How likely is a landslide victory in November for either candidate?

Let’s discuss the most extreme predictions with regard to the November election that are floating around right now we’re seeing them on both sides, there are predictions on the one hand of an inevitable, unstoppable unmodifiable landslide victory incoming for Donald Trump. And on the other hand, there are those who say debate performance doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, Trump lost 2020. He suffered significant setback since and it is actually Joe Biden, who is going to get the landslide victory in November. Now, let me give you sometimes I would build up to my opinion, I’ll just give you my opinion up front and then work backwards from this. I think both of those expectations are probably wrong, but but possibly, right. But the only sane prediction based on the data is a very tight presidential race, likely decided by about half a million votes or fewer, in three to five critical states. I’ll tell you why I come to this conclusion in a moment. But let’s now explore the various positions. There is a group that in particular, after Joe Biden’s poor debate performance, and seeing Donald Trump’s lead in the polling grow, not dramatically, but it grew are saying it’s over. It is absolutely over. Joe Biden won the popular vote by 7 million in 2020. He’s now losing the popular vote in essentially every poll for 2024. Voters are very much dissuaded from supporting him because of the poor debate performance, they realize he can’t do it. And if Biden barely won the Electoral College, with a 7 million vote victory in the popular vote in 2020, he cannot possibly win, he cannot possibly win the electoral college. If he loses the popular vote, as current polling suggests that he will do we are seeing all of the swing states go Trump, we may even see some reliable but not as heavily Democratic states be close and maybe even some of them will go Trump, Trump could get 400 electoral votes. That’s one case that is being made. Okay. The case on the other side for the inevitability of a landslide is a little different. And it’s really just a different spin on essentially the same data. Biden had a terrible debate performance. And he’s still only down three, and it’s nearly four months until the election, Trump lost in 2020. And since then, incited a riot was found civilly liable for sexual assault, was indicted four times and convicted on 34 felony counts, you start with Trump’s 2020 performance, which was a loser. It’s only gotten worse since then. Sure. Biden didn’t have a great debate performance. But that debate had particularly low ratings, that debate was earlier in the election cycle than you would normally see them. It’s simply not going to have the impact that some people do. It is Biden, who is going to start with 2020. And he might pick up Florida, he might pick up North Carolina, he might pick up who knows, take your pick of a couple of states. All right. Now, is either of those scenarios likely? I don’t think it is. If I really sit down, and I’m honest. A couple things that need to be considered. Number one, is that Trump leading the popular vote polling is almost certainly wrong. Because no Republican candidate for president has won the popular vote in a really long time, Biden’s poor debate performance doesn’t change a multi decade reality about Republicans losing the popular vote. If you start from the point that the polls probably did, the polls don’t have to be dramatically wrong. And this is a critical thing. I know people will respond to say, David, how can you you trust the polls, but they’re wrong? What do you mean, the polls are as good as the margin of error. And right now, we have a situation where regularly, the polls are off by a few points nationally, if the polls are off by a few points nationally right now. And we know historically, that Democratic candidates tend to win the popular vote, you have to be suspicious that come November, today’s polling will represent the ultimate electoral reality. Once you can see that, then it becomes much more clear that the 2024 election may be a lot like 2020, meaning it will come down to those 100,000 to 500,000 votes and 2020 it was about 115,000 votes in three to five states in 2020. It was three states. And then you have to consider the analysis of someone like Professor Allan Lichtman, Professor Allan Lichtman, who has made very clear many times that there is no fundamental change to the structure of the race. Based on Joe Biden’s debate performance. Yes, it was bad. But the race comes down to the economy. The race comes down to whether there’s an incumbent whether there’s a war, whether there’s a strong third party challenger, and Biden’s debate performance doesn’t change any of that. That’s Professor Lipman’s analysis. Let me know what you think. Let me know what you expect. I’d love to hear from you.