Amish Shah beating GOP incumbent David Schweikert (AZ-01) by a point and Rudy Salas beating David Valadao (CA-22) by 2.  Another RGM poll has Will Rollins ousting Republican incumbent Ken Calvert by 6 points in CA-41. Even Janelle Bynum looks like she’s going to beat Laurie Chavez-DeRemer (OR-05) by a couple of points.

I ran through those random seats that I don’t care about at all just to make a point. If those numbers stay like they are into November, Kamala’s landslide is going to come with a blue wave for the House. (And if Dan Osborn wins in Nebraska, that will keep the Senate effectively out of the hands of the corrupt corporate slime. I guess they’ll have to make Osborn leader!)