In these waning stages of the late Trump era, everything and nothing is a surprise. We’ve become immune. I mean, when you have the nominee of a major political party mentally unplugging during a town hall, stopping answering questions, and swaying along to his own Spotify playlist for 39 interminable minutes—and no one seems to blink—we’re out of surprises.
There’s no big last debate. No tentpole events likely to shake up the race in these dwindling days. Yes, a full-on war could break out in the Middle East. Or another hurricane could blow ashore, wreaking havoc—and Category 5 conspiracy theories. But the reality is that if nothing or everything happens between now and November 5, it’s unlikely to change the outcome.
This sucker is baked.
And what does that mean? Well, first of all, there aren’t really any undecided voters. If you haven’t figured this one out by now, chances are you’re sitting it out.
In effect, the oldest cliché is the oldest cliché for a reason: It all comes down to turnout. Turnout with a capital T. In other words: This election will be decided in favor of the candidate whose troops can get the most folks in the key counties in the seven swing states to actually go to the polls.
I’m going to make a bold prediction here because I just don’t give a shit if I’m wrong, even if this lives on the internet forever. Kamala Harris is going to win. Maybe easily.
Hear me out for a minute. I’m not saying this because some of the polls we are seeing are flawed. All polling is flawed these days. I mean, how many of you have answered a political poll in the last 5 or 10 years? Right? So to whom are they talking? What’s more, everyone in the political establishment realizes that many of the polls come from dubiously partisan polling firms—“expert” hired guns who put their thumbs on the scales by simply publishing a flurry of inaccurate but nonetheless credible tallies designed to create the perception of an advantage and in some way trigger a bandwagon effect, believing their theoretical say-so helps sway the actual electorate. Good luck with that.
Even if you give professional pollsters the benefit of the doubt—that they are going above and beyond, and paying the extra dime to find voters, and balancing or weighting their work appropriately—they are still modeling their numbers based on past races. So the most recent presidential election model was 2020. And people might have voted for Donald Trump or Joe Biden with conviction, but there weren’t a ton of people excited about it.
Here’s why I say it’s Harris’s to lose.
Trump voters may be committed, but Harris voters are excited and enthusiastic. In August, the Harris–Tim Walz ticket enjoyed an eight-point lead when it came to voter enthusiasm. And there is a big difference in the ground game. Democrats are largely paying their field workers, while Republicans are mostly relying on volunteers. These are factors not being picked up on the radar of the head-to-head polling.
In addition, Trump suddenly seems not just lazy, weak (by dodging another debate, for instance), and old, but also truly out of it. Some days he makes it seem like the “25” in Project 2025 is a secret plan to execute the 25th Amendment if he actually gets elected, paving the way for—Lord help us—President JD Vance.
Meanwhile, Harris looks strong and confident. She’s demanding another debate. She’s marching into the lion’s den of Fox News and perhaps Joe Rogan’s podcast. She’s running clips of Dictatorial Donald at her rallies—to cheers and jeers. On the campaign trail, she’s enlisting the help of a raft of ready-for-prime-time players, including Barack Obama, other top Democrats, and a number of anti-Trump Republicans.