I am not so sure that this Selzer poll is an outlier. Iowa has passed, against popular wishes, a draconian anti-abortion law. Women are pissed.
I may well be wish-projecting, but I think the pollsters have got it horribly wrong again: 1. There are no shy Trump voters. Any correction for this is wrong. Indeed, there may be GOPers who are scared to admit they are not voting for him (I see significant numbers of properties with GOP Senate race signs but no Trump signs) or scared to admit they are voting for Harris. My non-scientific hunch is this is overstating Trump by as much as 3% 2. The pollster have the wrong electorate - there is a massive surge in both woman and young voters. This too, benefits Harris.
FWIW, and I am fully prepared for the egg on my face come the end of the week, I think: 1. Harris will sweep the recognized swing states with the possible exception of AZ 2. She may well take IA and OH (abortion-related) and even, though less likely, TX 3. She could get very close in FL but I doubt it falls 4. I would not be surprised if there were some totally shocking results from States that have enacted the worst anti-abortion bills 5. GOP takes the Senate (alas), but Dems take the House.
All in all, I think it is a comfortable Harris win, with her EC range 300-420, depending on just how wrong the pollsters are.
Thank you for such a well argued and optimistic post. I do hope you are right.
The new Tory leader takes charge with a tepid endorsement from her party’s members, two-thirds of her parliamentary colleagues preferring someone else and prominent names declaring that they have no desire to serve in her shadow cabinet.
In her acceptance speech, she described the task ahead as “tough”, which is an understatement. The July election was the worst result for the Conservative party, both in terms of vote share and seats won, since 1832. I am not among those who think this means the Tories can never recover. They have been pronounced dead and buried in the past only then to rise from the grave. But they are unlikely to start recovering until – and unless – they have an honest reckoning with themselves about their multiple failings in government.
Surveys suggest that very few voters think the Conservatives lost the election because they were too left wing while the majority of those with an opinion put it down to their incompetence.
One of the biggest challenges for the new leader of the opposition, and especially when the Tory parliamentary presence is so small, will be persuading voters to pay them any heed. The case made for Mrs Badenoch by her promoters is that she is “box office” with a gift for grabbing attention. What she has often failed to grasp is that there is such a thing as the wrong kind of attention. “Still in development” is the assessment of one reasonably sympathetic senior Tory.
Conservatives have displayed next to no interest in atoning for all the things voters came to loathe about them. There has never been a comprehensive repudiation of Boris Johnson for debauching standards in public life. Nor has there been an expression of suitably abject contrition for Liz Truss’s calamitous experiment with the economy. Nor have senior Tories had the humility to acknowledge that they left a super-massive black hole in the Treasury’s books. When you have fouled up as badly and as repeatedly as the Conservatives did in government, the first step to redemption with the electorate is to own your blunders and express regret for them.
Even if voters become persistently discontented with Sir Keir’s government, the Tories are delusional if they imagine that this means the public will simply collapse back into their embrace and tell the Conservatives all is forgiven. Not least because so far the Tories have been almost completely incapable of recognising how much forgiveness they will need before they are taken seriously again. If Kemi Badenoch wants to get a hearing from the British people, she is first going to have to say sorry. And she is going to have to say it a lot.
I think this is why Badenoch was the better choice. Jenrick was continuity sleaze.
Kemi's victory speech was clear that big mistakes were made by the Tories in office and that they need to have a long hard look at themselves.
Her musings in the past that WFP should be scrapped (which she rowed back on when it became Labour policy) and on Maternity pay being too generous shows a real willingness to make deep cuts to welfare and pensions in order to move to a low tax country.
I wonder if she has the courage to scrap the Triple Lock. She just might.
Badenoch’s weakness is that she is very tribal, aggressively so. The most successful politicians have the ability to look over the party horizon and sympathise without and understand voters that make other choices. She shares Corbyns disdain for the opposition. Evangelical self righteousness makes big tent politics far harder.
I think she will rub a lot of people the wrong way, particularly if she goes heavy on the social authoritarianism of the National Conservatives.
I think she is quite socially conservative herself, but the key issue is whether she wants to force that social conservatism on the rest of us, or whether she actually believes in freedom.
That's always the tricky bit for social conservatives. In theory, "I respect your freedom to go full-on Gilead in your personal life" ought to work, but in practice it doesn't. As our friends across the Atlantic are demonstrating.
I always find it interesting how vociferously left-wingers and progressive liberals argue against any pushback to their sociocultural consensus. "Stick to the economics, guys!"
Maybe they doth protest too much...
No, it's just old fashioned Liberalism. It's why I don't vote Labour or Conservative, but was swayed to vote for Cameron in 2010.
Identity politics goes against Liberalism.
That's why I oppose it.
I don't support Identity Politics.
In particular the nasty right wing populism prevalent across the world.
Yes, but you do, don't you? Provided it's the right type of identity politics, in which case you argue it isn't really anyway.
I think you may have got some of us non-right wingers wrong. Most of us couldn't really care less about taking the knee at Wembley, although we are offended by riots incited by senior politicians quoting Andrew Tate. And I couldn't really demonstrate an interest in LGBT rights.
I do have diametrically opposed opinions to yourself on certain issues but my view (probably like yours) is borne out of practicality. Take the VAT on schools issue that you keep flagging me for. Your view is you should be entitled to educate your children to the standards you desire. I agree you should, but for the privilege you should pay VAT on that lifestyle choice. I would prefer all children to have the same opportunities awarded to your children at their private school, but in a top quality state school. If the UK state sector were properly funded and as such results based on the merit of the student rather than because of their parents income the UK would ( in my view) be a richer nation.
I went to a great comprehensive school which was promoted through the will of then Education Secretary Margaret Thatcher, it was full of students whose parents could have afforded Solihull or Bromsgrove Schools but they chose not to because they didn't need to.
In order to pay for such a service a higher taxation burden is required. One question begs another and so on. But fundamentally do we want the top 7% to flourish and everyone else to flounder? I don't believe identity politics plays any part in that central theme. We would all be treated equally.
I am beginning to think that the Tory party will recover faster than most of us thought possible, The wipe out of so many Tory MPs is in some ways a benefit to Kemi. The Tories can restart with a fresh team untainted by the past issues. Jenerick's focus on Reform was a big mistake. Many of Reform's voters will never vote Tory. Remember it was the Tory party that put Tommy in jail in the first place.
Kemi needs to focus on the traditional groups of Tory voters the farmers, the small business owners and the striving middle class who want to send their kids to private schools. This along with the senior citizens can give them a base of 30-35% of the voters. The first big challenge is Scotland in May next year. I expect the Tories if Kemi delivers will do Ok and may take a couple of rural seats off the SNP.
Scotland isn't up until 2026, next year it is only shire county council seats and the odd unitary up.
Given the Tories got 36% and Labour 29% last time those seats were up in 2021 I expect both to lose seats to Reform and also but to a lesser extent the LDs and Greens and Independents
Agree. I posted earlier that I expect the Tories to lose big in Surrey (and the rest of the SE?) to the LDs, but Reform and Tories to make gains from Labour elsewhere.
After the 2025 counties the Tories will not be defending so much so will start making gains again.
If they can contain Reform, if not they risk losing some seats to Reform and the LDs even if they still gain some off Labour
Your party shouldn’t be looking to merely contain Reform, they should be looking to destroy Reform by all means possible. Britain has no need of a party of nasty racists. Your party, and all others, should be calling out every example of racism and authoritarian demagoguery, if necessary through the courts.
Most in Reform aren't racists, just patriots a united right needs to include to beat the left and liberals in a general election
If Trump wins, he is going to do some stupid and dangerous shit
If he doesn't win, his supporters are going to do some stupid and dangerous shit
Either way, buckle up
What utter hysteria. He held the presidency, the most powerful political position in the world and was entirely unable to persuade anyone who had the power to do so to not confirm the elections. He managed not a single General, a single director, a governor, his own vice president, not even a local police captain to do his bidding. How on earth will he do it from the outside?
Oh, so he failed therefore no problem? He can still instigate violence and disruption, that he probably wouldn't succeed is cold comfort. It's hysterical to ignore that he wanted violence, got it, and probablt wants it again if he loses.
Everyone in America has an aunt like Ann Selzer and an uncle like Nate Silver. Nate talks loudly all night long until Ann chimes in with a totally brilliant point to undermine him. (Also, Nate talks with his mouth full and Ann made all the desserts)
What a vacuous tweet. These are polls. Someone is right, someone is wrong - possibly both are wrong.
Hardly vacuous. It's a sharp analogy with a nice dash of observational humour. Still, ok, these things are subjective. What about this one that I've just seen:
"Women are going to protect America from Donald Trump whether he likes it or not."
My concern with the Selzer poll - and where it potentially will be its Achilles Heel if it is wrong - is this.
From what has been said here, Selzer rings up people, doesn't weight for party registration and applies other filters, but just tell it as it is. She relies on the fact that Iowans are friendly people and generally have time to talk, and are happy to do so. She also doesn't weight for gender / age
I can see how that sort of polling methodology picks up women voters who haven't voted before and say they will vote for Harris. Going to stereotypes (bad I know), proportionally more women than men are likely to be at home, being housewives etc and so likely / willing to talk and have the time to do so.
Where I can see that type of polling methodology would be particularly bad for is polling young males, particularly incels etc who (again stereotypes) are probably less keen to speak on the phone, are too bothered on the web, playing games etc.
In previous elections, that wouldn't have mattered as the cohort didn't show much propensity to vote. But this is exactly the audience Trump and Musk have been targeting with the podcasts. And hard to see male incels being particularly enamoured of Kamala.
It is hard to say without seeing the crosstabs but my concern re reading too much into Selzer's poll is that she is missing this cohort - and if they are coming out to vote, it will screw things up/
But in that case the odd thing would be that she was notable in _not_ underestimating the Trump vote as the 'herd' did.
The new Tory leader takes charge with a tepid endorsement from her party’s members, two-thirds of her parliamentary colleagues preferring someone else and prominent names declaring that they have no desire to serve in her shadow cabinet.
In her acceptance speech, she described the task ahead as “tough”, which is an understatement. The July election was the worst result for the Conservative party, both in terms of vote share and seats won, since 1832. I am not among those who think this means the Tories can never recover. They have been pronounced dead and buried in the past only then to rise from the grave. But they are unlikely to start recovering until – and unless – they have an honest reckoning with themselves about their multiple failings in government.
Surveys suggest that very few voters think the Conservatives lost the election because they were too left wing while the majority of those with an opinion put it down to their incompetence.
One of the biggest challenges for the new leader of the opposition, and especially when the Tory parliamentary presence is so small, will be persuading voters to pay them any heed. The case made for Mrs Badenoch by her promoters is that she is “box office” with a gift for grabbing attention. What she has often failed to grasp is that there is such a thing as the wrong kind of attention. “Still in development” is the assessment of one reasonably sympathetic senior Tory.
Conservatives have displayed next to no interest in atoning for all the things voters came to loathe about them. There has never been a comprehensive repudiation of Boris Johnson for debauching standards in public life. Nor has there been an expression of suitably abject contrition for Liz Truss’s calamitous experiment with the economy. Nor have senior Tories had the humility to acknowledge that they left a super-massive black hole in the Treasury’s books. When you have fouled up as badly and as repeatedly as the Conservatives did in government, the first step to redemption with the electorate is to own your blunders and express regret for them.
Even if voters become persistently discontented with Sir Keir’s government, the Tories are delusional if they imagine that this means the public will simply collapse back into their embrace and tell the Conservatives all is forgiven. Not least because so far the Tories have been almost completely incapable of recognising how much forgiveness they will need before they are taken seriously again. If Kemi Badenoch wants to get a hearing from the British people, she is first going to have to say sorry. And she is going to have to say it a lot.
I think this is why Badenoch was the better choice. Jenrick was continuity sleaze.
Kemi's victory speech was clear that big mistakes were made by the Tories in office and that they need to have a long hard look at themselves.
Her musings in the past that WFP should be scrapped (which she rowed back on when it became Labour policy) and on Maternity pay being too generous shows a real willingness to make deep cuts to welfare and pensions in order to move to a low tax country.
I wonder if she has the courage to scrap the Triple Lock. She just might.
Badenoch’s weakness is that she is very tribal, aggressively so. The most successful politicians have the ability to look over the party horizon and sympathise without and understand voters that make other choices. She shares Corbyns disdain for the opposition. Evangelical self righteousness makes big tent politics far harder.
Kemi is more agnostic Catholic than evangelical. Her husband Hamish is Roman Catholic.
“My mother’s father. My paternal grandmother was a Muslim, though to be fair she did convert in later life. My family’s sort of Anglican and Methodist. My maternal grandfather was a Methodist reverend.”
ConHome: “And where did he practice?”
Badenoch: “In Nigeria. I was born here [in Wimbledon], but I call myself first generation, because I grew up in Nigeria and I chose to come back here. So I’m agnostic really, but I was brought up with cultural Christian values.”
ConHome: “Have you had your children baptised?”
Badenoch: “Yes, because I’m married to a Catholic [she and Hamish Badenoch, whose mother emigrated from Ireland, have two children].”
ConHome: “They’re being brought up as Catholics, are they?”
The new Tory leader takes charge with a tepid endorsement from her party’s members, two-thirds of her parliamentary colleagues preferring someone else and prominent names declaring that they have no desire to serve in her shadow cabinet.
In her acceptance speech, she described the task ahead as “tough”, which is an understatement. The July election was the worst result for the Conservative party, both in terms of vote share and seats won, since 1832. I am not among those who think this means the Tories can never recover. They have been pronounced dead and buried in the past only then to rise from the grave. But they are unlikely to start recovering until – and unless – they have an honest reckoning with themselves about their multiple failings in government.
Surveys suggest that very few voters think the Conservatives lost the election because they were too left wing while the majority of those with an opinion put it down to their incompetence.
One of the biggest challenges for the new leader of the opposition, and especially when the Tory parliamentary presence is so small, will be persuading voters to pay them any heed. The case made for Mrs Badenoch by her promoters is that she is “box office” with a gift for grabbing attention. What she has often failed to grasp is that there is such a thing as the wrong kind of attention. “Still in development” is the assessment of one reasonably sympathetic senior Tory.
Conservatives have displayed next to no interest in atoning for all the things voters came to loathe about them. There has never been a comprehensive repudiation of Boris Johnson for debauching standards in public life. Nor has there been an expression of suitably abject contrition for Liz Truss’s calamitous experiment with the economy. Nor have senior Tories had the humility to acknowledge that they left a super-massive black hole in the Treasury’s books. When you have fouled up as badly and as repeatedly as the Conservatives did in government, the first step to redemption with the electorate is to own your blunders and express regret for them.
Even if voters become persistently discontented with Sir Keir’s government, the Tories are delusional if they imagine that this means the public will simply collapse back into their embrace and tell the Conservatives all is forgiven. Not least because so far the Tories have been almost completely incapable of recognising how much forgiveness they will need before they are taken seriously again. If Kemi Badenoch wants to get a hearing from the British people, she is first going to have to say sorry. And she is going to have to say it a lot.
I think this is why Badenoch was the better choice. Jenrick was continuity sleaze.
Kemi's victory speech was clear that big mistakes were made by the Tories in office and that they need to have a long hard look at themselves.
Her musings in the past that WFP should be scrapped (which she rowed back on when it became Labour policy) and on Maternity pay being too generous shows a real willingness to make deep cuts to welfare and pensions in order to move to a low tax country.
I wonder if she has the courage to scrap the Triple Lock. She just might.
Badenoch’s weakness is that she is very tribal, aggressively so. The most successful politicians have the ability to look over the party horizon and sympathise without and understand voters that make other choices. She shares Corbyns disdain for the opposition. Evangelical self righteousness makes big tent politics far harder.
Kemi is more agnostic Catholic than evangelical. Her husband Hamish is Roman Catholic.
“My mother’s father. My paternal grandmother was a Muslim, though to be fair she did convert in later life. My family’s sort of Anglican and Methodist. My maternal grandfather was a Methodist reverend.”
ConHome: “And where did he practice?”
Badenoch: “In Nigeria. I was born here [in Wimbledon], but I call myself first generation, because I grew up in Nigeria and I chose to come back here. So I’m agnostic really, but I was brought up with cultural Christian values.”
ConHome: “Have you had your children baptised?”
Badenoch: “Yes, because I’m married to a Catholic [she and Hamish Badenoch, whose mother emigrated from Ireland, have two children].”
ConHome: “They’re being brought up as Catholics, are they?”
I mean she doesn’t believe in God. So the rest is gravy. Let’s not go there again. First time we have had atheists leading both big parties.
No, agnostics are not atheists and as she is married to a Roman Catholic and bringing up her children as Roman Catholic she is more religious than secular atheist. Even Starmer while an atheist, not even agnostic, is married to a Jewish lady and bringing up his children Jewish.
Cleverly was an atheist too but was knocked out in the MPs round
There's a difference between religion-as-culture and religion-as-belief. I realise England is the country that invented Anglicanism to give agnostics a nice place to sit, but even so belief is the dividing line
Agnostics by definition neither don't believe in God or have belief in God, they are like Independent swing voters on religion and often culturally religious even if not believers.
Atheists are anti religion as well as not believing in God, active religious believe in God and are culturally religious and worshippers too
The new Tory leader takes charge with a tepid endorsement from her party’s members, two-thirds of her parliamentary colleagues preferring someone else and prominent names declaring that they have no desire to serve in her shadow cabinet.
In her acceptance speech, she described the task ahead as “tough”, which is an understatement. The July election was the worst result for the Conservative party, both in terms of vote share and seats won, since 1832. I am not among those who think this means the Tories can never recover. They have been pronounced dead and buried in the past only then to rise from the grave. But they are unlikely to start recovering until – and unless – they have an honest reckoning with themselves about their multiple failings in government.
Surveys suggest that very few voters think the Conservatives lost the election because they were too left wing while the majority of those with an opinion put it down to their incompetence.
One of the biggest challenges for the new leader of the opposition, and especially when the Tory parliamentary presence is so small, will be persuading voters to pay them any heed. The case made for Mrs Badenoch by her promoters is that she is “box office” with a gift for grabbing attention. What she has often failed to grasp is that there is such a thing as the wrong kind of attention. “Still in development” is the assessment of one reasonably sympathetic senior Tory.
Conservatives have displayed next to no interest in atoning for all the things voters came to loathe about them. There has never been a comprehensive repudiation of Boris Johnson for debauching standards in public life. Nor has there been an expression of suitably abject contrition for Liz Truss’s calamitous experiment with the economy. Nor have senior Tories had the humility to acknowledge that they left a super-massive black hole in the Treasury’s books. When you have fouled up as badly and as repeatedly as the Conservatives did in government, the first step to redemption with the electorate is to own your blunders and express regret for them.
Even if voters become persistently discontented with Sir Keir’s government, the Tories are delusional if they imagine that this means the public will simply collapse back into their embrace and tell the Conservatives all is forgiven. Not least because so far the Tories have been almost completely incapable of recognising how much forgiveness they will need before they are taken seriously again. If Kemi Badenoch wants to get a hearing from the British people, she is first going to have to say sorry. And she is going to have to say it a lot.
I think this is why Badenoch was the better choice. Jenrick was continuity sleaze.
Kemi's victory speech was clear that big mistakes were made by the Tories in office and that they need to have a long hard look at themselves.
Her musings in the past that WFP should be scrapped (which she rowed back on when it became Labour policy) and on Maternity pay being too generous shows a real willingness to make deep cuts to welfare and pensions in order to move to a low tax country.
I wonder if she has the courage to scrap the Triple Lock. She just might.
Badenoch’s weakness is that she is very tribal, aggressively so. The most successful politicians have the ability to look over the party horizon and sympathise without and understand voters that make other choices. She shares Corbyns disdain for the opposition. Evangelical self righteousness makes big tent politics far harder.
Kemi is more agnostic Catholic than evangelical. Her husband Hamish is Roman Catholic.
“My mother’s father. My paternal grandmother was a Muslim, though to be fair she did convert in later life. My family’s sort of Anglican and Methodist. My maternal grandfather was a Methodist reverend.”
ConHome: “And where did he practice?”
Badenoch: “In Nigeria. I was born here [in Wimbledon], but I call myself first generation, because I grew up in Nigeria and I chose to come back here. So I’m agnostic really, but I was brought up with cultural Christian values.”
ConHome: “Have you had your children baptised?”
Badenoch: “Yes, because I’m married to a Catholic [she and Hamish Badenoch, whose mother emigrated from Ireland, have two children].”
ConHome: “They’re being brought up as Catholics, are they?”
I mean she doesn’t believe in God. So the rest is gravy. Let’s not go there again. First time we have had atheists leading both big parties.
No, agnostics are not atheists and as she is married to a Roman Catholic and bringing up her children as Roman Catholic she is more religious than secular atheist. Even Starmer while an atheist, not even agnostic, is married to a Jewish lady and bringing up his children Jewish.
Cleverly was an atheist too but was knocked out in the MPs round
There's a difference between religion-as-culture and religion-as-belief. I realise England is the country that invented Anglicanism to give agnostics a nice place to sit, but even so belief is the dividing line
Agnostics by definition neither don't believe in God or have belief in God, they are like Independent swing voters on religion and often culturally religious even if not believers.
Atheists are anti religion as well as not believing in God, active religious believe in God and are culturally religious and worshippers too
Simply not true. Atheism means nothing more than not believing in a deity. The vast majority of atheists are not anti-religion. They simply don't believe and don't care. There is a vocal minority of atheists who actively oppose religion. Most are simply not interested in what others believe.
Comments
"Women are going to protect America from Donald Trump whether he likes it or not."
Marks out of ten for that?