Tangle - The Friday Edition - Can Kamala Harris win? And 25 closing thoughts on the election.

Episode Date: November 1, 2024

A couple weeks ago, I made my final predictions about the 2024 election. In that post, one of my headline predictions was that Vice President Kamala Harris would win Pennsylvania but lose the election. I also argued that Trump had a path to winning in Michigan, that Democrats would win the House, and that Republicans would come away with 53 seats in the Senate.Since then, the race hasn’t fundamentally changed, but it has developed in a lot of interesting ways. I’ve been jotting down notes over the last few weeks and today, I’m emptying my notebook as we head into the final days of the race.So: Here are 25 thoughts with four days to go until Election Day. Ad-free podcasts and the full episode of today's podcast are here! Many listeners have been asking for an ad-free version of this podcast that they could subscribe to — and we finally launched it. You can go to tanglemedia.supercast.com to sign up!Check out our latest YouTube video on misinformation about North Carolina here.Check out Episode 6 of our podcast series, The Undecideds. You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Help share Tangle.I'm a firm believer that our politics would be a little bit better if everyone were reading balanced news that allows room for debate, disagreement, and multiple perspectives. If you can take 15 seconds to share Tangle with a few friends I'd really appreciate it. Email Tangle to a friend here, share Tangle on X/Twitter here, or share Tangle on Facebook here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and man, it is Friday before an election on Tuesday. There is so much to talk about in the final days. We just recorded a live version of the Sunday podcast yesterday that is up on our YouTube channel. So if you don't want to wait till Sunday to get the pod,

you can go check it out there when you're done listening to this. I am not even sure where to turn my focus as the final days of this election arrive. The Tangle team is in route to Philadelphia right now. We're hosting our election party on Tuesday. So a reminder about that. If you RSVP'd or if you haven't, you can find a link to it in our episode description. We're doing a

live party here in Philadelphia. I'm just going to empty the notebook, basically. A couple of weeks ago, I made my final predictions about the 2024 election. In that post, one of my headline predictions was that Vice President Kamala Harris would win Pennsylvania but lose the election. I also argued that Trump had a path to winning in Michigan, that Democrats would win the House, and that Republicans would come away with 53 seats in the Senate. Since then, the race has not fundamentally changed, but it has developed in a lot of interesting ways. I've been jotting down notes over the last few weeks, and today I'm just going to share all of them with you. So these are my final 25 thoughts on the election with four days to go.

Number one, the contest is extremely close, yet Trump supporters are confidently proclaiming the election is over. It is definitively not over. It is and has been for many weeks a neck and neck race. Claims that Harris's internal polling has collapsed or that Trump sealed the deal with his interview on Joe Rogan's podcast or Republicans are securing a decisive victory in Pennsylvania, they're total nonsense. And they're also very dangerous. The race is as tight as ever and the odds of Trump winning are about as good as the odds of you calling tails

and a coin flip and getting it right. Number two, and this is related to number one, my fears have never been stronger that should Trump lose, he and his allies will deny the results of the election. November 5th is in four days and Trump is already claiming Pennsylvania is cheating because some voters who showed up at the end of the day

for early voting in Bucks County, which Biden, Clinton, and Obama all won, Obama won it twice, were not being allowed to cast their votes. Trump sued and a judge extended early voting, which was the right thing to do. More voting access is a good thing. The narrative that this election could only be lost

if it is stolen is now firmly embedded in many conservative punditry circles, which is as absurd as it is dangerous. I'm very, very worried about what might happen if Harris wins because so many people are being told there is no way she can do it. She can. It's a coin flip election. Number three, I think Trump is going to win. However,

if I were stress testing my belief, here are the best signals for Harris. She's maintaining a narrow but consistent one to two percentage point lead in national polls. She's getting some strong final poll results. In the latest poll, she is leading in Michigan and Wisconsin by a couple of points, and she's still ahead in Pennsylvania. So the quote unquote blue wall is intact. Democrats are ahead in nearly all of the Senate races in battleground states. The latest economic numbers were excellent,

GDP up, inflation down. Trump's final rally was a reminder to many moderate and middle of the road voters about the nonsense and vitriol he can bring to office, while Harris has been actually pretty disciplined in the final two weeks of her campaign. If the polling in this race is like 2012, Harris will win. If it's like 2022, Harris will win. Even if it's like 2016, Harris could still pull it off. Pollsters say they have accounted for the Trump vote in their latest polling. Some even believe there are hidden Harris votes. We'll see. It is going to be very tight. Relatedly, Politico recently analyzed the early vote data in Pennsylvania and found that nearly

a third of all early voters who didn't vote in Pennsylvania in 2020 were women registered as Democrats. Polling also shows that Harris's numbers with suburban women and white women without college degrees are improving dramatically down the stretch, which is pretty shocking given how strong they already were. Among voters 65 and up in Pennsylvania who have already voted, Democrats are also dominating. This is probably the best news Democrats have gotten in weeks. Number five. I think the Trump campaign- Hey guys, thanks for tuning in. That was a free preview of today's Friday edition. A reminder that we are now offering ad-free

and members-only podcasts, including the paywalled Friday newsletters that we publish every week. So this was an example of one of those. If you want to subscribe to unlock this episode, you can go to tanglemedia.supercast.com and become a subscriber. That's tanglemedia.supercast.com. That'll unlock the rest of this episode as well as other Friday and Sunday editions. And it'll also give you ad-free podcasts. So you can go do that if you'd like to keep listening. Have a good weekend. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and

edited and engineered by David Thomas. Our script is edited by Ari Weitzman, Will Kabak, Bailey Saul, and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was made by Magdalena Pikova, who is also our social media manager. The music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. And if you're looking for more from Tangle, please go check out our website at readtangle.com. That's readtangle.com. We'll be right back. to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad

and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.