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New polls: MN VA
Dem pickups: (None)
GOP pickups: AZ GA ME MI NV PA

Results Are in from Maryland, West Virginia and Nebraska

Three more states' voters (or four more states' voters, if you count the runoffs in North Carolina) have cast their ballots. Here are the most notable results:

Them's the biggies, as we see it. Next week, it's Kentucky and Oregon, two states that have many, many things in common, like... um... uh... they're both split across two time zones? They're both famous for their grass? Their governors have never been in (Z)'s kitchen? (Z)

Trump Legal News: The Trial (Day 17)

For the second time in as many days, Michael Cohen was the star of the show in Donald Trump's criminal fraud trial. Here are the main storylines:

Whoomp! There it is. They'll be off today, as per usual, then back on Thursday, then off Friday so that Trump can attend son Barron's graduation. (Z)

And Don't Forget the Other Crooks

Of course, Donald Trump isn't the only one in legal hot water right now, and there was some news yesterday on the non-Trump-crook front. First, Sen. Bob Menendez' (D-NJ) bribery trial is about to get underway in earnest (in other words, jury selection is complete). And yesterday, the Senator got some unhappy news: The psychiatrist he wanted to call to testify will not be allowed to take the stand.

The point of the psychiatrist was to try to establish that the Senator has a pathological "fear of scarcity" due to his upbringing, and so THAT is why he squirrels away large amounts of cash and gold bullion. This seems like a pretty desperate defense strategy, to us. Further, even if the shrink was able to justify Menendez' hoarding of hundreds of thousands of dollars in lucre, that still does not explain where it came from. Or, more specifically, how he was able to accrue more than half a million dollars in cash and gold on a salary of about $200,000 a year. In any case, Team Bob is going to stick with this apparently, and will call some of his Senate colleagues to testify about his cash-hoarding tendencies instead. Undoubtedly, a Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) or a Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) will be just thrilled to end up in the middle of this.

Meanwhile, when we last wrote about Steve Bannon, we wrote that he might mount further appeals of his conviction for contempt of Congress, but that he would just be throwing money away. Not so fast, wrote reader R.E.M. in Brooklyn:

No, I think he's pursuing the same delay strategy as Donald Trump—keep things going to January 20, 2025. If Bannon seeks rehearing with a suggestion for rehearing en banc, I believe he has 45 days from the entry of the decision. Then after that is disposed of, he would have 60 days to petition for cert. to the Supreme Court. That petition would likely be addressed in October or November, though the Court could choose to hold it, or to grant the petition, in which case it would not be heard until 2025. If Donald Trump wins reelection, he pardons Bannon, who thereby spends not a day in jail.

Fair point. Thanks, R.E.M.!

We should have thought of that, but we did not, because we are not lawyers. R.E.M. is. And you know who else is? The folks who are prosecuting Bannon. And they apparently thought of it, too. In a move that would forestall the above strategy, the DoJ filed a motion yesterday asking Judge Carl Nichols to order Bannon to prison immediately, since there is no possibility of Bannon's prevailing in his appeals. It's not clear when the Judge will rule, but it's at least possible that Bannon could be a resident of the crowbar hotel by the time June rolls around. (Z)

Another $1 Billion in Arms for Israel

A week after threatening to withhold arms from Israel, the White House announced yesterday that it has begun the "lengthy process" needed to move forward with $1 billion in weapons sales to that nation.

Here is the most Biden-friendly interpretation of this: He is cutting House Republicans and their "you have to send bombs to Israel bill" off at the knees, without actually doing what they want. The $1 billion in goodies would include some materiel that could be used for offense—$700 million in tank ammunition, $500 million in tactical vehicles and $60 million in mortar rounds—but not the big bombs that are most likely to end up killing civilians. Further, nobody seems to have a clear idea of how lengthy a "lengthy process" is. Weeks? Months? Years? Could be an example of the sort of malicious compliance we hypothesized yesterday.

And now, here is the least Biden-friendly interpretation of this: He is flip-flopping around depending on how the political winds blow, withholding arms one week, providing them the next. Certainly, many Democrats are worried that the administration's strategy on Israel is not "cohesive," to use their word.

Our guess, to use a metaphor we deployed last week, is that Biden hit Benjamin Netanyahu with a stick last week, and now the president is dangling a potential carrot. And the ball is now in the PM's court, and his actions will determine whether, and how quickly, he gets that carrot. (Z)

Who's Gonna Win This Thing?, Part I: The Siena Poll

We had a few e-mails this week proposing that we are in denial about the possibility that Donald Trump could win the 2024 presidential election, and that we are doing a disservice to readers by encouraging them to bury their heads in the sand.

We feel we have been clear about this, having written numerous times in the past month or two that our guess is that the election is a coin flip at this particular moment in time. That means that Trump most certainly could win—indeed, that he is as likely to win as Joe Biden is, as far as we can tell. Here are some arguments for why Trump might win:

Again, Trump could definitely win. Full stop.

That said, there are reasons we think it's roughly a coin flip, and that you have to take the polling with a few grains of salt. And those reasons go beyond "We just can't believe a meanie like Trump isn't losing by 30 points." To try to explain, let's take a quick look at the numbers from the recent Siena poll (which are pretty much in line with all Siena polls this cycle), as compared to the actual numbers from Trump's other two elections:

 
Southern
Northern
  
Election
AZ
GA
NV
MI
PA
WI
 Spread
2024, Siena
R+6%
R+9%
R+13%
D+1%
R+3%
R+1%
 14%
2020, Actual
D+0.3%
D+0.2%
D+2.4%
D+2.8%
D+1.2%
D+0.6%
 2.6%
2016, Actual
R+3.5%
R+5.2%
D+2.4%
R+0.2%
R+0.7%
R+0.7%
 7.6%

The spread is the gap between the most extreme result in the Democrats' direction and the most extreme result in the Republicans' direction. In 2020, for example, the Democrats did best in Michigan (+2.8%) and worst in Georgia (+0.2%), resulting in a spread of 2.6%.

To believe that Siena has the right of it, you have to believe that the three "Southern route" states have gone from being competitive to being laughers for Trump, even as the "Northern route" states remain close. Similarly, the reason these six are the "swing" states is that they usually correlate with each other in terms of being close. But now, the spread between them is nearly double what it was in 2016 and nearly quintuple what it was in 2020. It is certainly possible there has been this much movement, but it would be very unusual. And, zooming in a bit more, it is particularly hard to accept that Nevada—which is similar to Arizona demographically but more Democratic—has suddenly become seven points more Trumpy than the Grand Canyon State.

There's another way to examine this, and that's by looking at the crosstabs, which are just full of things that stretch credulity to the breaking point. According to Siena:

We did not cherry-pick the most outlandish results; in choosing which two numbers to look at in each swing state, we actually were trying to give a broad representation of the various demographic categories. And note that not all the wackiness works in Biden's direction; Siena appears to be overstating his support with older voters in Michigan, for example. That said, the wackiness skews against Biden far more often than not, and the most extreme and head-scratching numbers almost always involve (apparently) understating Biden's support.

Let's put it this way. Steve Deace is a right-wing talker who does a show for Glenn Beck's The Blaze network. And as reader J.R. in Philadelphia, PA, brought to our attention, Deace looked over Siena's cross-tab numbers, just like we did above, and concluded the poll is very possibly... a Democratic trick. Seriously. He writes:

Trump's strong performance in the top-line of this poll is contrary to the cross-tabs that show him often under-performing where he was in 2020, and almost exclusively results from Biden's under-performance with core constituencies of the Democrat Party—blacks, Hispanics, and some demos of women. In other words, for this poll to be fulfilled 25 weeks from now would require Biden to perform worse with women than any Democrat since 1984, worse with Blacks than any Democrat since 1956, and worse with Hispanics than any Democrat ever.

This poll isn't a realistic path to victory. We all know Democrats will "fortify" their standing with these demos come Election Day/Week/Month/Festival.

Trump could win, but it won't look like this, because that would mean we're in an environment where Democrats would also be looking at a 40-seat loss in the House as well and nobody sees that.

At best this poll is problematic. At worse it's a psyop to convince you to stay drunk on numbing over-confidence and watching Fox News shilling all day, rather than the hard work of matching the Democrats' "ballot harvesting scheme."

We're not embracing the kooky elements here, but it's pretty good evidence that the numbers really don't add up when you look closely.

Exactly why they don't add up is a matter of conjecture. One possibility is pollster error, probably in the form of an inaccurate model of the electorate. Another possibility, and this is the drum we keep beating, is that a lot of voters are undecided, and considerably more probable Democrats are in that group than probable Republicans.

Now, if you want someone who will say these numbers are absolutely on target, and very meaningful, there are people out there happy to do it. That's what Nate Cohn is saying, although he kinda has to, because he runs the Times' polling operation. The other Nate (Silver) too, though we're not going to link to him because his stuff is paywalled. CNN's Harry Enten is another; he rarely sees a poll that he does not take at face value, it would seem.

As for us, we will continue to look at polls with a wary eye, probably until September or so. As we have noted, the conventions will be over by then, low-information voters will be paying (some amount of) attention, votes will start to become very real (as opposed to making a statement to pollsters), and that's when things start to settle in.

We'll have a "Part II" and a "Part III" tomorrow. We WERE going to have them today, but we're trying to keep the postings from getting too long, or from going live too late. So, we'll have to hold them. (Z)

Carter "Coming to the End"

Jimmy Carter has been in hospice care for over a year, and he lost his wife of 77+ years last November. So, it is not too much of a surprise that the former president is "coming to the end," according to his grandson Jason Carter. Whether that means days, weeks, or months, it sounds unlikely that #39 will make it to #100 on October 1.

We cannot think of another American politician currently living whose passing will affect as many people as will Carter's. Not only did his career take place in an era before the current partisan ultra-rancor, but he's also earned a lot of admiration for his clearly genuine religiosity, his rock-solid egalitarian marriage, his post-presidential work on fair elections and other causes, and his advocacy for housing for the poor. The passings of Barack and Michelle Obama, when they happen (presumably many years in the future) will be a big deal, and many will feel the loss of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and maybe Arnold Schwarzenegger. But we just don't see anyone who is as beloved by as many people as Carter now is.

We are prepared for what we will write on that day, when it comes, but we thought it would also be good to have some reader remembrances as well. So, if you have a comment on the life and legacy of Jimmy Carter, please send it to comments@electoral-vote.com, and we will keep them on file until they are needed. (Z)

Today's Presidential Polls

Biden should really be doing better in Minnesota and Virginia. Maybe it's the kids who are angry about Gaza?

State Joe Biden Donald Trump Start End Pollster
Minnesota 44% 42% May 08 May 11 SurveyUSA
Virginia 43% 42% Apr 28 Apr 28 Fabrizio + Anzalone

Click on a state name for a graph of its polling history.


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