July 28–August 4, 2024
Winning candidates have a sense of humor. They can laugh. #
The Marsh Family, a British music group, has entered the J.D. Vance fray, producing a parody of Dancing Queen by ABBA:
Savvy social media users may have fun with Vance’s “childless cat ladies” comment. Imagine the viral marketing opportunity: A deluge of cat videos with the slogan cats for Kamala.
John F. Kennedy endeared himself to people as much through his sense of humor as his grasp of public policy. Witness his news conference recordings.
Ronald Reagan was “the great communicator” as well as a leader of the conservative movement of the 1980s. See Compilation of President Reagan’s Humor from Selected Speeches, 1981-89.
During the 2020 presidential campaign, The Virtual Tout® provided a rare data-based example of the power of humor in politics. Prediction markets showed an increase in forecasted Democratic electoral votes in the hours following the Saturday Night Live (SNL) skit VP Fly Debate Cold Open from October 11, 2020.
As described in The Virtual Tout® Archive, for the 2020 presidential election, we updated forecasts every hour across the two months leading up to election day. Each hourly forecast was based on simulating what would happen in state-by-state voting in the Electoral College. Our forecasts built on prediction market prices across 56 Electoral College markets.
Each point in the figure below represents an hourly forecast from one million hypothetical elections from October 7 to October 12, 2020. Notice the upward trend in the points after the SNL skit on October 11. These points show an increase from 314 to 318 Democratic electoral votes in the 24 hours following the SNL skit. Betters in the prediction markets gave the Biden-Harris ticket a better chance of winning after the SNL skit.
Trump and Harris have different visions for America’s future. Their messages have little in common. Their personal characteristics and styles are distinct.
What about the candidates as people? What do they do for fun? How to they treat others? Are they warm? Are they caring? Can they love? Can they laugh, even at themselves?
A recent New York Times podcast ‘The Interview’: Pete Buttigieg Thinks the Trump Fever Could Break ends with recognition of Kamala Harris’s intelligence and sense of humor.
Watch out, Republicans. She can laugh.
Note the recent election forecast from Allan Lichtman: Harris vs Trump! Prediction Professor Explains Which Way the Election is Leaning with Kamala Harris. Lichtman’s conclusion: A lot would have to go wrong for the Democrats to lose this election.
Building on historical data, our current machine learning model shows that The Democratic Party has a 75.8% chance of winning in the Electoral College.
The Virtual Tout® listens to all sides of the political debate. We post research results, election forecasts, and political commentary on this site.
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