THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: The 2024 Election Cycle Is Now Over

The most bizarre presidential election in memory is

now over. Donald Trump has won a decisive victory

not only in the key electoral college, but also in the

national popular vote, something a Republican ticket 

has not done since 2004.

Many of the predictions about this contest did not

happen. There were, however numerous surprises

and sudden dramas throughout the cycle.

As President Biden said in his remarks after the 

voting, an election is a contest in which one side

wins and one side loses. To his credit and to Vice

President Kamala Harris, his party’s  presidential 

nominee’s credit, they called and congratulated 

President-elect Trump and graciously accepted the 

result, assuring an American tradition of the peaceful

transfer of power after an election.

In the seven-week period until Inauguration Day, 

there is time for voters on both sides to reflect on the

campaign just passed. The winners. of course, are

celebratory, but that does not mean  any gloating is

useful. Republicans should remember how they

felt four years ago when they were on the losing side,

and be respectful of how most Democrats now 

understandably feel.

Winners  in politics can lose in a subsequent election,

and losers can win in one. In fact, Republicans face

their next voter test in only two years, and the historic

frequency of defeat in the first mid-term after a

presidential victory. Their challenge is compounded by

their numerical disadvantage in the U.S. Senate races,

an advantage they had and which helped them in 2024,

In the meantime, Mr. Trump is choosing his cabinet and

other executive branch leaders, and preparing to take

the executive reins of government.  The U.S. House and

U,S, Senate are both controlled by his party, albeit by

narrow margins. As a so-called lame duck president, he

will need to work quickly to enact his policies.

Voters did give Mr. Trump a mandate, and now they

expect hum to deliver on his promises.

Democrats now are the Opposition. After  a period of

reflection and discussion., they will decide what directions

to take, and what changes they need to make.  Their

2024 campaign and many of their candidates did not

resonate with a majority of voters, so new ideas, policies

and leaders are likely to emerge. 

Foreign governments, both friendly and unfriendly, have

already begun adjusting to Mr. Trump’s election. By

selecting Senator Marco Rubio as his Secretary of State,

and Congresswoman Elisa Stefanik as his U.N. ambassador

he has signaled to our allies, competitors, and those

who are hostile, that his administration will pursue a robust

and articulate foreign policy —- and one different from the 

one conducted in the past four years.

Judgments about President Trump’s domestic and  foreign

policies in his second term will have to wait until he is in 

office again. In the meantime, it is a relief to be past the

now-concluded campaign cycle and its especially

melodramatic and divisive tone.

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Copyright (c) 2024 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.

THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: Best-Case And Worst-Case Results In 2024?

As Election Day approaches, there is increasing pressure

for pundits and other commentators to make predictions

about the major political races —- in this cycle, this

includes the presidential race, the competitive U.S. Senate

races, and control of the U.S. House.

As we learned especially in 2022, however, the political

prediction business is quite risky.

So, with that in mind, i will forego specific race predictions,

and instead suggest, based on observations so far, the

outcomes most likely, as well as best-case and worst-case

results.

The presidential eace, of course, gets the most attention,

and this cycle, it has seen much more than usual surprise,

twist and turns.

The conventional means to evaluate this race is with the

published political polls, of which there are many. These

vary widely in the quality of their methods and in the

credibility of their results. In addition, public political

polling itself has declined in recent years because of

increased resistance by voters to respond to pollsters,

and to range of subjective adjustments off the raw polling

data by the individual pollsters.

Historically, in recent cycles, many media and other

establishment pollsters have routinely underestimated

the views of one party in their samples —- more often, but

not always, of Republican or conservative voters.

The polls of the 2024 political cycle have consistently

suggested that the presidential, competitive Senate, and

control of the House races are each extremely close,

with most of them polling within the so-called margin of

error.Since so many of the published polls have a

partisan bias, I have consistently been skeptical of many

of these polls —- quite a few of which show signicantly

different results even taken at the same time with similar

samples.

A majority of current polls show Kamala Harris slightly

ahead in the national polling which reflects the popular

vote. In recent cycles, Democrat nominees have won the

popular vote even if they don’t always win the all-important

electoral vote which actually determines who wins and 

who loses. Since even most establishment polls show

Harris ahead by only 2 percentage points or less, the 

implication is that Donald Trump will win the election —-

since it is estimated that the Democrat must win by 3-5

percentage points to win the electoral college vote.

Also, almost all of the non-establishment polls are 

showing Trump up 2 percentage points or less ahead 

in the race, or exactly tied..Election betting sites, a

completely different measure, show Trump now

favored —- although not by much.

A best-case result for Republicans would be a slight

win for Trump in the popular vote and a decisive win in

the electoral college. Conversely, that would be the

worst-case outcome for Democrats. A best-case

result for Democrats would be a large margin in the

popular vote (more than 4-5 points) and a clear win in

the electoral college (more than 290). A conventional

outcome, based on current information, would be that

Harris wins the popular vote by a relatively small 

margin but loses the electoral college by a narrow

margin.

The latter result, incidentally likely would mean the

winner won’t be really decided until well after Election

Day, as absentee, mail-in and recount votes are

tallied. That might be the worst-case outcome for the

nation, if the 2000 and 2020 close elections proved to

be.

There are about 6-8 competitive U.S. Senate races this

cycle, all of them currently held by Democrats. The

open seat (held by a retiring Democrat) in West Virginia

appears to be a near-cartain pick up for thr GOP, and

the seat held by a Democrat running for re-election in

Montana appears to be a likely GOP pick-up. Thus,

Republicans are expected to take control by 1 51-49

margin. Although this would mean control, several

senators in each party have often acted as mavericks,,

and passage of legislation and Senate confirmations

would often be up in the air. The best case .outcome for

the Democrats would occur if the Harris-Walz ticket won,

giving the liberal-progressives the tie-breaking vote

by the vice president who is also the presiding officer

of the Senate, and winning all of the competitive races.

For the GOP, its bast case result would be the victory of

the Trump-Vance ticket, and winning 2-5 more of the

seats now held by Democrats.

It should be noted, as well, that there are two senate seats

held by Republicans, and 2-3 more seats held by Democrats

that were, and could still be, competitive.

Finally, there are only a relativeyly small number of House

seats which appear undecided. Currently, Republicans

have a slight lead. Best case for the Democrats then

would be to win most of the undecided seats  and thus win

back control by a very narrow margin. Conversely, the best

case for thr GOP would be to win most of thr undecided

races, and thus keep control by a slightly larger margin than

the last session. Although the presidential race usually does

not impact House races very much, the winning presidential

ticket cthis year ould have a larger impact than usual.

With about three weeks before Election Day, these appear

to be the bast case-worst case-normal case parameters on

voting outcomes.

It has been a very unconventional cycle, with lots of political

surprises, and a very unsettled electorate. Predicting 

elections has always been guesswork, but rarely if ever

more so than this one.

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Copyright (c) 2024 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.