July 13, 2024
Candidates, messages, caution, and civility #
The Virtual Tout® has received requests to forecast the 2024 presidential election.
In the 2020 presidential election, we gathered extensive data from prediction markets and ran millions of hypothetical electoral college elections. We provided hourly updates of election forecasts beginning in late August 2020. We were successful in predicting election results. See The Virtual Tout Archive and In the Media.
While we appreciate the interest, we are reluctant to forecast so soon in the 2024 election cycle. Elections can turn in an instant. Four months is an eternity in political time.
Do not believe current political polls or forecasts based on these polls. Political polls are unreliable data sources, especially when conducted well in advance of an election. Prediction markets and surveys (when available) provide more trustworthy data sources.
When we cast ballots in a presidential election, we vote for both the president and vice president. Current polls fail to account for this simple truth.
Before making election forecasts, we need to see what happens at the Republican National Convention, set for July 15–18, 2024. Candidates for both president and vice president must be identified. We also want to learn the extent to which the Republican Party embraces Project 2025.
Before making forecasts, we must observe the Democratic National Convention, set for August 19–22, 2024. Talk about replacing Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket continues. Catch Mark Halperin’s broadcast: Can Joe Biden Stay in the Race?.
Even if the Democratic ticket remains intact, the party’s campaign messaging could move away from Biden, focusing instead on the Biden-Harris ticket. Voters are concerned about Biden’s age. Promoting Harris alongside Biden could have a substantial effect on the election outcome.
Game Change, an excellent documentary about the 2008 presidential election, provides key takeaways: Running for president is a brutal process, and the VP pick can greatly influence election results. In 2008, a much younger Joe Biden easily outperformed his inexperienced Republican opponent, Sarah Palin. Additional takeaways emerge from Game Change: Communication skills are critical to a candidate’s success, and debates matter.
We have seen massive communication failures from both the Republican and Democratic candidates for president in the current election cycle. Voters are concerned. Strong VP candidates may partially allay these concerns.
What about Donald Trump’s VP pick? A Trump-Vance ticket or (in keeping with the theme of Game Change) a Trump-Gabbard ticket could be expected to fare better than a Trump-Rubio ticket.
If the Democratic ticket remains intact, Democrats can promote Harris as an experienced and capable candidate for vice president, ready to step into the role of president if needed. Check out the Bulwark Podcast, It’s Time to Reintroduce Kamala to America! (with Elaina Plott Calabro).
As the former Attorney General of California, Harris can make a forceful case against Trump—she can prosecute Trump at every campaign stop and after every development in criminal cases involving Trump. As a woman, Harris can make an impassioned plea for a woman’s right to choose. She can talk about a family’s right to seek in vitro fertilization (IVF) and about all people’s rights to obtain needed medical care, contraception, and ethical drugs. As a person of color who is both African-American and Asian-American, Harris is quite capable of defending voting rights, especially the voting rights of minorities.
Many fear a Trump victory, fiscal policies that favor the wealthy, additional right-wing judicial appointments, and a retreat from long-term alliances with nations espousing democratic values. To defeat Republican candidates up and down the ballot, Democrats can develop campaign messaging around the policy positions of the parties. They can point to Project 2025, a draconian plan promoting economic inequality, religious intolerance, and social injustice, as described in this broadcast by Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin: Fight for Democracy: Why It’s Time to Change the Narrative, and How You Can Help.
Democrats can stress their support for democratic (with a small “d”) principles, in contrast with the GOP’s penchant for autocracy. True believers in the rule of law and the United States Constitution need not sit out the 2024 election. Rather, they can ride the Democratic Party’s democracy train, en route to an equitable and just future for all people living in the United States. Voters can ride this train whatever the ticket: Biden-Harris, Harris-Klobuchar, or a ticket identified through an open convention.
What is a winning Democratic message? Bill Clinton and Barack Obama offered messages of hope pointing to a brighter future, messages about openness to new ideas and acceptance of people regardless of age, sex, race, or ethnicity. In 2020, Joe Biden offered a return to health and safety at home, as well as informed and measured leadership on the international stage. Winning candidates deliver such messages clearly and forcefully.
Voters respond to messages that ring true delivered by candidates they trust. In Biden Must Drop Out to Save the Country from Trump, James Carville argues that an open Democratic convention, in addition to garnering a large and engaged viewership, would be the best way find candidates to win this year’s presidential election. Unfortunately, as history shows, open conventions can be contentious, hindering the path to victory for the incumbent party.
Are you better off now than you were four years ago? That has been a winning message for both parties across many elections.
Make America great again (MAGA) has become the rallying cry of Republicans. If MAGA is merely a shorthand for a far-right agenda, intolerant of diversity, it will fail in the long-run.
America is the ultimate melting pot, defined by diversity and bolstered by individual freedom.
Moderate, fact-based messages can win, especially when delivered with understanding of and respect for others. Make America civil again.
Who will be running this year? Which candidates and messages will prevail? As of July 13, 2024, we don’t know. What we do know is that this year’s elections will be among the most important and interesting elections in our lifetime.
The Virtual Tout® will be watching and listening to both sides of the debate. And if we can develop trustworthy, data-driven predictive models, we will post our forecasts here.
Learn more about the research services we provide.
See the log of News postings.
The most recent news is on the home page.