How Close Is the Presidential Race, Really?

We've been beating up the polls since, well, the pollsters started taking 2024 election polls. Many people I've talked to, in and out of the media, have commented that the polls say one thing, and their instincts, their guts, say something else. As this presidential election concludes - only hours, really, until the big day dawns - we're taking stock of what those instincts are telling us. For a lot of us, they're telling us that this race isn't really as close as the polls tell us.

Fox News senior analyst Brit Hume recently described how people used to assess elections before polling exploded into the industry it is today, and as always, he has some interesting things to say.

Earlier this week, Brit Hume, Fox News chief political analyst, who has covered his fair share of presidential elections, recalled how reporters used to assess a political candidate’s prospects in the “old days,” when polls were either “nonexistent” or “old.” They were forced to rely on other factors.
“You’d rely on how the candidate seemed,” he said. “You relied on their events, how the events seemed to go, how well-organized they seemed to be. You looked at the response of the audience at these events. … You watched for other signs to pick up a sense of the race. And you could pretty well do it. … There are upsets in every election cycle, but you could get a sense of it.”

I will never presume to question Brit Hume's instincts in such things; he's been doing this a long time. But then, I've been watching elections like a lot of folks watch sportsball, myself, for damn near 50 years. And I do have my instincts in this matter as well, which seem to align with Mr. Humes - as would anyone, honestly, who has been paying attention to the utter Charlie Foxtrot that is the Harris/Walz campaign.

“If I were covering it the same way we used to cover it, I would look at this and say, Trump appears to be in the ascendancy. His campaign seems to have momentum. His events seem to be more exciting. They seem to be going better,” Hume continued.
Harris, he said, “seems to be struggling. She struggles to answer questions. She’s not doing well in interviews. And so on.”
However, the current polls “don’t reflect that,” he said. “The polls say this is absolutely neck and neck. Judged the old-fashioned way, it wouldn’t appear to be. Judged the way we judge them now because we’re just surrounded by polls, that’s where we’re getting the idea that this race is tight.”

The momentum, yes, is all with Trump/Vance. The tide was already turning before a punk in Pennsylvania inadvertently gave the Trump campaign the most powerful political image since Ronald Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate.

The momentum, ever since that historic moment, has been with Donald Trump and JD Vance.

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Then there's this:

If Trump wins, the signs were there all along.

No incumbent party has won another term with so few voters saying the country is on the right track (28%) or when the president's net approval rating is so low (Biden's at -15 pts).

Also, big GOP registration gains in key states. pic.twitter.com/knDQ2HOFtJ
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) October 30, 2024

The Democratic ticket may have been able to turn things around had they had a better candidate. They may have been able to turn things around had they had a better track record to run on. They may have stood a chance had they had a candidate who was even marginally articulate. And, yes, they may have stood a chance had they not ignored the will of millions of Democrat primary voters and anointed Kamala "Queen of Word Salads" Harris to be the nominee.

If the Democrats had gone hat in hand to, say, Joe Manchin, and said, "Joe, please save us," they may have done better. Meanwhile, the Trump/Vance ticket went from messaging win to messaging win - both sitting down for three-hour, unscripted interviews with Joe Rogan, the McDonald's stunt, the "garbage" gaffe (by "gaffe" I mean Joe Biden accidentally saying what he really thinks) and the hilarious response - those are all winning events.

On Tuesday, we may find that this is still a close-run thing. This is an election like none I've ever seen before, and as noted above, I've been watching elections for a long time. But the momentum is there. The campaign imagery is there. Kamala Harris tried to run on "joy" and ended up depending on outrage, hate, and anger. Donald Trump ran on putting America first; for every Harris use of the word "I," Trump replied with a "We." That, in itself, can make a big difference in a campaign.

Even so - as things come down to the wire, I'm more optimistic than I've been for some time. I'm beginning to think this thing may not be as close as it looks. Let's hope, for the sake of the republic, that my instincts aren't leading me astray.

Go vote! Do it today if you can, or tomorrow, or Monday. Do it Tuesday if you like. But vote! Vote like the future of the republic depends on it - because it does.