The three of you who have followed me for more than a week will probably already know that I believed Harris was in fact behind despite what the polling seemed to indicate. Tune in Friday for the long version of why polls are so bad, but today I’m basing my new assessment on a different piece of evidence. I am now convinced that Harris is trailing much worse than we have been lead to believe.
I’ve been couching my analysis because of something that happened in mid July – I mean after Biden’s ouster. Harris received a huge amount of financial support as she took the top spot as nominee. That wasn’t particularly important as lots of Democrat donors are wealthy but Harris’ campaign reported a significant number of small donor donations, especially first time donors. Those normally matter.
I was very surprised at all the small donors. That gave me pause as it could easily indicate wider support for Harris than I’d seen evidence for. It struck me as suspicious but I couldn’t be sure that my suspicions weren’t just my bias talking. So I allowed that Harris’ campaign might actually be tied with Trump’s.
At first, that still seemed plausible but there was nothing supporting her numbers. Really, nothing. Biden got away with the hiding in the basement strategy but Harris clearly wasn’t getting off so easily. Why, then, were the popular polls showing her with a slight edge? Skipping all the really silly polls, I was still seeing a consistent tie within the margin of error – a wash. But even that seemed inconsistent with her public performances and the weight of events.
Not even a dock strike and two hurricanes seemed to dampen her numbers. That was weird. In fact, it was too weird and I began to seriously doubt that Harris was doing nearly as well in the popular vote as pollsters indicated. But there were still all those small donations.
The nagging doubt from the small donations died horribly this morning when I watched a video entitled “ActBlue “Small Donor” Scam Exposed by Victim in New Lawsuit” by Robert Gouveia from the YouTube channel Robert Gouveia Esq. (Links in description.) The lawsuit Mr. Gouveia reviewed alleges that some person or group unknown has been making fraudulent small amount donations to a number of Democrat candidates, including Kamala Harris.
Allegations aren’t proof. But this lawsuit backed up its claims with a number of receipt emails to a Republican who had not made any of the small donations they were thanking him for, nor did he use the credit card or names associated with the donations.
Uh-oh.
I’ve explained previously that small donor donations are an indicator of how well a candidate is doing. Someone who can’t afford large donations but gives anyway is extremely likely to show up to vote and they are representative of others who also support the candidate but couldn’t donate. Big donors only vote once no matter how much money they give. Small donors vote once per donor and they outnumber the large donors by huge margins.
Just like pollsters will sometimes fudge polls to make a candidate look better than they are actually doing in order to encourage undecided voters to vote for that candidate, faking a large number of small donors can have the exact same effect. Much has been made of both Trump’s commanding rally numbers and his sizable number of small donors. That alone could encourage Democrat operatives to fudge the small donor numbers to make Harris’ campaign look less pallid against Trump’s.
Did Harris have anything to do with this, assuming the allegations are true? No idea and don’t care right now. My job is to analyze the race. Knowing that there is credible evidence of manipulation of the small donor numbers is enough to change a sizable portion of my analysis.
My new analysis is that Harris is trailing badly and is likely to lose the election by a significant margin.
All the normal indicators and the silly way that pollsters are reporting right now point to a comfortable Trump lead. Democrats panicking are something of the cherry on top. The new analysis is much more in keeping with all the indicators.
And yes, I just ignored the small donors altogether.
Why? Because ‘credible evidence’ isn’t proof and I won’t have that until well after the election is over and done. Never use untrustworthy numbers no matter how much you like them. Since I can’t trust the indicator, I don’t use it.
Where does this leave us? Well, there’s a better than average chance that Trump will actually win the popular vote. That’s a personal victory for him and a boost to the legitimacy of his upcoming presidency. It also doesn’t really matter.
The Electoral College, not the popular vote, elects the president. Even RCP’s silly version still shows a Trump lead.
I think the map below is far more likely to be correct. I mean, seriously, RCP? When the heck did Texas become a toss up?
This is much more like it. Thanks for the Create Your Own Map feature, RCP!
Someone else created this version but it comfortably aligns with current polling. Personally, I think it may be a little conservative. I’m dubious Trump will lose Wisconsin or Virginia.
Regardless, I don’t see any realistic electoral college assessment that doesn’t have Trump above the coveted 270.
The Fox News interview is likely way too late to help Harris. She should have done this in July. She’s got two and a half weeks left to woo undecided voters away from their plans to stay home or grudgingly vote for Trump. That’s not a lot of time.
Obama and Clinton both managed to hurt her campaign over the weekend. Last week’s interview whirlwind flopped hard. To top it off, Biden is actively – at least as active as he gets – not helping by helping.
Two and a half weeks will seem like an eternity with friends like that. Plenty of time for that concession speech. Maybe that porn podcast can help writing it?
At least it will be even more unburdened by reality.
