2024 Final Predictions. I'm Calling It A Blue Wave. Here's Why.

Harris to win the electoral college 325 to 213.

Here's why I'm calling all the swing states for Harris:
** More than one-third of the vote is already in. We know the demographics of which groups are turning out in force and which are not. We also have high-quality exit polls.
** Women are voting far more than men. Even a massive turnout by men on election day is hardly likely to close the gap. Harris leads female voters by 14% while Trump leads by only 6% with men.

** The vote is showing extraordinary crossover support for Harris by registered Republicans. Here's an example:
North Carolina:
Actual early voters: 55% Harris, 43% Trump, 3% others
Early voter party ID: Dem 33%, GOP 34%, Ind 33%
- Assuming virtually Democrats and about 60% of independents are voting for Harris, to get to 55% of the total vote Harris must be getting in excess of 10% of Republicans. PA and WI show similar rates of defection of Republican voters. The rate is even higher in AZ, GA and MI.

** Harris is doing well with the most crucial voting block: seniors. Minorities are not defecting to Trump the way Republicans have hoped. Younger men are not turning out the way Trump needs.

** Harris has outstanding get-out-the-vote operations. Trump's are a disaster.

** Harris has a massive fundraising lead.

** Democrats are way ahead in voter enthusiasm in a key Gallup poll.

** Late-deciders are breaking for Harris.

** And finally, a bombshell poll dropped yesterday: Harris by 3% in Iowa. This is from the highly-respected Selzer organization, who, for example, correctly predicted that Trump would win Iowa by 14% in 2020. If Harris is doing anything like as well as this poll suggests, Democrats will have a good night on Tuesday.

The Senate

Current Senate: 51 D, 49 R

New Senate: 50 D, 50 R

This forecast for the Senate may be overly-optimistic, but here we go.
* The Republicans will pick up West Virginia.
* Jon Tester has survived close contests before in Montana, but I think this one is out of reach. The Republican will probably win. (Or maybe Tester survives but we lose NV or OH).
* I'm calling Texas for Democrat Colin Allred. The polls are within the margin of error, and I expect Harris to lose Texas by only 3 points or so. That's close enough for Allred to knock off Ted Cruz, whom nobody likes.

The House

Current House: 221 R, 214 D

New House: 222 D, 213 R

Gubernatorial

Democrats to pickup North Carolina.

Tweet

Remembering Phil Donahue. When Cable News Found Out It Had One Liberal, It Fired Him.

Giant of TV talk Phil Donahue passed away at age 88 last month. I can't say I ever watched his shows, but I do remember one thing about him. He certainly proved that TV cable news does not have a liberal bias.

Today there is widespread belief that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a mistake, even among many conservatives. American support for the invasion was in excess of 70% when the war started. Five years later, that support had fallen by half.

In early 2003 Phil Donahue had the highest rated show on the young MSNBC network. George W. Bush had told a whole series of lies to gin up an illegal invasion of Iraq. Donahue invited anti-war voices on his show. For this, Donahue was fired.

Amy Goodman, producer of the news podcast Democracy Now! has described what happened at MSNBC: "In 2003, Phil Donahue was fired from his primetime MSNBC talk show during the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It was the most popular talk show on MSNBC at the time. The problem wasn’t Phil’s ratings, but rather his views. An internal MSNBC memo warned Donahue was a, quote, “difficult public face for NBC in a time of war,” providing a, quote, “home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity,” unquote."

Phil's own description of the situation: "I think what happened to me, the biggest lesson, I think, is the — how corporate media shapes our opinions and our coverage. This was a decision — my decision — the decision to release me came from far above. This was not an assistant program director who decided to separate me from MSNBC. They were terrified of the antiwar voice. And that is not an overstatement. Antiwar voices were not popular. And if you’re General Electric, you certainly don’t want an antiwar voice on a cable channel that you own; Donald Rumsfeld is your biggest customer. So, by the way, I had to have two conservatives on for every liberal. I could have Richard Perle on alone, but I couldn’t have Dennis Kucinich on alone. I was considered two liberals. It really is funny almost, when you look back on how — how the management was just frozen by the antiwar voice. We were scolds. We weren’t patriotic. American people disagreed with us. And we weren’t good for business."

Jeff Cohen, senior producer of Donahue's show, has described the situation at the network in 2003 in similar terms, "But “the suits” ruined our show when they took control and actually mandated a quota system favoring the right wing: If we had booked one guest who was antiwar, we needed to book two that were pro-war. If we had one guest on the left, we needed two on the right. When a producer suggested booking Michael Moore—known to oppose the pending Iraq war—she was told she’d need to book three rightwingers for political balance."

I'm glad Phil Donahue lived long enough to see the lies and and warmongering politics of George W. Bush be completely discredited. And also that he lived long enough to see MSNBC come to its senses and hire great progressive journalists like Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes. MSNBC isn't perfect, but perhaps it has recognized that in America, if the news seems a bit too "liberal" it's because (as Stephen Colbert once said), "Reality has a well-known liberal bias".

 

 

Tweet

It Was Wrong for Democratic Party Leaders and Donors to Force Joe Biden Out

Joe Biden has ended his campaign. Party leaders, major donors, and apparently about two-thirds of Democratic voters wanted him out.

I did not. The party has made a mistake.

After Biden's disastrous June debate against Trump, there was widespread agreement among the faithful that we needed to have a conversation about whether Joe Biden is mentally and physically well enough to continue as nominee. And we had that conversation. And the answer was, yes, Joe is old and frail, but he is healthy enough to do the job he was chosen to do.

But then as they say, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Persons who saw Joe Biden as a weak nominee decided they wanted him replaced, with, well, anyone at all. And they won the argument.

Folks, this is not how democracy is supposed to work.

A little history. The modern Democratic Presidential nomination process began in 1972. That was the first election where the results of the primaries really counted more than the opinions of the super delegates in choosing the nominee. And in four of the next five elections, the Democrats looked like a party that couldn't do anything right. McGovern was crushed in '72. Carter nearly lost a virtually unlosable race in '76. And the less said about 1980, 1984 and 1988 the better.

But one thing we did not do in any of those elections was to choose a nominee, then press the panic button when that nominee fell behind in the polls and force him out.

Now that we've done this:
1. We've sent a message that we will betray anyone the minute the going gets tough.

2. We've given major donors and party leaders the power to deny the choice of the voters.

3. We look ridiculous. We became a squabbling, circular firing squad as soon as our campaign had problems.

4. We haven't gained anything. It's not as if Kamala Harris or anyone else polls any better against Donald Trump.

5. Right up to today, Professor Alan Lichtman, who has predicted the last 10 elections correctly, has pointed out that Joe Biden was still on track to win, largely because he's an incumbent President in a strong economy. Now we've thrown that away.

Perhaps we will win. Perhaps we will lose so badly that in four years the party will have new leadership. We need new leaders who believe in the democratic process, who believe that when the going gets tough, the tough get going, and who believe, maybe just a little, in loyalty to a very successful President. Assuming we ever win another election.

Tweet