All the polls tell us the U.S. Presidential election is incredibly close – all the predictions are well within the margin of error. That makes a lot of people nervous, including me.
This isn’t Obama vs. Romney. This is a highly qualified, somewhat progressive sitting Vice President against a convicted felon and former President who governed like a wannabe dictator (many who served in his administration are refusing to endorse him, or even endorsing Kamala Harris) and who has been explicitly clear on his plans to be even more dictatorial if he’s returned to office.
Why this election is this close is a complicated and disturbing issue, but I’m not going to deconstruct the campaign before it’s over. There will be plenty of time for that after we see the results – and it may end up not being as close as we expect.
While we need to be prepared for any contingency, it does us no good to dwell on worst-case scenarios before they happen. With less than a week to go, I want to take a look at what I expect will happen in the Presidential election.
I expect Kamala Harris to win
Forget the polls – let’s look at recent history.
In 2016 Hillary Clinton was a candidate with a lot of baggage who ran a highly questionable campaign. She would have won anyway if not for razor-thin margins for Trump in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. In 2020 the delays in counting and Trump’s attempts to overturn the results made it feel like Joe Biden’s win was a lot closer than it was.
This year, Kamala Harris has run what those who follow such things are calling a brilliant campaign (again, how brilliant it is depends on the outcome). While the economy hasn’t been good for ordinary people since before the Great Recession, it’s getting better. The stock market is at record highs. Gas prices are very low. It frustrates me to no end how many people evaluate a President based on gas prices, but some do.
I can’t imagine anyone who voted for Hillary and Biden will do anything other than vote for Harris. Meanwhile, Trump has lost much of his mainstream conservative support. While he has a very large base, that base alone isn’t enough to win the election.
I expect Harris to carry Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Barring any unexpected Trump victories, that’s enough to get her to 270 electoral votes, which is the minimum required to win. Biden also won Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia and almost won North Carolina. Trump would have to win all four and at least one more state.
The next closest states in 2020 were Florida and Texas. While I do not expect Harris to win either of those, it’s not out of the realm of possibility.
2016 showed us that anything can happen. But I expect Kamala Harris to win.
I do not expect a clear result on election night
Despite all that, I do not think we’ll go to bed on Tuesday night knowing who won. News agencies are able to call states one way or the other based on margins of early returns, but when elections are very close, they can’t say for certain until nearly all the votes are counted. And that takes time, especially with mail-in ballots.
I do not think it will take four days like it did last time. We don’t have the Covid-related delays, and some states have made changes to enable faster counting. Unfortunately, some haven’t, and Georgia is trying to make counting even slower. Here’s a good piece from the Brennan Center For Justice on what’s changed since 2020.
I have no way to predict when we’ll have a certain result with any more precision than that. The main thing is to be prepared for another delay. The exception will be if Harris wins Florida, which is possible but unlikely. Florida usually reports very early (2000 was a critical exception) and if Harris is the clear winner there it’s all over for Trump.
I expect Trump to try to overturn the election if he loses
This is easy to predict, because 1) he’s still doing it from 2020, and 2) he’s already doing it for 2024. His ego will not allow him to admit defeat, even though his Freudian slip on the Joe Rogan podcast shows he’s lying and not delusional (about the 2020 election, anyway).
Trump is already sowing seeds of doubt about election integrity everywhere he can. Facts don’t matter – all that matters is how often he repeats the same lies. Because he’s yet to face any consequences for them (he should have been in jail for “I just need you to find 11,780 votes” three years ago) he has no motivation to not do it again.
His first goal is to get a few rogue election officials to refuse to certify local results and to get their state legislatures to overturn the election in states he loses. His second goal is to get Congress to do what they wouldn’t do in 2020 and refuse final certification. That would send the election to the House of Representatives, where Trump would almost certainly win.
In 2020, most – but far from all – Republican officials put country over party and refused to support Trump’s lies. I expect that to happen again, but I do not expect it will go smoothly.
I do not expect a repeat of January 6, 2021, in part because so many people who participated in the failed insurrection went to jail (that’s why you prosecute insurrection!) and in part because Joe Biden will still be President and will not tolerate what Trump encouraged.
Harris might win big
A convicted felon who still faces other serious criminal charges. Economic policies (high tariffs and mass deportation of farm workers) that would tank the economy. Millions of women (and a lot of men, including me) pissed off about the Dobbs decision. Project 2025. The strong early voting turnout indicates that people are motivated.
The 2022 mid-term elections were far more blue than is typical. It’s entirely possible this wave hasn’t peaked yet. The swing states are up for grabs – it’s possible that Harris wins them all. The next to fall would be Florida and Texas, and then we’re in electoral landslide territory.
I don’t expect any of this to happen. No Democrat has won a state-wide election in Texas in 30 years – I’ll expect it when I see it. But Texas keeps getting closer to turning purple. It will happen eventually and this could be the year.
It’s still possible that Trump might win
The polls are limited in their predictive ability, but they’re directionally correct. This election is a statistical coin flip and Trump could win.
The people who like Trump love him. They think he’s their savior, even though he’s shown over and over again that he only cares about himself. Some are willing to tolerate his chaotic behavior because they think he’ll give them something on their wish list, like he gave Evangelicals the Dobbs court.
Let’s be honest – some people like Trump not in spite of his boorishness and cruelty, but because if it. They vote for Trump because they wish they too could be boorish and cruel with impunity.
And let’s be honest about something else – there are some people who voted for Biden who won’t vote for Harris because she’s a woman. Hopefully not enough to be significant, but we have no way to know how many.
If Trump wins, that will likely bring a worst-case scenario: Republicans taking control of both the House and the Senate. And considering how Mike Johnson and much of the House is in thrall to Trump, that means virtually no checks on his power.
Including the power to appoint another one or two or three Supreme Court justices, and cement conservative control over the courts for the next 20 years.
I don’t expect this to happen. But I didn’t expect Trump to win in 2016 either.
The election is not the end, no matter who wins
In the run-up to the 2020 election, I made it clear: Joe Biden was not a savior. The last four years have been far better with him in office than if Trump had been re-elected, but he hasn’t been able to undo all the harm Trump did, much less move the country as far forward as I and many others want.
A Kamala Harris presidency will make things better, but it will not solve all our problems. Another Donald Trump presidency will make things far worse, but it will not end the world.
Either way, we will still have work to do. Just different kinds of work, with different priorities and expectations.
We’ll start exploring that once we know who the next President will be.
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