By Dave Andrusko
You already are up to speed on this, but it helps to put numbers to what is really a staggering truth. Ed Morrissey writes
Harris has been on the record with the media for a staggering 26 minutes over the last 45 days, and eight minutes or so of that time got absorbed by her equally reticent running mate Tim Walz. In contrast, Trump and J.D. Vance have spent hours and hours taking questions in interviews and pressers, holding such events almost at a one-a-day pace since Harris got nominated.
It’s five days until the debate. What do the odds are that pro-abortion Vice President Kamala Harris will try to weasel her out of the one and likely only debate with former President Donald Trump?
Speaking of the presidential race, Nate Cohen, the New York Times’ Chief Political Analysist, writes
In short, the polls finally show the close election that analysts expected a year ago, before President Biden’s candidacy went off the rails. If anything, it’s even closer than expected: The polling averages today are closer than the final pre-election polling in any presidential election in the era of modern polling — closer than 2000, 2004 or 2012, let alone 2016 or 2020.
What about Nat Silver, statistician par excellence, and founder of the Substack blog Silver Bulletin. What does he have to say?
Prominent elections analyst and statistician Nate Silver said Wednesday that former President Trump is now electorally favored to defeat Kamala Harris in November by the widest margin in months.
Silver released his latest election forecast, writing on his Substack, “The forecast is still in toss-up range, but Trump’s chances of winning are his highest since July 30,” Silver wrote.
Silver’s nuanced election forecast model shows Trump’s chances of winning the Electoral College have increased from 52.4% to 58.2% since last Thursday. Harris’ odds meanwhile, have decreased from 47.3% to 41.6%.
He also noted that Harris seemingly didn’t benefit from a DNC bounce as much as election models had predicted.
Silver also second guessed Harris choice of Minnesota Gov, Tim Walz as her running mate:
Addressing voter enthusiasm, Silver said he thinks Harris’ decision to skip over Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running mate may hurt her campaign.
“There was a surge of enthusiasm for Harris post-Biden dropout, but that might have happened no matter what. Thought convention speech was good, but bypassing Shapiro beginning to look bad and they haven’t really found a 2nd gear after Hot Brat Summer,” he wrote on X.
The Electoral College contest remains a virtual dead heat in the seven swing states which will likely determine who will be our next president.
More tomorrow.