Race between Harris and Trump is close according to polls - but swing states likely look closer in the polls than reality - any swing state could go either way - nothing to be scared of either way
It is very close, in all the election forecasts about half the time Trump wins and about half the time Harris wins. That is about all you can say. Minute changes by a few points either way do NOT mean that Trump is winning or that Harris is winning.
Also the polls are especially hard to interpret this year. and given how close the swing states are it could be anything from Harris getting all the closest swing states to Trump getting them all - it would be easy to miss that in the polling.
Then as we’ll see - the polls are rather more uniform and favouring a tie than they should be if it was just measuring voter’s intention as we’ll see. Something else is going on due to the way the polls are processed, which may be masking voter’s intention. This suggests the possibility of major misses in either direction in the swing states.
Also the results are unlikely to be neatly along the lines of the polling, it could be that some of the light pink or light blue states in this map flip not necessarily in a pattern consistent with the polling.
But whatever, it is such a very different election that it is very hard to poll for and we've had numerous misses recently. The polls would likely detect a major landslide as in the UK Labour predictions but missed the French elections result badly and made big mistakes in the small parties for the UK.
In just 3 days now, at last we will know 🙂
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I do the titles of sections as short summaries.
Then I summarize the main points within the sections using graphics and bullet points.
You can get a good first impression by just reading the section titles and looking at the graphic.
Then you can read a section to drill down for more details.
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Any of the swing states could flip either way and it could be anything from all the swing states to Harris and all the swing states to Trump with less than a 2% shift either way
This map may help - it all depends on these swing states which are very close.
.
TEXT ON GRAPHIC:
If the light pink or light blue states don't flip:
Harris needs 30 extra votes e.g. PA + AZ
Trump needs 52 extra votes e.g. PA + AZ + NC
To experiment go to "build your projection"
. 2024 Presidential Election Polls
This doesn't mean she is more likely to win than Trump. But the results are so very close that it could easily be either Trump or Harris winning ALL the closest battleground states with less than a 2% shift either way.
Of course other states can also flip especially the ones shown light pink or light blue in that map - but these are currently the closest ones.
And as you can see even Florida, Trump's home state, is not completely out of play as a light pink left leaning state.
Out of 1000 simulated elections, Ractothe WH has 500 for Harris, 498 for Trump and 2 for a tie
. Predictions for the 2024 Presidential Elections - Live Forecast — Race to the WH
538 has 530 wins for Trump and 470 wins for Harris - doesn't give a number for ties.
. Who Is Favored To Win The 2024 Presidential Election?
Either way about half the time Harris wins and half the time Trump does.
538 puts it like this:
QUOTE A close race in the polls does not necessarily mean the outcome will be close. All seven swing states are still within a normal polling error of going to the candidate who is currently “losing”in each. While the polls have identified a close race, our model shows what you should expect if those polls are off.
Easiest path for Harris to win back the blue wall, and Trump has to get at least one state in the blue wall if he only wins toss-up states
You will often hear talk of the “Blue Wall” on election night. This is what it refers to:
TEXT ON GRAPHIC: Blue wall - consistently won by Democrats from 1992 to 2012
Bush won in 2000 with states outside the wall.
Trump won Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and one seat in Maine in 2016.
Biden won back all except the Maine seat in 2020
Easiest path for both candidates:
Harris easiest way,
to hold the “Blue Wall states”: Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin
That gives 29 votes already and if she gets anything else e.g. the one seat in Maine she’s there.
From this we see that Trump has to get a state in the Blue Wall to win. If he only gets the Maine seat it’s a tie so he needs more than that to win.
If she loses all of Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin, as Clinton did in 2016, the alternative route is:
Nevada (flip), Arizona, and either Georgia and North Carolina (flip)
Then there are other ways that are mixes of the two..
Trump easiest way:
Pennsylvania (blue wall), North Carolina and Georgia then he needs one other vote.
If he loses Pennsylvania, he needs
Michigan and Wisconsin (blue wall).
If he only gets Michigan in the blue wall he needs Arizona and Nevada
If he only gets Wisconsin in the blue wall he needs Arizona.
Here is the result if Wisconsin is the only blue wall state Trump gets.
Strong statistical evidence that the pollsters are (unintentionally) strongly weighting the data towards what they expect rather than directly sampling how voters will vote
Actually there are indications that the polls don’t seem to be directly sampling how voters will vote, but are adding something else into the mix. This could be
their own projections of what they expect (which may or may not be correct)
just copying other polls (what they call herding)
favouring a tie because they are risk averse and if they project a tie they will be seen as almost right whichever candidate wins.
This is the evidence:
:
TEXT ON GRAPHIC
If this was just sampling how voters will vote on the day we should see many outlier polls with a margin of 6% or more.
And this is totally impossible - so many ties (34% of polls) if it was an exact tie.
Should be 11%.
Pollsters are either
- "correcting" outliers, maybe risk averse, OR
- weighting heavily by what they expect instead of what the voter says.Can only be right if pollsters can predict the results better than a sample of voters.
Expect surprises!
- doesn't predict which way.
This shows the remaining swing states, all statistically very unexpected, and especially Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin. Again look for the high peaks and the narrow widths for the gray relative to the expected purple distribution if it was directly sampling the data.
.Of course you don't expect perfect results. But experts say they are all too narrow and far too tall which they say looks odd. Even for non experts you can immediately see it looks unnatural just to the eye.
Nate Siliver makes a similar point though without the graphs like that.
. There’s more herding in swing state polls than at a sheep farm in the Scottish Highlands
One pollster sees a different trend more consistent with Senate races suggesting Harris is doing better than polls suggest - if so the Florida results will be an interesting first indicator because of a referendum question about abortion that will get women out to vote
This is an interesting blog post, a pollster that sees a very different trend from 538 that may suggest Harris is doing better than the polls suggest.
It does NOT mean that these pollsters are right. But it's intriguing. It shows how difficult the US polls are to predict.
They say their senate polls are similar to 538 and Real Clear Politics and shows the Republicans in trouble in many Senate races which isn't very controversial - but their presidential polls are very different showing a big advantage for Harris while 538 shows it very tight.
Their own senate polls are consistent with their presidential polls - and suggest most voters vote for the same party for the Senate and for the presidential candidate.
But the 538 polls are very different for Senate and for presidential candidate.
They go into several reasons for the discrepancy, why they agree with other polls on the Senate but not on the Presidential elections.
There is always some split ticket voting where people vote one way for president and another way for senator, but the amount that would be needed to explain the discrepancy is unprecdented.
Their favoured explanation is that 538 isn't doing quite enough to allow for the bias of polls. They remove the very biased polls but in what's left there is often a slight bias that may be enough to bias the polls overall.
Then they do an in depth exploration of what they think may be happening if their own polls are accurate.
In their own polls, they see independents breaking for Harris, women coming out in large numbers motivated by a female presidential candidate and the abortion issue, and the idea of a split ticket would be unprecedented, of voting for Trump but not Republican senators and doesn't match the data.
They say even Florida may be in play though probably not. But it has an abortion referendum on the ballot which will encourage women to vote.
If Trump lost Florida with its 30 electoral college votes, he's got almost no chance after that.
Probably he won't lose Florida, but it will be an interesting result and we'll get it early and give some ground truth to the polling either way.
First results from exit polls 5 pm, then Florida results early in the night - and Pennsylvania will count quickly this year because of extra letter opening machines
BTW the exit polls are published 5 pm ET or 9 pm UK time.
(results can be published in the US before everyone has finished voting).
. U.S elections exit polls: Time, channel, live streaming and all you need to know
The first polls close an hour later at 6 pm Eastern Time by which time we have accurate exit polls for the earliest states .
. 2024 Election Poll Closing Times - 270toWin
Voting continues in some states through to midnight Eastern Time.
Then the results from Florida. This time we get Pennsylvania early too because its largest city Philadelphia has invested in modern fast letter opening machines and hopes to have its results on election night. Unless it is very close we likely have a pretty good idea by the 6th November.
In 2020 it took four days for Pennsylvania to call for Biden, which added to conspiracy theories because cities tend to vote Democrat, and are slower to count just because they have more votes to count. Philadelphia was one of the last to finish counting.
But this time Philadelphia has started to use new faster ballot envelope-opening machines that can open 40,000 an hour instead of 3,600 an hour, one of the slowest parts of the counting process.
They hope to finish on election day or soon after.
Unless the race is very close we may know the result for Pennsylvania by, Tuesday, the day after election day.
If it is very close it could run into Wednesday or Thursday.
Details here:
. Philadelphia aims to speed up ballot counting on Election Day
So hopefully we get a good idea of where it's headed faster than in 2020.
What if the race ends in a tie - this would likely mean Trump is elected - but could also in a less likely case see Harris stay on as acting president if neither can reach 25 votes in the house at one vote per state
If the polls are right and it really is this close, then there could be a tie. That’s when both candidates get 269 or less of the Electoral college votes.
This could happen for instance if Harris only gets Pennsylvania of the close battleground states and Trump gets all the others
A tie would likely but not certainly mean Trump is elected - in case of a tie the House elects the president with each state getting one vote instead of each representative. Trump has a decent chance of winning that one.
But it is well possible that neither side gets 26 votes, because states with an equal number of Republican and Democrat representatives would likely not vote - then Harris would stay in power as the president as the vice president from the previous admin becomes president until Congress can decide the winner.
That would be a strange outcome but not impossible.
You can explore the situation here. For the Democrats to choose the president if there's a tie they would need a majority of the delegates for the two grey states in this map and a majority of delegates for all five of the pink ones. Even then they end up with 3 that are even splits so I don't think the Democrats can choose president in the House.
. Consensus 2024 House Forecast - 270toWin
The Democrats would have a remote chance if they get a landslide in the House, otherwise it's the Republicans would choose the president.
However they might be able to prevent the Republicans reaching 26.
If it is a 25 to 25 tie in the House, or if say the Republicans get 25, the Democrats get 22 states and the rest are equally matched not able to decide - then the current vice president (Harris) becomes president until the House is able to decide who the next president is.
In the worst case of a House that never elects a president after a tie of the electors, I suppose Harris remains president for 4 years to the next election as there isn't any way to call for a redo of the election in between times.
This is very very unlikely 🙂. But it is possible within the US constitution.
. Electoral College Ties - 270toWin
This assumes the electors do all vote for the candidate they pledged to.
The electors would know they are headed for a 269 269 tie and would also know the composition of the House by then.
Some of the electors are legally required to vote for who they pledged to - but some of the electors are not.
If they vote for a third party candidate, then it doesn't flip it because they need 270 to win not a majority 269 to 268.
But if one of the electors voted for the opposite candidate and none of the opposite candidate are faithless, that would flip it.
It's a very unlikely scenario but it's constitutionally possible.
Another intriguing quirk of the system is that a majority of the Senate chooses the vice president in this situation.
Since the Republicans could gain the Senate - this could lead to the bizarre situation of Harris as president because the House can't decide and then Vance as vice president if the Republicans gain the Senate 🙂. And though a president can appoint a new vice president, he or she can't sack a vice president so they'd be stuck with each other for 4 years or unless Vance just resigned - which he might well do in such a situation??
But that's not at all likely.
. Electoral College Ties - 270toWin
No Trump can’t use the military as soldiers on US soil - just relief workers, surrogate national guards and so on
Also for those worried by recent claims by Trump, and also made by his opponents also that he can use the military as soldiers on US soil - no that's nonsense. Only as relief workers for hurricanes, surrogate national guards etc.
Not much changes if Trump is elected
Not that much changes if Trump is elected
On abortion it varies state by state in the US now. That's not likely to change under Trump. Under Harris then if she gets a majority in both houses she will codify Roe. V. Wade making the law the same across all the states as it was before.
With Ukraine then it's not clear what he'd do but if necessary Europe can step up and take the place of the US.
Biden has billions of dollars of funding that he would likely send to Ukraine just before he leaves office on Jan 20th if Trump comes next as president. That would see Ukraine through the spring of 2025. And Europe would have from November 2024 to step up on its support for Ukraine.
That gives time for Trump to decide what he does if anything to help Ukraine once he finds he can’t achieve peace in 24 hours. And if he decides not to send anything to Ukraine then it’s time for Europe to step up in its support.
And Trump didn't start any wars as president. He wasn't actually a hawk.
Not much would happen to those of us in Europe if he wins.
He filled the news for the 4 years of his presidency from 2016 to 2020, but most of us were not directly affected by anything he did.
Trump as an accidentally successful disruptor - trying to understand from the UK why so many Americans vote for him
I find a lot of Trump’s appeal is hard to understand writing from the UK. It just doesn't translate as anything sensible in UK politics. Imagine if either Boris Johnson or Kier Starmer had
led an insurrection with rioters trying to stop the sovereign's speech announcing the new prime minister and forming the new government, say. A
been convicted of paying hush money to a porn star to keep news about paid sex out of the public while campaigning
been convicted of claiming to have smaller properties than they do have for tax purposes.
facing a future trial over hiding classified documents that they were supposed to return when they left office?
And then suppose they said they would
imprison their political opponent if they got into office.
be a dictator on day 1.
ALMOST NOBODY IN THE UK WOULD VOTE FOR THEM.
So why don't all these issues have more influence on voters in the US?
I speculate it is to do with
free speech laws,
a strong constitution,
Trump's charisma
his way of accidentally doing things that work out well even against his own intentions.
It seems highly unlikely many voting for Trump want him to overthrow democracy in the USA, so I assume most voters who want to vote for him understand at some level that he can't really do that.
The best explanation I saw from one Republican on TV was that they see him as someone who will disrupt the way government is done and they want it shaken up because they don't like the way it is working now.
So perhaps it is really about him being a disruptive influence on the US government and hoping this leads to something they see as better than good qualities in him as a person.
Trump’s habit of accidentally doing good things
Perhaps they see the confusion and disruption he creates as itself a good thing shaking up the government to lead to unexpected solutions?
It reminds me a bit of the computational technique of “simulated annealing”. This is a classic problem of the traveling salesman who has to visit all these airports in Europe.
For a simple version of the problem, you suppose there is a direct route between each one and all he has to do is to minimize the total flight distance. This is far too complicated to find the solution by trying out all possible routes once the number of cities gets very large though for small paths it is solvable by checking everything.
Well it turns out one of the best ways to solve it quickly is to start with a random path through them all. Then you jiggle the paths around in a way that resembles raising the temperature - and then gradually cool it down, do less jiggles, with restraints on the path that guide it towards shorter total paths.
Perhaps Trump does something like this? Jiggles things up forcing others around him to rejoin the dots sometimes into an accidentally better solution?
However he does it, the one thing I can understand is that he often has accidentally done good things.
his summits with Kim Jong Un where I think he accidentally hit on the right tone for the leader, combination of threats and flattery, talking up the economic potential for his country of the deal, and talking about building luxury hotels in North Korea which has some beauty spots that would be attractive to tourists if it was opened up - and going right to the top which you need to do negotiating with a Confucian leader.
his operation warp speed for vaccines where it is kind of accidental because he did little to help people get vaccinated when he lost the presidency, but he still got vaccinated himself.
withdrawing from the Paris Agreement I think actually led to the rest of the world taking more not less action on climate change, it may be a factor in how much action we've done since then.
the first president to give Ukraine any military support and if he hadn't given them the javelin anti-tank missiles, Biden might not have either and Latvia and Lithuania would have found it harder to give them the Stingers politically and they would have found it significantly more difficult in the battle for Kyiv in spring 2022.
Domestically in the US he was responsible for the big per person payouts in 2020 that helped support many people during the recession and set up the conditions for the recovery with Biden continuing the same, so he took on trillions of dollars of debt to protect the economy in COVID which a more traditional Republican might not have done.
he also did some revisions of tax that the Democrats also thought helped the economy as they kept them.
And it is true he didn't start any wars - nor did Biden.
he set up the conditions for withdrawing from Afghanistan, which he thinks led to the Ukraine war - if so surely the Ukraine war would have happened as much under him as Biden
I also don't think he'd have stopped the Hamas attack, if anything he made the conditions for it stronger by his support of Netanyahu. So I don't buy those arguments at all.
But he did, mostly accidentally, do things that were good for the world.
by misleadingly claiming that NATO countries owe money - they don't actually the 2% is about boosting their own military not about paying anything to the US or anyone else - but with all that goading he probably boosted the amount they spent on funding their miltiaries which led to their militaries being more prepared for assisting Ukraine and to present a stronger front to Russia after the incursion.
You can't run history again but without Trump if it was Clinton instead in 2016 it might not necessarily have been a better world by now, different but not necessarily better.
Of course, Democrats would have many reasons to prefer that history with Clinton winning, but after it has happened there were pluses from a Trump term that might not have happened under Clinton.
It is of course permitted in the US constitution to elect a convicted felon.
He is not immune from prosecution as a president - the Chutkan pre-trial hearing will clarify that
If he is found guilty of starting an insurrection then he can't run. But that case will only be concluded after the election, probably not until 2025 if they appeal and it reaches the Supreme Court and would be stopped if Trump becomes president.
However even if Trump is elected he can stop the Jan 06 prosecution he CAN’T stop Justice Tanya Chutkan’s judgement about whether the case can go ahead. She will make that decision at some point likely soon after election day.
So whoever is elected as president we will know well before Jan 20th whether a president can be prosecuted for Jan 06. The answer is sure to be yes. We’ll also have details of what exactly he can be prosecuted for. All this will be an inhibitor on Trump.
The case could continue all the way through to Jan 20th however and it's not impossible that the appeal just fails in the higher courts.
The Supreme Coruts might also refuse to take it on, quite likely - and if so, if it moves swiftly, perhaps it could get as far as a trial date scheduled before he is inaugurated if he wins?
In any case, he would be able to stop it at that point by just withdrawing the Federal prosecution I think.
However Chutkan’s ruling itself will help give some check on him however far it gets, knowing that he can be prosecuted and is not as immune as some made the ruling out to be. There is no way that they decide he can't be prosecuted for Jan 06, as the evidence is strong and Jack Smith made a good case.
See:
. Judge in Trump 2020 election case unseals more evidence from special counsel
Answering various concerns about Trump - he can’t do the things many claim he can do
SHORT DEBUNK: If Trump is elected for 4 years it will have only minute effects on global warming
SHORT DEBUNK Impossibility of Project 2025 and Trump's Agenda 47 - short summary
Timescale to know who won - if a clear result then it may be faster than the 4 days of 2020 - if it is very close it could last even through to December - and an election tie would be resolved by the House on January 06 or if they can’t solve it - as former vice president - Harris becomes the next president on inauguration day Jan 20th
First, we most likely know the result already within a few days of election day. It was after 4 days in 2020 which was a close election. It will most likely be faster this time unless the election is very close.
However if it is exceptionally close as with Bush v. Gore in 2000 then we will know by safe harbour day December 11, or at the very latest December 17 which is when the electoral college votes.
That is, unless it's a tie. It is possible for neither candidate to reach a majority of electors, or 270 electors. This could happen this time for instance if Kamala Harris wins Pennsylvania and Wisconsin of the swing states and Trump wins everything else. It could also happen with a very close race if some of the electors are faithless and vote for a third party canddiate. There are always a few faithless electors though the law has changed in some states to force them to be faithful.
If there is a tie then it goes to the House to decide with one vote for each state. The House has 26 states that are likely to be able to vote for Trump if so he gets in. But if only one of those states instead is equal numbers for Republican and Democrat then the House won't be able to decide. In that situation Harris as the previous vice president becomes the president until the House can decide. In principle she could become president over an indecisive House for an entire 4 year term.
Whoever wins they will say the signs were clear as day
Whoever wins there will be many people to say "Told you so and it was obvious all along". Harry Enten of CNN did a fun two parter of videos on this topic:
. Harry Enten: If Trump wins, the signs were obvious
. Harry Enten: If Harris wins, the signs were clear as day
I've seen Harris supporters reposting just the Harris part and Trump supporters reposting just the Trump part clipping out anything that refers to the other part.
We will soon know for sure - and it is hard to be objective but I have seen lots of evidence suggesting a large shy Harris vote share
This isn’t based on the politics, but on trying to understand what may be happening behind the polling. There may be a large hidden "Shy Harris voter that the polls are missing. If so, it will go to Harris possibly with a large margin.
This is NOT a prediction. Only the vote itself will tell for sure. We will know within a couple of days and will know pretty soon on election night.
There certainly are SOME shy Harris voters. It’s about HOW MANY they are. We only have anecdotes, with no way to measure how many there are.
Rural areas of the USA which are strongly conservative are in some places still rather patriarchal with some at least of the husbands expecting their wives to vote the same way they do. I know that sounds bizarre to most modern readers but there is pretty clear evidence a few do think like this.
So much so the Harris campaign has just done this ad to encourage them to vote for Harris even when their husband expects them to vote for Trump and telling them it's secret, nobody will know, not even their husband.
Ad for women voiced by Julia Roberts:
. YouTube
I have seen various tweets over the last few days of canvassers who say that on the doorstep or on phone wives whisper that they are voting for Harris when their husband thinks they are voting for Trump.
It is very bizarre in the modern age seems to me but it seems it does happen in the USA in some rural areas from this anecdotal evidence.
This is a Christian pastor who tweeted saying in a Christian marriage wives should vote according to the politics of their husbands!
. Dale Partridge (@dalepartridge) on X
It got 4,100 likes.
They would vote Harris because of the right to choose.
They likely vote Republican all the way down the ballot but vote Harris for president.
I have seen Republicans saying they will do that on Twitter.
The Harris campaign also did a similar ad for men voiced by George Clooney.
. YouTube
Both ads got lots of criticism on Twitter claiming that Republican men never feel peer pressure and that Republican husbands never expect their wives to vote the same way as they do. But then I see people who do canvassing talking about how they often encounter this shy Harris phenomenon on the doorstep. Their neighbours don’t know and even others in the household often don’t know.
When the results come in, it will be interesting to find out how many ballots are like that, Republicans that vote Republican for all except the presidential candidate.
If there is a large shy Harris voter effect we should see it pretty soon
So far this evidence of a shy Harris voter is anecdotal. It definitely happens, the question is how much. Since they almost certainly also lie to pollsters or just refuse to answer polls, the pollsters can’t measure it just as they couldn’t measure the Shy Trump vote share in 2016.
The polls are also likely compensating for an expected Shy Trump vote. If they are and it goes the other way they may be out by very large margins.
We will see pretty quickly if this is correct. If the Florida result is a surprise and a narrow win by Trump or even a Harris win that will show that this shy Harris vote is significant.
If the Florida result is as expected by the polls it is likely a very close race.
And of course an unexpected win by Trump in Florida by large margins would validate those who see it the other way around.
A small shift in Florida away from the polls in either direction won’t mean much.
Many health professionals likely shift to vote against Trump because of Robert Kennedy - a large fraction of the US population
With my background in science I may be overestimating this effect. But it may be more than you’d think.
I follow lots of medical professionals as a result of my fact checking for COVID and they of course universally are up in arms about Robert Kennedy jr getting anywhere near health care or medicine or safety or dental care.
That is because he wants to stop vaccination of kids and he wants to end fluoridation of drinking water to protect kids teeth from tooth decay. It is based on ideas that were disproved long ago.
For vaccines, Robert Kennedy’s ideas are based on the supposed link with autism.
There are at least 99 autism genes in fetal brain development and many of those change the brain during pregnancy long before children get vaccinated so the idea is not even plausible because the brain is already changed before the first vaccinations.
This false claim has been refuted over and over in numerous large studies.
This all dates back to ONE fraudulent researcher Wakefield. His aim wasn't to stop vaccination generally, his aim was only to stop the MMR vaccine specifically, so that his associates could make a fortune from selling an alternative to it.
In a private document that has now been uncovered his team says:
“It is estimated that by year 3, income from this testing could be about £3,300,000 rising to about £28,000,000 as diagnostic testing in support of therapeutic regimes come on stream.”
Yet the results of his fake autism study still continue to this day with people refusing measles vaccines and dying of measles because they believe this faked research which was discredited long ago.
For more on this see my:
Health professionals have been battling this misinformation for many years. I expect almost all nurses and dentists and health practitioners as well as many ordinary folk who don't believe the vaccine conspiracy theories will vote Harris just to keep Kennedy away from the White House.
There are 144,000 registered nurses in Pennsylvania, one of the top five states by way of registered nurses in the USA
Florida has over 200,000 of them, and Texas has over a quarter of a million. If a few percent of those nurses shift their vote from Trump to Harris that could make a big difference.
These look to me like numbers that could shift the election if it is close.
The US is seeing a resurgence of measles because of vaccine hesitancy already, Idaho is the state with lowest vaccination levels below 80% and it requires 95% to stop measles outbreaks.
It isn't the most serious of diseases for most people. But in weaker economies 1 in 100 kids under 5 die of it. In stronger economies 1 in 5000 kids die.
We may eventually start seeing deaths from measles in the USA if the vaccine hesitancy stays for a long time significantly over 5 percent of the population.
Sadly there are hundreds of thousands of deaths yearly from measles in weaker economies.
Measles deaths globally have fallen by 80% since 2000 but in 2022 they rose again by nearly half the levels in 2021.
. New data shows “staggering” increase in measles deaths worldwide
Health practitioners may also vote for Harris because of the stressful situation in some states that they are not being legally permitted to treat a woman who needs an abortion to save her life until they can be sure legally that she is indeed on the point of death. Some women have died well publicised because by the time they were permitted to make the decision to do the abortion it was too late.
Dr Rasmussen, a US virologist I follow put it like this:
QUOTE A vote for Trump is now quite literally a vote for dead or disabled children.
. Dr. Angela Rasmussen (@angie_rasmussen) on X (Dr. Angela Rasmussen (@angie_rasmussen) on X)
This is the Trump comment she responded to:
On RFK Jr. and vaccines:
DASHA: Do you think banning certain vaccines might be on the table?
TRUMP: Well I'm going to talk to him and talk to other people, and I'll make a decision, but he's a very talented guy and has strong views.
They also worry about the huge amount of extra work they will have constantly fact checking the administration on vaccine safety and such-like issues.
QUOTE STARTS
Another leading health expert, Georges Benjamin, who serves as executive director of the American Public Health Association, said people in the public listen to Kennedy, even if he has no credibility in the public health sector. Amplifying Kennedy’s voice could lead to distrust of scientific experts and undermine important messaging.
“We’re going to have to spend an enormous amount of time correcting this bad information out to the public,” Benjamin said. “People won’t know who to trust … not only can they undermine normal routine operations around things like vaccines, but what happens in emergency? You know, people won’t know who to believe.”
This is SUCH a strange thing to focus on as his final pitch to voters.
I can't see it winning him many votes as those who believe these conspiracy ideas likely vote for him already and it will lose probably thousands to tens of thousands last minute changes of vote by almost any health professionals in the USA, who were thinking of voting for Trump.
It is all over social media where health professionals talk to each other.
I think that alone could lose him the election.
It could stress the health care system.
And if there is another pandemic, not that it's very likely so soon after Covid it could lead to lots of problems to have someone high up in the administration advising the public not to listen to doctors and health experts.
Or just some lesser health emergency, for instance the monkeypox epidemic which was largely stopped by vaccination.
Health professionals will worry about that too.
So - I think he will lose significant numbers of votes from healthcare professionals of all sorts, nurses, doctors, many patients too.
I suppose he will gain some votes from vaccine conspiracy theorists but I expect most would vote for him anyway.
Also on fluoride in toothpaste which Robert Kennedy wants to ban on a very small highly flawed study that experts do NOT believe
.
. Robert Walker BSc, fact checker for scared people (@DoomsdayDebunks) on X
It is a VERY controversial study, small sample size, badly conducted and expert reaction is scathing.
Again this is the sort of thing that would dent public confidence in fluorine in water though I don’t think it is likely he could really ban it.
So that adds dentists to those with strong incentives to vote against him.
That’s another 7,610 in 2019, don’t know how many would have voted for him otherwise but it could shift a few thousand votes but also many of the general public who want fluorine in water to protect their kid’s teeth. table/ch3.tab42/
I think it's possible that he tries it for a while and then Robert Kennedy resigns, because he is way out of his depth not having much understanding of basic ideas in medicine. He is a lawyer, former US attorney general, under his brother John F. Kennedy, not a doctor. So that is the plus side what may happen.
See: Robert F. Kennedy: Attorney General
For medical safety reasons, I hope he gets fired quickly if he is appointed.
But on an individual level then if people continue to get their kids vaccinated their risk is very low as especially the measles vaccine provides very high close to 100% protection against measles. The main risk is for those who may be influenced by him to stop getting their kids vaccinated.
So there is a realistic concern that if Trump is elected it could lead to measles outbreaks again. Not instantly but more and more smaller outbreaks with each year of his presidency.
Hopefully this may lead to some pushback if it happens.
No possibility of a world war. Don't expect Trump to be any different from Biden on Ukraine. He is likely to withdraw from the Paris agreement yet again but this will have little effect globally.
He can't have a serious impact on freedom of speech because of the strong constitution.
The economy is very robust and recovering, and he is not likely to push tariffs so far as to affect it in a major way.
But we have already seen many major effects of vaccine misinformation and so I hope that he doesn't get elected for the health effects, or that if he does, he goes back on this decision to give Robert Kennedy a major role in his administration.
Example of Moldova that got what the people wanted even with massive russian interference - us elections are free and fair and will get what the people want
This is a positive story that may encourage voters. Even with massive interference from Russia, Moldova still made the choice the majority of its people favoured, with likely 150,000 votes bought by the Russians in its small population.
For the president they voted
55.41% to Sandhu and 44.59% to Stoianoglo
. Fundacja Odpowiedzialna Polityka (@Odp_Polityka) on X
It also passed the EU Referendum by a very narrow majority
. Moldova Constitutional Court validates EU membership referendum amid allegations of electoral fraud
For links to articles about the fraud issues see
. 2024 Moldovan European Union membership referendum - Wikipedia
No, if Trump is elected as president he will NOT be able to order the military to kill civilians
So now to look at some false claims about what Trump could do that can scare people.
Many people are confused by Trump’s claims and claims of others that he can be a dictator and think he could order the military to kill civilians. That is NONSENSE.
All officers and soldiers swear an oath to protect the US Constitution above the president. They HAVE to disobey illegal orders.
This may help.
Transcript
:
TEXT ON GRAPHIC:
General Milley:
We don't take an oath to a country. We don't take an oath to a tribe. We don't take an oath to a religion. We don't take an oath to a King or a Queen or to a tyrant or a dictator and we don't take an oath to a wannabe dictator. We don't take an oath to an individual.
We take an oath to the constitution and we take an oath to the idea that is America and we're willing to die to protect it.
Every soldier, sailor, airman, marine, guardsmen and coastguardsmen, each of us commits our very life to protect and defend that document, regardless of personal price. And we are not easily intimidated.
========
Every US soldier, officer and general takes an oath to the US Constitution above all. They have it drilled in from the start that they must only obey LEGAL orders.
And as soldiers they are willing to die to protect the US constitution and the rule of law.
Speech starts at 1:21:00 here, the quote starts at 1:35:20 U.S. Constitution at Center of Military Transfer of Responsibility Ceremony
See:
Text on graphic: THE STATUE OF LIBERTY IS IN ANTARCTICA! Parody
NONSENSE: And if Trump is elected you will HAVE to have the same views as him on EVERYTHING! Found on TikTok
More NONSENSE from TikTok!
There are many mischievous, confused and silly people on the internet teaching you nonsense.
Graphic made using Dall-E
No this can’t lead to a civil war - and if there are riots they will be just like the ones the US has had before - just keep clear of any pre-planned protest marches
Hopefully there won't be riots but they are possible. Jan 06 can't happen again but riots can. They would just be normal riots and a riot can't start a civil war. Jan 06 could never have started a civil war either. The risk was to lives of legislators not of a civil war and there was never any possibility of it overturning the government.
Remember Biden is the president not Trump. All that would happen is that Biden would order in the national guard if they are too much for the police to handle. Finally if it got too much for even the national guard he can declare an insurrection.
If he has to suppress an insurrection, the president can use the military - NOT AS SOLDIERS - as surrogate national guards. Normally the military can't arrest civilians but in an insurrection, the specific soldiers that are ordered to respond get the right to arrest a US civilian. This is just to detain the insurrectionists.
First Biden would give an order to the insurrectionists to disperse. If they don't disperse he then declares it an insurrection. He then orders the military to join in as extra national guards .AS there are over a million US soldiers then he has huge numbers to draw on to suppress any insurrection.
During the insurrection the military are subject to all civilian laws except one. For the duration of the insurrection they are permitted to detain insurrectionists without trial and don't have to give them access to a lawyer (for practical reasons if there are large numbers of insurrectionists).
Once the insurrection is over, then all the detained insurrectionists are released, or if they did something illegal they have their day in court. If any of the soldiers did anything illegal they also are tried under civilian law - in addition to any court marital offences.
As a practical matter then riots would happen as a result of protest marches.
These are always arranged in advance. Citizens have the right to peacefully assemble to protest but they have to do it in a way that doesn't obstruct traffic etc, so they always have to arrange a protest march in advance.
So - just keep yourself and your kids away from any protest marches and you should be fine.
Details here:
At the start of the civil war the US didn't even have an army.
The Union army which later became the Federal army was made up of border police. The confederates (slave owners) had to make a new army from nothing.
After the civil war the Federal army became far too strong. And soldiers taken oath to the constitution a nd to the president. So there is no possibility of a second civil war for that as well as other reasons.
In more detail, the established interpretation of the constitution by the Supreme court together with many laws passed by states increased the power fo the Federal government,
Then the ability of the Federal government to raise taxes for a Federal army and the oath of office of the Federal army strengthened the government and the Federal army to the point where it is no longer possible to have a civil war again.
I go into details here:
BLOG: Why the US civil war can't happen again
Jan 06 can’t happen again and remember Biden is in charge for keeping control for any riots.
All these false claims that Trump can be a dictator will stop immediately on election day with no more votes to be won - Trump himself, never Trumpers, Democrats and others such as generals will all stop saying these things as they know they are false / hyperbole
Whoever wins, when the campaigning stops, whether
Trump has won or
Harris has won.
you will immediately find that.
Trump will stop saying he can be a dictator
Never Trumpers will stop saying he can be a dictator.
Harris will stop saying he can be a dictator.
All the generals and others who said he will be a fascist will also stop saying it too.
Indeed all these claims will stop already on November 5th
as soon as the last vote is cast.
even before the next president is known
The reason being that there will be NO MORE VOTES TO WIN.
Of course the old stories and memes and tweets and videos will likely continue to be shared on social media for a while after they are no longer being generated but there is no longer any incentive for anyone to make new tweets or videos like that.
They are ALL for DIFFERENT REASONS claiming that Trump as president can do things that are LEGALLY AND CONSTITUTIONALLY IMPOSSIBLE.
Also MILITARILY IMPOSSIBLE (as generals and officers swear an oath to uphold the constitution above any order from the president).
They all KNOW THAT.
So they will NOT worry about Trump being a dictator or ending democracy after election day if he is elected.
And as for Trump, from his part:
it will be like when he got the crowd to chant "Lock her up" about Hillary Clinton in 2016.
as soon as the voting ended he stopped saying anything about locking up Hillary Clinton.
That is because he knew he couldn't.
I think it’s reasonable to suppose that he wouldn’t have even said it if this was a country without a properly functioning legal system or bill of rights where a president has the power to lock up an opponent.
But whether he would have said it or not, if it was possible - as a candidate for a US president he KNEW he couldn't just lock her up in the USA. So he just stopped talking about it.
In the USA there isn't any election day silence except for a small region around each voting booth - so the campaigning can continue right up until the last vote is cast.
After that the campaigning is over and these false claims will stop.
For more about why project 2025 and Agenda 47 are both impossible, see my
SHORT DEBUNK Impossibility of Project 2025 and Trump's Agenda 47 - short summary
And for much more detail see my:
In the USA the electoral college and Senate balance the interests of rural and city people - no system of democracy can ever be perfect - it is well possible that one candidate wins the electoral college and loses the popular vote and that’s okay
I thought I’d say a bit about this. Whoever wins the other side may well be inclined to see it as unfair.
Republicans are likely to claim the Democrats have cheated in some way and pursue lots of unfounded fraud claims.
But the Democrats also may well tell you that the president “Should” have been Harris if she wins the popular vote and loses the electoral college.
It may help to know that actually, there is no such thing as a perfect democracy, you can prove that, there is no system that can even give a consistent answer to "what does the public want". You can get systems that are more or less consistent most of the time but you always have self-contradictions.
That is the Concordet paradox. Any voting system could encounter a situation where with three options A, B and C, voters will vote for A in preference to B. But they also vote for B in preference to C and C in preference to A. Which is inconsistent.
So any majority vote system is self-contradictory. Which of course DOES NOT mean that we should stop using democracy. It just means that any democracy is bound to be a compromise and can never be perfect.
In the US system the electoral college and the 2 senators per state rule came about because of the way it was built up as a union of separate states.
However, the effect of all this is a balancing of interests of rural and city areas of the USA.
If the senators were selected like the house by population and if the president was selected by popular vote, then cities would have a huge advantage over rural areas which means laws would be passed that benefit cities over rural areas.
The current system helps counteract this by ensuring that rural areas and the values of people in rural parts of the USA get more weight.
This happens to benefit Republicans because more people in rural areas are Republican and more people in cities are Democrat. But it is a side effect. The main effect is that the concerns of farmers and others in rural areas get more attention than they would if the president was selected by popular vote and the Senate was decided similarly to the House.
Even with this difference, it isn't a huge effect. The popular vote tracks only a few percentage points away from the electoral college vote and on many topics, the Senate votes the same way as the House and often the US Congress has a trifecta of the House, Senate and President all in the same party.
It is a similar principle at the state level, that the counties vary hugely in population giving more of a voice to rural populations.
So - you'll hear a lot of talk about how the US system is an unfair one. Remember that ALL democracies are actually internally inconsistent. The best you can do is to make it as fair as you can and the US system is as democratic as any of the systems out there.
Winston Churchill put it like this:
QUOTE Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’
There seems to be some kind of a wisdom associated with this method of choice which often one can't understand the reasons for until later.
It's up to the American people to decide. No system is every perfect. But the whole idea of democracy is that whoever they vote for is the people's choice.
Confusing though it may be at times democracy is the best way we have to decide that, in the sense that nobody has found a better system.
So whatever happens - that is the choice of the people. And if there is some irregularity of the decision is very close then there are methods of dealing with that - calling for a recount, and if necessary the legal route.
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