When will 'the fat lady sing' in the U.S. Presidential Election?

The United States General Election on November 5, 2024 is a mere six weeks away. ?In American politics, six weeks can seem like an eternity.

Prior to the presidential candidates’ debate held on June 27, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump were statistically tied in the polls. Emerson College’s National Poll of 1,000 registered voters, released on June 6, 2024, showed Trump and Biden neck and neck, with Trump’s support ?at 46% and Biden’s at 45%. When undecided voters were asked which candidate they leaned toward, the race split evenly 50-50%.

Three weeks later, on June 27, Biden faced Trump in the first (and last) 2024 presidential debate between the ?two candidates. Three weeks and three days after the debate, on July 21, Biden would drop out of the 2024 presidential race and endorse Vice-President Kamala Harris in his place.

President Biden’s debate performance contributed to falling support in the national and competitive swing state polls and fell again in the polls after a gunman’s attempted assassination of Mr. Trump at a Pennsylvania rally on July 13.

On July 21, Biden was trailing Trump nationally by 3%, according to the New York Times.[1] The President had lost support in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, as well as other swing states where he had already been trailing by four to five points.

Harris formally secured the Democratic Party nomination for president on August 5, having cleared the field of any competitor within days of receiving President Biden’s endorsement 30 minutes after he announced he was stepping down.

Six weeks after clinching the nomination, on September 16, Harris’s national polling average showed her with a 2.7% lead over Trump, marginally higher than the 1.9% lead she held on August 5. ?As of September 23, her national lead remained 2.7%.[2]

In swing states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin[3] – where the presidential election is expected to be decided in the Electoral College, Harris hold slim leads in the ‘Blue Wall’ states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, as well as in Nevada; while Trump leads in Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina. In all these states the polling results lie within margins of error.

Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, plus the 2nd Congressional District of Nebraska, would suffice to give Harris 270 electoral votes and win her the presidency.

Polling errors in the 2016 and 2020 elections in the Blue Wall states led to forecasts predicting large victories for the Democratic candidates.? In 2016, for example, Pennsylvania’s polling average had Secretary Hillary Clinton ahead of Donald Trump 48.9% to 45.2% on election day, a margin of 3.7%. When all the votes were cast, Trump went on to win Pennsylvania 48.2% to 47.5%.

FiveThirtyEight’s election model forecast, as of September 24, has Harris winning 57 times out of 100, and Trump winning 42 times out of 100 in simulations of election outcomes.[4] ?The race between Harris and Trump is fundamentally unchanged compared to a month ago.?

The election is ‘a coin toss’.

With no further presidential debates on the horizon before the election, absentee voting already underway in several states, and more limited campaigning being undertaken by Trump due to fears for his security, it is hard to imagine what might shake the race up at this point.

Harris reported taking in $190 million in election funds in August; Trump, just shy of $45 million, giving her campaign a financial edge. The funding allows her to flood the airways with political advertising, an area where she has outspent Trump over the past many weeks. However, this advantage shows no sign of having moved potential voters into her column.

American Leadership Review can hazard a prediction of what will happen on election day – November 5. ?

Because of a higher proportion of Republican voters voting in person, Trump will appear to be in the lead according to exit polls measuring support as voters leave the polling stations on the day of the election.

Democratic votes concentrated in fewer, larger and more urbanized states will take longer to be counted. These Harris leaning results will arrive later than the bulk of the Republican vote.

A higher proportion of Harris’ vote is also expected to be made by absentee or mail-in ballot. Fourteen states require counting to begin after polls close on Election Day, even if the ballots were mailed weeks in advance of the election.

In three critical battleground states — Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan — officials aren’t allowed to start processing early ballots until on or just before Election Day. ?If the Electoral College count is close, this could potentially leave the presidential race up in the air.

Based on early and incomplete reports of the election results, the Trump campaign will be tempted to ?declare victory on the evening of the election.

As more results pour in late on Tuesday evening and over Wednesday and Thursday, Harris will likely gain and, if not already in the lead, possibly overtake Trump, at least in the national popular vote.

At this point, Trump will declare the election a fraud and initiate multiple legal challenges aimed at stopping the counting of late ballots.?

The state of Georgia now requires hand counting of ballots, a process likely to slow discovery of the winner in that state. ?Both Democrats and Republicans may challenge the Georgia count.

"It ain't over 'til?the fat lady sings" is an American saying which means that one should not presume to know the outcome of an event which is still in progress.

The fat lady may not sing until well past the November 5 election.

[1] Albert Sun (July 23, 2024). See How Biden Lost Support in the Polls Before He Dropped Out. New York Times. www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/07/23/us/politics/polls-biden-trump-debate-shift.html

[2] FiveThirtyEight / ABC News (September 24, 2024). Who’s ahead in national polls? https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/national/?ex_cid=abcpromo

[3] James FitzGerald (September 17, 2024) Seven swing states set to decide the 2024 US election. BBC.?https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c511pyn3xw3o

[4] FiveThirtyEight / ABC News (September 24, 2024). Who Is Favored To Win The 2024 Presidential Election?. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2024-election-forecast/?cid=rrpromo

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