Outside the Beltway

9ish Guy Fawkes Day & Beyond Predictions [Updated]

Remember, remember the fifth of November...

Matt Bernius · Tuesday, November 5, 2024 · 7 comments

In keeping with OTB tradition, here are my predictions for this Presidential Election day. This is my first Presidential election as an active Front Page contributor, so I have no posts I can refer to. Thanks to James’s post from earlier today, I could find a few of my predictions from the comments threads. In 2012, I predicted Obama would win 281 EVs (pretty far off). I cannot find a comment for 2016, but I believed Hillary would win (that was a tough night). In 2020, I called it for Biden (and was willing to bet money on it) but didn’t make an EV prediction.

For this year, I will try things differently and make a few predictions (and also let you know which ones I hope don’t come true).

Prediction #1: Like 2020, this is going to be a very close election
This is a pretty easy one to call. Despite discussions about herding poll models, I think the divisions in our nation among voters (and potential voters) are very real. This means that in some (or all) swing States, neither candidate will get enough in-person votes to negate the impact of mail-in votes. And that will set up many of the predictions that follow.

This is my first “I hope I’m wrong” prediction.

Prediction #2: Like 2020, we won’t know the winner until midday tomorrow at the earliest.
Again, this is another easy one. No blowout means we’ll need the absentee ballots to know the victor in close swing States like Pennsylvania and Arizona. Unfortunately, State laws in some swing States (again, like Pennsylvania and Arizona) don’t allow these votes to be counted until AFTER polls close. This means we’re going to be in a scenario similar to 2020.

And I hope I’m wrong about Prediction #1–if there is a landslide either way, that would make Prediction #2 moot (and others if Trump wins in a landslide). But I don’t expect that will be the case.

[Update 1] I realize that I made it seem like most elections should be officially called after the polls closed. The reality is that isn’t the case. This tweet from earlier tonight reminds us that of the last 5 elections, only two were called by the Associated Press (as one example) on election night.]

Prediction #3: If it’s ahead in the in-person counts by late tonight/early tomorrow morning, the Trump campaign goes fill Roy Coehn and declares victory, launching attempts to stop mail-in ballot counting in swing states.
Let me begin by saying that I genuinely hope this doesn’t happen.

However, I’m not Mick Mulvaney. Beyond the egregious actions taken in 2020, recent months demonstrate that Trump and his closest advisors are laying the groundwork for this toxic and anti-democratic move (see also NPR via Steven). All of this takes advantage of the red mirage effect created by Republicans historically voting in person in higher percentages than Democrats. As a result, they often appear to have an early lead. When mail-in ballots, which skewed to Democrats in 2020, are counted the tallies shift. This well-documented phenomenon was at the core of most of Trump’s baseless 2020 accusations of a fraudulent election.

Again, I hope this doesn’t come to pass. Sadly, I expect it will.

[Update #2: Jay L Gischer in the comments here and on Steven’s prediction post notes that Trump may not choose to contest the election. As supporting evidence he cites Trump’s low energy at recent campaign events. I, too, want to believe that the near octogenarian, the oldest candidate ever to stand for election on election day, is ready to pack it in. That said, there are many people whose livelihoods depend on Trump who I believe will convince him to keep fighting. Reports suggest they are pushing him to declare victory. Also whoever is in charge of Trump’s Truth social account has been posting today about “cheating” in Philadelphia.]

Prediction #4: I predict Harris will win both the Electoral College and Popular Vote

I’m slightly more optimistic than James and Steven. Harris will carry all of the upper Midwest and hold on to Georgia. I think she will narrowly lose North Carolina and Arizona. As a card-carrying Democrat and affirmative Harris supporter, I’m only hoping that my prediction is too conservative. Unfortunately, getting back to Prediction #1, I just don’t think that’s the case.

Prediction #4a: If Trump wins, he will still lose the Popular Vote
Again, at this point, I don’t think momentum is on Trump’s side. I am cautiously optimistic that things are going to break for Harris. If Trump squeaks out a victory, it will be based on the Electoral College and not the popular vote. And given that he hasn’t won the popular vote yet, I feel this is my safest prediction.

Prediction #5: The “great racial/ethnic realignment” will turn out to be a polling mirage
Outside of White Latinos, I predict that all the predictions about a significant realignment among voters will be largely false. Trump may make some inroads with younger Black Men and non-White Latinos, but in the end, we are still talking about the margins. I do expect that there will be some shifts around White men. Still, I expect the movements to be more or less net-neutral (more educated traditional “Rockefeller Republicans” moving to Democrats and non-college-educated White men shifting Republican).

I expect that in the post-mortem, the focus will continue to be on women (and how Trump underperformed with them).

Prediction #6: It’s 2020 all over again; Trump will contest the election up to ratification and beyond
To channel Stefan from SNL, this club will have everything: bogus court cases, threats of violence, unfaithful and alternate electors, and existential dread for many of us. Again, I really hope I’m wrong, but I’ve heard Trump tell the serpent anecdote too many times to expect him to change (no matter how low energy he’s been feeling recently). The results will continue to damage the electoral system and many people’s faith in the government and their fellow countrymen.

Predictions #7: When the knives finally come out for Trump, his family, and allies, it’s going to be, really, REALLY ugly
Can you say backstabbing bloodbath? I know you could. From the Trump family takeover of the RNC to J.D. Vance’s political future going up in smoke as he’s blamed for dragging down the ticket, to RKF Jr finally being acknowledged as bat-shit cray-cray, to Elon Musk trying to buy a puppet presidency, to Mark Robinson’s freak flag flying (especially if Trump loses NC), to Tony Hinchcliffe’s garbage island, people are going to find and blame someone whose name isn’t Donald J. Trump (again he cannot fail, he can only be failed).

There’s a reason Ivanka (who, as far as I can tell, has the most brains of her generation) noped out of just about everything this cycle. She is the only one who seems to have a sense of self-preservation that doesn’t involve clinging to Daddy for dear life.

Prediction #8: Our anti-anti-Trump commenters will pretend they never supported him–they only wanted Kamala Harris to lose
The great thing about never making predictions or taking a stance is that no one can prove you wrong. The downside is that you also demonstrate yourself to be the type of critic that Teddy Roosevelt once said of:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Prediction #9: I’ll blog in the next week about how close (or not) my predictions turned out to be
I’m not a “strong man,” but I’m willing to be publicly wrong on the internet and own it. I’ll post an update next week to see what I got wrong and right.

In the meantime, what are your predictions about my predictions?