Trump’s strategy has gone from boring to shockingly bizarre and counterproductive. Does Trump think his opponent is Brian Kemp or Kamala Harris? What about recession? Walz?
Two Notes to Republicans (Democrats and Independents Too)
- I am going to blast trump quite a bit.
- Towards the end of this post, I offer my assessment as well as an assessment from Nate Silver on how a recession would help Trump.
Shockingly Bizarre and Counterproductive
The Wall Street Journal comments Trump Runs Against Republicans in Georgia—Again
Mr. Trump used a campaign appearance in Georgia on Saturday to tee off on the state’s GOP Governor, Brian Kemp, and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Both men won re-election in 2022, despite Mr. Trump’s vocal opposition, even as Trump-backed candidates lost elsewhere. But no matter, Mr. Trump will never forgive either man for not joining his attempt to overturn the 2020 election in the Peach State.
“He’s a bad guy, he’s a disloyal guy and he’s a very average Governor,” Mr. Trump told the crowd about Mr. Kemp. He even took a shot at the Governor’s wife. Mr. Trump added that “Wasn’t for me, he would not be your Governor. I think everybody knows that.” Actually, everybody knows that Mr. Kemp won in 2022 with 53.4% of the vote against Democratic media darling Stacey Abrams, while Mr. Trump lost the state by 12,000 votes in 2020.
Mr. Trump also cost Republicans two Senate seats in special elections in January 2021 when he told his partisans that the November election had been stolen. Turnout was down in Republican areas of the state. Why vote if your candidate says your ballot won’t count?
Mr. Trump’s rants are especially counterproductive because he needs Mr. Kemp’s organization in Georgia. Mr. Kemp is supporting the former President and is deploying his turnout machine, but Mr. Trump may convince many of those Republicans to vote for someone else or stay home as they did in 2020.
Mr. Trump won’t win if he’s fighting about the past instead of laying out an agenda for the future. But he simply can’t help himself.
Trump Questions Kamala’s Race
The Bitcoin Brigade
Prediction
Bitcoin will not bring in any votes because “It’s the Economy, Stupid.”
Trump’s proposal not to tax tips may bring in some votes, assuming those votes are not permanently lost on other Trumpian stupidities.
Due to Extreme FIMD, Trump is Now Behind
Instead of attacking Kamala Harris on the economy, Trump is attacking Brian Kemp and alienating Black voters with arrows that not only are off target but have circled around like boomerangs. (Lead Image)
On August 4, I commented Due to Extreme FIMD, Trump is Now Behind, He May Need a Hard Recession to Win
Trump is suffering from extreme Foot-In-Mouth-Disease. He Just cannot keep on message.
Dear Donald, it’s still the economy stupid.
How can a fight with Brian Kemp not cost votes? How can stupid statements about race not cost votes?
Moaning over sampling and pollster bias is silly. Pollsters generally correct of oversampling and Silver provides his own corrections on top of it.
Plus, if a pollster shows overall Democrat or Republican bias, Silver corrects for that too.
What About Recession?
Trump is acting so bizarrely, that he may need either a major gaffe by Kamala Harris (possible if not likely), or a hard recession (likely). That has been my position for about a week.
Nate Silver discussed how a recession might change things in his post on Monday.
Will a Recession Be Enough for Trump to Win?
That question was the subject of Silver’s post Kamalamentum vs. Economic Headwinds
In general, the Silver Bulletin forecast has tracked prediction markets extremely closely — but there’s more of a divergence now. Harris rose again in our forecast today: in the span of a week, she’s gone from a 37 percent chance of winning the Electoral College to a 53 percent chance. The race is still a toss-up for all intents and purposes, but if you’re sweating the details, you’d rather have the 53 percent side of a bet than the 47 percent half.
At Polymarket, however, the odds are roughly the reverse of this, with Trump at 54 percent and Harris at 44 (and 2 percent for Michelle Obama for some reason).
What I’d say in general, before we go behind the paywall, is that I think this is a somewhat challenging time from a forecasting standpoint. There’s been a lot of huge political news that’s piled on top of itself. I’m not sure that the polls have yet entered some sort of steady state — instead, Harris has fairly consistently been rising, and is now ahead by almost 2 points in our national polling average.
You could argue that the model makes some assumptions that are generous to Harris. It’s still applying a modest convention bounce adjustment to Trump’s polls, as we’re still only about two weeks removed from the end of the RNC.
But I don’t particularly think the model is under-reacting to the economic news — in fact, both the monthly jobs report and the S&P 500 are directly incorporated into the forecast in the form of the model’s economic index.
Quick aside — you’ll notice that the model calculates both the current state of the economy and a projection for Nov. 5. How is the projection formulated? It’s based on two factors: the recent performance of the S&P 500, and the quarterly Survey of Professional Forecasters, which was last updated in May. (There will be a new version soon.) If you’re a finance professional, and you think the economy is about to go into recession – then yes, you probably have a good bet on Trump. But that’s not the consensus view as reflected in the data, and in fact the recent stock sell-off is incorporated into the projections that the model has for the other economic variables.
Our Democratic readers should take note that the convention bounce adjustment we apply after the DNC will hurt Harris, shaving a point or two off of her numbers for a few weeks. Harris will need to be ahead by something like 4 points in national polls conducted immediately after the convention to maintain her current position in the model.
Disagreeing With Silver on the Economy
Not only do I think the economy is headed for recession, I think the economy is in recession.
Silver uses Z-scores for the six economic indicators. A score of zero indicates an average economy, positive values are better than average, and negative values are worse than average.
The forecasters have the current Z-score at 0.00 and project -0.06 for November 5.
For November, the forecasters have the CPI as positive (I agree, the rate of inflation is heading lower and negative prints would not surprise me in the least).
The professional forecasters foresee nonfarm payrolls as slightly positive (I strongly disagree).
And the professional forecaster foresee the S&P 500 as positive (again, I strongly disagree).
Essentially, Silver (rather the professional forecasters) think the economy will be no worse off in November than now, and now is average.
I disagree with what’s happening now, noting May numbers are very stale. And I strongly disagree with the professional forecasters on where the economy is headed (at least as of May).
I don’t know what the model would suggest if I got to plug in some numbers, but undoubtedly lower for Harris.
The best I can do for now is repeat Silver “If you’re a finance professional, and you think the economy is about to go into recession – then yes, you probably have a good bet on Trump.“
I am going to add a caveat to that. If Trump keeps up his shockingly bizarre and counterproductive behavior, he may easily lose no matter what the economy does.
Recession Has Started
On July 8, I wrote Weak Data Says a Recession Has Already Started, Let’s Now Discuss When
I’ve seen enough. A recession has started. Let’s discuss starting with a very good indicator that has few false positives and no false negatives.
My follow-up post was on August 2.
August 2: The McKelvey (Sahm) Unemployment Rate Recession Rule Just Triggered
A recession indicator based off rising unemployment triggered in July. Claudia Sahm, a former Fed economist, takes credit for an indicator she did not invent. Let’s discuss.
Weakening data explains the recession call. Yield curve action provides a confirmation signal. Global selloffs add to recession risks. Sentiment matters.
Don’t expect the Fed to bail out speculative mania. Markets generally fall after the first rate cut. This decline ahead of time caught most off-guard.
It would behoove Trump to apologize to Brian Kemp and ask for his help. But he won’t.
The best we can hope is Trump keeps his mouth closed enough so that his foot no longer fits in it.
Would that be enough and will Trump do it?
But he now has help. For example … How Progressive is Tim Walz, Kama Harris’ VP Running Mate?
We now have dueling mistakes.