Republican irrational exuberance?
By
Byron York
October 25, 2024 7:09 pm
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REPUBLICAN IRRATIONAL EXUBERANCE? You can feel it — Republican confidence in victory is growing. Many in the GOP, from elected officials to pundits on Twitter, believe former President Donald Trump is headed to victory, perhaps even a big victory, on Nov. 5. For weeks, Vice President Kamala Harris’s lead in national polls has been shrinking, a little bit each day, until now the two are basically tied, which some experts believe will mean a Trump win. Two new national polls out Friday morning, one from the New York Times-Siena and one from CNN, both showed Trump and Harris exactly tied, at 48% in one and 47% in the other.
If you are a Trump supporter, it appears the national polls are lining up. The same with the swing state polls. Early voting looks better for Republicans than it ever has. Trump is running a smart race. Harris has failed to offer a compelling picture of what she would do were she elected President of the United States. So the Republican optimists are not making this up.
At the same time, the polls are really, really close. Why such a high level of confidence? The reason is that recent experience suggests the Democratic candidate has to win the popular vote by a certain margin — say, 3 percentage points — in order to win the Electoral College. They can win by, say, 5 million votes in California, which juices up the national popular vote, but they’ll take home the same 54 electoral votes they would have captured if they won the state by, say, 5,000 votes.
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