Well, we’ve gone from an almost unspeakably boring election to a pretty exciting one in just over a month. We had the fateful Biden-Trump debate on June 27, the Trump assassination attempt on July 13, Biden’s announcement that he was dropping out of the race on July 21, and now the Democratic Party seemingly selecting Kamala Harris as its candidate.
Polls are a little crazy. 538 does not seem to be producing its typical weighted polling averages at this point, while Nate Silver’s substack is now posting some weighted polling averages for public consumption. Real Clear Politics unweighted polling averages are…there. One question is whether to include any polls from before July 21 in the averages. I am not going to do any math though, and just report the averages as these two sites are showing them on August 1 in my local time (11 hours ahead of EDT).
| STATE | 2020 RESULT | 538 (TRUMP/BIDEN, July 1) | Silver Bulletin (August 1) | RCP (August 1) |
| Arizona | Biden +0.4% | Trump +4.8% | Trump +2.7% | Trump +4.2% |
| Georgia | Biden +0.3% | Trump +6.3% | Trump +2.2% | Trump +3.6% |
| Wisconsin | Biden +0.6% | Trump +0.8% | Harris +0.4% | Trump +0.2% |
| North Carolina | Trump +1.3% | Trump +7.3% | Trump +2.2% | Trump +5.5% |
| Pennsylvania | Biden +1.2% | Trump +2.0% | Trump +0.2% | Trump +2.7% |
| Michigan | Biden +2.8% | Trump +1.8% | Harris +2.6% | Harris +2.0% |
| Nevada | Biden +2.4% | Trump +3.8% | Trump +2.2% | Trump +4.0% |
I tend to trust the Nate Silver numbers here, since they are weighted for recency and things have changed very recently. Based on his numbers, the electoral college as it stands today would be Trump 287, Harris 251. So despite Harris’s “momentum”, which the media is playing up because they want us to watch commercials, Trump still has it at this very moment. On the other hand, Pennsylvania is all but tied, and if it goes for Harris the electoral college would be Harris 270, Trump 268.
The momentum is clearly there – there has been a decisive shift toward Harris across the board compared to where Biden was a month ago. On the other hand, she is slightly underperforming Biden 2020 across the board. To me, Harris is a fairly bland center-right Democrat with less baggage than 2024 Biden or 2016 Hillary, so this all makes some sense to me. Being a mixed-race stepmother doesn’t really change my personal impression of her political leadership skills one way or the other, but perhaps it will affect turnout. For what it’s worth Polymarket gives a 55% chance of Trump winning and a 44% chance of Harris winning. Which seems consistent. Predictit seems to be blocked as an online gambling site in the jurisdiction I currently find myself in.
So, maybe more crazy things will happen, or maybe it will come down to economic trends and turnout, like it usually does.