By Reagan Reese, Daily Caller News Foundation | November 04, 2024
For weeks, pundits, analysts, pollsters and politicians have been scrutinizing every piece of data coming out of early voting and last minute polls.
There’s more data to parse than possible — amid the craziness, here are five key developments that could indicate who is likely to win the White House:
1. Early Returns In Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania, for obvious reason, has been identified by both campaigns as the state most likely to put them over 270 electoral votes.
In June, FiveThirtyEight published its election model, which determined Pennsylvania to be the most likely “tipping point.”
GOP pollster Frank Luntz told Fox News Monday that if former President Donald Trump can win either Pennsylvania or Michigan, he will win the election.
“We do not project either candidate reaching 270 electoral votes without winning Pennsylvania, which is currently a dead tie,” Decision Desk HQ recently reported. Various polls have the two candidates locked in a dead heat.
This election cycle, the Republican National Committee (RNC) has outsourced a majority of its get-out-the-vote operation to grassroots groups who are barnstorming Pennsylvania to target low-propensity voters, like hunters and gun owners. (RELATED: Conservatives Reveal Plan To Awaken Sleeping Giant Voter Demographic That Could Decide White House, Senate)
“80,000 votes [in Pennsylvania] decided 2020, so let’s break that down. There are 90,000 Amish in Pennsylvania. That is the election. So we are courting the Amish vote, and we’re going to farmers markets, and we’re going to their villages, their towns. We’re meeting them where they are,” Scott Presler, the founder of Early Vote Action, previously told the Daily Caller.
“There are 80,000 truckers in Pennsylvania … a lot of them don’t vote because they’re driving rigs on election day. So we’re trying to get them the mail-in ballot. We’re trying to get them to vote early, because if they’re driving how are they going to vote? That 80,000 number could very well win Pennsylvania,” he continued.
Meanwhile, the Harris campaign told reporters this weekend it’s knocked on 807,000 doors in the Keystone State.
2. How Close Is Virginia?
Virginia is most likely Harris’s for the taking, but her margin could be telling.
“I believe Trump needs to come within 7 points in VA to win the White House. Anything below 6 and he’s very likely to win, and if it’s somehow below 5 then he is winning decisively,” Christian Heines, political analyst, election modeler and co-host of “Making the Argument” podcast, told the Caller.
In 2020, President Joe Biden won Virginia by ten points. A year later, the White House was stunned as Republican Glenn Youngkin pulled off an upset and won the governor’s seat. On Friday, the Institute for Policy and Opinion Research (IPOR) at Roanoke College published one last poll, showing the vice president ahead of Trump in the state by ten points, 51% to 41%.
Talk of Virginia being in play was more prominent when Biden was still the Democratic nominee, but the GOP re-run the Youngkin playbook in hopes of making the state competitive. (RELATED: Team Trump Turns To The Youngkin Playbook To Try And Flip Virginia Red)
“5,000+ GOTV volunteers will be augmented by 500 election attorneys at polling locations across Virginia,” Rich Anderson, the Virginia GOP Chair, previously told the Caller.
Virginia could be an early indicator as its one of only two competitive states, along with Georgia, with polls closing at 7 p.m. Eastern time.
“The 7th District is one of the most hotly contested in the country, and if Trump is winning it it’s because of strong rural turnout in the western end of the district around Culpeper where I live, combined with him making gains with Hispanic and Black voters in Prince William County. If he’s winning there, he’s in great shape in Georgia and PA. Even if he loses the 7th but keeps it close it’s likely a sign he’s more favorable than not to win,” Heines told the Caller.
3. Muslims In Michigan
The uncommitted vote dampened a Biden primary victory in Michigan and the same voters could spoil a Harris White House bid on Tuesday.
There has been a sizable effort within the swing state to punish the vice president for her Middle East policy, so much so that some campaign officials are reportedly worried the state could crack the “Blue Wall.”.
In the primary, 81.1% of Democratic voters chose Biden, but 13.3% — more than 100,000 people — chose the uncommitted option in protest of the president. The protests didn’t stop when Harris became the nominee. The Muslim organization “Abandon Biden” rebranded to “Abandon Harris.” Another Muslim organization, “Drive for 75,” previously told the Caller that they ran mathematical calculations to determine that if 75% of their community turns out in the 2024 election then there is a 99.9% chance Trump wins the state. (RELATED: ‘We’re Desperate’: Socialists, Muslims Band Together To Deny Harris The White House)
The organization has been visiting mosques and holding various get-out-the-vote events to push the Muslim community out to the polls. Whether they vote for Trump or the Green Party option, Dr. Jill Stein, the organization told the Caller it is a vote against Harris.
“We’re hoping that, whether Republicans or Democrats, will not take our vote for granted. So if it is [spoiling Harris’s chances], I hope it teaches not only the Democrats but the Republicans that, you go against your voters, you go against people as well. You continue to support a genocide, you’re going to lose,” Democrat Khalid Turaani, co-chair of the Abandon Biden campaign in Michigan, previously told the Caller.
4. Harris’s Pitch To Suburban Women
A frequent character on the campaign trail with Harris has been former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney. It’s all part of Democrats’ pitch to win over some right-leaning women who feel disillusioned with Trump.
Semafor’s Editor-In-Chief Ben Smith made a prediction Monday morning, claiming that if Harris nudges out Trump in the election, the media will have erred by focusing on young men rather than older women. In the same vein, renowned Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer released a rather controversial poll over the weekend that showed Harris leading Trump with senior women, 63% to 28%. By contrast, the vice president only led senior men by two points.
A positive break for Harris among older white women could play well in the Blue Wall, with a notable whiter electorate than in the sun belt.
5. How Trump fares In Iowa
Selzer’s shocking poll was a major outlier in a field of polls that almost all show a dead heat.
The Trump campaign was quick to denounce the poll, pointing to an Emerson College poll also released over the weekend, which put the former president up by double digits in Iowa.
“The Des Moines Register also claims Harris leads by 20 points among women (56-36). In 2020, President Trump tied Biden 49-49 among women according to CNN exits,” the Trump campaign memo argues.
“Once again, Emerson College’s poll today is more similar to the exits, showing instead a lead for President Trump of 5 points – 52-47,” it continues.
Selzer herself said she was shocked by the data she was presenting.
“I’ve been shocked since Tuesday morning last week,” she said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “So I’ve had the time for this to sink in because no one, including me, would’ve thought that Iowa could go for Kamala Harris.”
The only scenario where either candidate wins a landslide is if the polls are wildly off. It will be evident very quickly after Iowa’s polls close at 9 p.m. whether or not Selzer’s poll was an anomaly or a bellwether, giving some insight into how accurate, or not, the rest of the polling industry is this time around.
Reagan Reese is the White House Correspondent for the Daily Caller. She previously served as an education reporter at the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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