Games Are Being Played

NEW: Mark Halperin says his sources in both parties say Kamala Harris is not doing well in Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona.

Halperin says one Democrat source and two Republican sources say they would be “somewhere between surprised and shocked” if Harris won Wisconsin.

“It… pic.twitter.com/uAyqwKDXNY

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) November 2, 2024

I've already noted here that Mark Halperin, one of the most influential commentators on this year's campaign, is working hard to rehabilitate himself and get back into a cushy corporate media job. His selling point appears to be that he's got all kinds of contacts that he presumably developed the last time he was in a cushy corporate media job, before the unpleasantness, and he still strategically pulls the contacts out when it suits him. This he did yesterday, as shown above.

I've also already pointed out here that Nate Silver, who is frequently characterized as a "pollster", "statistician", or most recently "election guru", is none of the above; his background is in professional poker. For reasons that are unclear, he was eased out of his cushy corporate media job at FiveThirtyEight and, like Halperin, is trying to get himself another cushy corporate media gig to replace his old one.

All spring, Silver was building his reputation on pointing out that Joe Biden needed to make big changes, which made Silver a bit of a contrarian, and it got him a lot of attention. But by early August, after Harris became the Democrat pick, he was with mainstream media in giving her a 55-45 chance of winning the election. He stayed with Harris for much of the campaign -- so much for the contrariam, at least for the time being. Then a few weeks ago, he began cautiously realigning himself with Trump. Now all of a sudden, it's back to the full monty:

Polling guru Nate Silver lashed out at other survey junkies in his field for “cheating” in the final stretch of the 2024 presidential election — accusing them of recycling some results to keep the race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris close.

The FiveThirtyEight founder said irresponsible pollsters were “herding” their numbers, or using past results to affect current ones, to keep Vice President Harris and former President Trump within a point or two of each other each time.

“I kind of trust pollsters less,” Silver said on his podcast, name-checking Emerson College. “They all, every time a pollster [says] ‘Oh, every state is just plus-one, every single state’s a tie,’ no! You’re f–king herding! You’re cheating! You’re cheating!” he fumed.

“You are lying! You’re putting your f–king finger on the scale!'”

Silver’s own vaunted model puts Trump ahead of Harris, 55% to 45%, as voters prepare to head to the polls in just three days.

I can't see this as anything but a strategic move on Silver's part to position himself as an accurate predictor, hoping that the likely outcome of the election will make him look insightful -- although of course, there were smart people who never thought Kamala had much of a chance, just not many in corporate media.

But let's look at Mark Halperin's take in the post above.

Mark Halperin says his sources in both parties say Kamala Harris is not doing well in Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona.

Halperin says one Democrat source and two Republican sources say they would be “somewhere between surprised and shocked” if Harris won Wisconsin.

. . . And the focus has been on Pennsylvania. Here, on this platform, we did a two-hour show called 'It's All About Pennsylvania'. And what I'm here to tell you tonight, based on my reporting with both Democrats and Republicans, . . . that it could be that Kamala Harris wins Pennsylvania but loses the White House, because she loses Wisconsin.

Wait a moment. Halperin has all these great sources, Republican, Democrat, local, national, and in all the states, best sources you could possibly have, bunches of them, and they're calling North Carolina, Georgia, and Arizona -- but none of those muiltitidinous and authoritative sources has told him anything about Pennsylvania? Whoa, that means the election is a tossup!!

In other words, Mark Halperin, whom a commenter on the thread says

has emerged as the most impressive source of election reporting this cycle. He has a really nice delivery style and somehow maintains an objectivity I’ve seen in almost no other journalist.

is almost certainly withholding information that could make things look much worse for Kamala. He's acting as if he's got the latest, breathless insider information, and it's that the race is a tossup?? Well, that's likely to make someone in corporate media decide all is forgiven as far as Halperin is concerned: he's the guy who can take the corporate line and make you think it's the latest skinny from behind the scenes.

I'm more with Mark Mitchell, the head pollster at Rasmussen Reports, speaking with Matt Margolis:

He told me he’s seeing an election comparable to 1980.

“I think this is Reagan/Carter,” Mitchell told me. “I think there are very specific reasons.”

He explained, “I thought this whole time that Trump would outperform my polling,” largely because voter loyalty has shifted, and traditional party affiliation “means a lot less.” To account for this, Mitchell adjusted Rasmussen’s polling method to “weight by recall vote,” which focuses on how voters cast their ballots in 2020, rather than relying solely on demographics like age, gender, or race.

Mitchell’s polling has shown Trump with a consistent lead, even “up two points nationally,” revealing a “mind change of about 6-7 points” from Biden to Trump from 2020 to 2024. He attributes this shift to “low propensity voters crawling over broken glass to vote Trump” while some Democrat-leaning voters stay “on the couch in traditional blue areas.” Mitchell argues that the polling industry is still “a little bit left” of reality and underestimates the enthusiasm among Trump’s base.

Nate Silver has been all over the place since Joe was edged out of the race, but it looks like he figures who's the winner at this point, and he's going to call it for Trump in hopes it will help his career. Mark Halperin is still tying to sell himself as the safer choice. Games are being played either way.