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.

THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: The Threat Of "My Way Or No Way At All" Politics

Once again anti-representative democracy forces are

clamoring for the institutions of government to do

things “our way or no way at all.” We observe this

impulse arising not only in militant, often violent, protest

groups, but also from elected officials who risk either

defeat by voters or their extreme policies rejected by

independentpublic institutions they do not control.

In the case of the protest groups, many of which are

mostly populated by naive students organized by

professional radicals and groups, the most disturbing

aspect has been the feckless response of many university

officials when the protests became violent or coercive.

Interestingly, in most cases the protest gtoups’ extremis 

activities have provoked a negative backlash in the

communities outside the campaus or wherever they

take place.

The totalitarian impulse employed by extremist forces on 

both the left an right adopt historic ideologies and 

sloganeering of dictatorships, communism, fascism, 

socialism or anarchism to impose themselves on everyone 

without popular consent.

The extremist groups have always been with us, but their

radical or reactionary policies rarely succeed in a

majoritarian society.

When supposedly more moderate figures in 

representative democracies resort to this tactic, however,

it is much more disturbing and unwelcome.

Recent examples include the dysfunction in the U.S.

House of Representatives where a small faction of the

majority Republican Party stymied action of its own

party and leadership in conducting the orderly process

of legislation. This minority resisted any reasonable

compromise on certain issues, and disrupted the

legislative process for much of the recent term.

On the other side, individual Democrats in the Congrress

are proposing “packing” the U.S. Supreme Court with

additional members who would then outnumber the

current majority and produce decisions that they favor.

The Supreme Court was created as an independent

third branch of the U.S, government. Members of the 

Court are appointed by the president and confirmed by

the  U.S. Senate. Their decisions thus reflect indirectly

the contemporary views of the voters. Some Courts

are therefore more liberal or conservative, but this

changes over time as older justices are replaced with

newer ones. The original Court was established in the

Constitution and initially had six members, but

the present number of nine was settled in 1869.

The most notable past attempt to “pack” the Court

occurred in the 1930’s when President Franklin

Roosevelt, a Democrat at the height of his national

popularity, became frustrated by a conservative

Court which struck down some of his legislative

proposals. But even though his party controlled the

Congress and he was so personally popular, the idea

of “packing” the Court was considered tampering with

the principle of three independent branches of the

government, and was rejected.

These are only two examples of several all-or-nothing 

ideas being expressed today by politicians who should

be more respectful of the unique constitutional balance

which has enabled our representative democracy to 

evolve, thrive and endure, as it has for more than 230 

years, and remains a model for the free world.

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