The Silver BulletinĀ presidential election forecast modelĀ relaunched today, and thereās some good news for Democrats: Kamala Harris is in a considerably better position than Joe Biden, who had only aĀ 27 percent chanceĀ of winning when he exited the race ā and that wasĀ probably generousĀ given Bidenās increasingly evident inability to run a normal campaign.
However, sheās a modest underdog to Trump in the Electoral College, risking a repeat of the popular vote-Electoral College split that cost Democrats the 2000 and 2016 elections. Harris isnāt unique in this regard: Biden also had a large Electoral College-popular vote gap in 2020, barely winning severalĀ tipping-point statesĀ despite winning the popular vote by 4.5 percentage points. But this is still a problem for Democrats, and we show Harris as having a slightly wider popular vote-Electoral College gap thanĀ Biden had in his version of the forecast.
So, Kamala Harrisās main challenge will not be her popularity, but rather the Electoral College being favorable to Republicans.
Color me surprised.
I donāt understand how this doesnāt outrage people.
Can you imagine if every team sport had a council of judges (Olympics style) that could vote to overturn the scoring of the game? āGreat touchdown by Skibidi there but oh, whatās this, the Russian judge has rated the goal as only a 3.6, looks like those points are going to the other team!ā
And then the talking heads could discuss how important ālooking good and strategic playā are to the game while ignoring that the judges are all owned by different teams and easily bribed by outside interests.
Because thatās American elections! It doesnāt matter what kind of campaign you run or what the media has to say about it when a special board of 500 people just vote for president however they want and then the media pretends that the popular votes and the campaigning were what was really important.
Tear down the electoral college!
Oh, I definitely think it outrages people. I still remember hearing the news that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by several million votes and still lost the Electoral College. The Electoral College gave us Donald Trump and all the baggage that came with him. It also gave us George W. Bush. In the 21st century, the United Stateās worst leaders are a direct result of the Electoral College not aligning with the voice of the people.
The problem is not only that it favors low population states (which is a major problem), but that those low population states are also the states that donāt embrace multiculturalism and polyculturalism; those states it benefits are the ones that prefer monoculturalism, and they are generally very uncomfortable with people who are different from themselves.
Kamala Harris is pretty popular states that are multicultural/polycultural. The only states sheās not popular in are the ones that are monocultural.
My hope is Donald Trump makes a horrible mistake that causes even some of his most loyal supporters to break away from him. However, after eight (nearly nine if count when he announced his candidacy) fucking years of watching this guy rule the Republican party with an iron fist, Iām not confident thatās ever going to happen. It is going to be an uphill fight to make sure he stays out of the White House.
