Sorry to have linked and ran yesterday but hurricanes do hurricane things from time to time.Kishkumen wrote: ↑Mon Jul 08, 2024 10:05 pmFrom the 538 article linked above:
However, Harris’s popular-vote edge is almost entirely negated by the bigger Electoral College bias against her. In our polls-only forecast pairing Biden against Trump, the Democratic candidate needs to win the popular vote by just 1.1 points to win the presidency. That’s thanks to Biden doing better in Pennsylvania, the likeliest tipping-point state in our model. Harris, by contrast, would need to win the popular vote by 3.5-4 points to win Pennsylvania and, with it, the Electoral College.
However, whether Harris would truly be a stronger candidate than Biden also depends on information besides the polls. In our full forecast model — which includes a variety of non-polling economic and political variables, which we call the “fundamentals” — Harris does much worse than Biden across the board. Whereas Biden has a 48-in-100 chance to win the Electoral College, Harris has only a 31-in-100 chance.
One of the other concerns I have with any polling about Harris (or another candidate) subbing in for Biden is that I fail to see how any of them account for the likely drop in approval/support as the opposition focus gets turned on them. Right now Harris is pretty well ignored or an unknown, I'm skeptical that with a concerted opposition effort her weak favorability and modeled election numbers get any better.