T-1 Until a Moment of Clarity on US Elections?

The wait is almost over, and not a moment too soon. On Tuesday, those Americans who haven’t already voted will cast their ballots in what feels like the world’s longest and most drawn-out election in world history.

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We have been told by pollsters that the US electorate is almost evenly divided between the two candidates, the first time for decades such a state of affairs has continued right up until polling day itself. A coin toss. A dead heat.

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Or is it?

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The release over the weekend of the well-regarded Selzer poll in the state of Iowa--which put Kamala Harris several points ahead in a solidly Republican, mostly white rural state that Trump has won twice--appears to have shocked pollsters and pundits out of their previous complacency.?

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Ann Selzer’s new poll?put Harris with 47% to Trump’s 44%, with a 3.4 point margin of error. This amounts to a stunning turnaround, given that in September Trump was ahead in the same poll by 4 points, and in June, when it was Trump vs. Biden, by 18 points.

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Yes, it is just one poll, and we should always treat outliers with caution. But Ann Selzer has a solid track record and reputation for calling it correctly, including accurately predicting Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 when almost all others failed to do so.

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After the Selzer poll release, pollsters such as the NYT’s Nate Cohn and others, such as Nate Silver, alluded to what many have long suspected (including me): the polls have been “herding”, that is, moving toward this central?“tie”?scenario that has prevailed for the past month. Some have also started to admit that they may have “oversampled” Trump voters and under sampled Harris voters—namely women, young people and minorities.

Pollster PTSD about missing Trump’s victory in 2016 and under-estimating the salience of reproductive rights are exactly what we warned about in our last two newsletters , and what we have been cautioning clients about all year, as markets settled early on into an “all in” for Trump scenario. This is not 2016, and there aren’t many “shy Trump” voters around anymore. But it sure looks like there are plenty of fed-up women prepared to cross the aisle, stand in long lines and mobilise to fight for women’s reproductive rights, in what will become known as the “Dobbs Effect”, in reference to the US Supreme Court decision that reversed Roe vs. Wade (the first time in American history a Constitutional amendment was repealed).

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What if pollsters haven’t talked to enough of them—or if the women they polled didn’t admit that reproductive rights matter more to them than immigration or the economy, Trump’s strongest issues. I regard this as a strong possibility. Maybe, instead of “It’s the Economy, Stupid”, 2024 will be “It’s the Women, Stupid”.

Shock Iowa poll showing Harris ahead of Trump puts ‘cat among the pigeons,’ Tina Fordham says // CNBC

A Democrat winning Iowa is still a longshot, to be sure: an Emerson poll released the same day put Trump 10 points ahead of Harris . Although Harris has picked up a point or two overall when we look at the average of polls, this race is still very tight. For me, the key takeaways include that Markets got far too comfortable early on with a Trump victory when we did not have enough data points about Harris, that nervous pollsters may have severely undermined the integrity of their industry, and that Tuesday night may be even longer for traders than expected. If you are outside of the US and thinking of staying up late to watch the results, be forewarned that it’s highly unlikely we’ll have a result on the night, or even for several days.

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The first exit polls will come out around 11 pm CET on Tuesday, giving us our first set of insights into turnout levels and the demographic characteristics of who has voted. Polling stations will close between the hours of 10 pm GMT and 4 am. Be prepared also for initial results to come in strongly for Republicans initially, then start to shift blue. This is a pattern that emerges due to the order that states count their early ballots, but it will likely draw accusations of vote fraud given the fraught state of this race.

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If it transpires that pollsters have indeed been “herding” to insulate themselves from being too wrong one way or another, it will also exacerbate a key challenge in this race: the perceived lack of legitimacy of polling and by extension, the suspicion that the race is “rigged”. More to the point, if Harris really is ahead in the Midwest as Selzer suggests, it could mean that she is much further ahead in the swing states than thought previously. It could even portend a “triple flip” for Democrats, meaning control of the White House and both houses of Congress. This is a low probability, but it seems more likely than it did a week ago.

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In short, the number of “plausible hypotheticals” for the US elections has increased, as has the potential for disputes after so many weeks where the race seemed like a draw. Either candidate could emerge with a landslide result, while an Electoral College tie (270-270) could also transpire.

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Now, we wait. We will keep you posted as the race evolves.

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All the best,

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Tina

Fordham Global Foresight's Views in the Press

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How the U.S. Election Will Impact the World/A Global Rundown with Peter Thal Larsen and Tina Fordham

U.S. Elections: Ripping up the old playbook?|?FTSE Russell Convenes?| Episode One?

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Fordham Global Foresight has partnered with FTSE Russell to create a new three-part geopolitical series.?

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In this series, we will delve into key geopolitical issues and their implications for markets and the business environment.

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Click here to watch the full interview

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• US Elections Countdown: Signals/Noise and the Developments In Between?
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