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Notes: November 5, 2024

With the polls opening on the East Coast at 6 AM Eastern Standard Time, November 5, 2024, The Virtual Tout® has the Republican ticket in the lead (270 needed to win):

  • Republican: Trump/Vance (280)
  • Democratic: Harris/Walz (258)

How did we arrive at this electoral vote forecast? A detailed discussion of our methods has been provided under Top-Down Forecasting, Focus on Electoral Votes, Estimating Vote Shares, and Electoral Vote Step Functions.

Prediction markets have a Republican bias. We assessed the degree of Republican bias in 2020, and we have corrected for that degree of bias in the current forecast. But we will not know the precise degree of bias in 2024 until the votes have been counted and election results have been certified across the fifty states and the District of Columbia.

Those who support the Democratic ticket can remain hopeful for various reasons:

  • Forecasted electoral votes of 280 versus 258 (or 275 versus 263, the November 4 end-of-day forecast) suggest that one or two states can move the result from the Republican to the Democratic ticket.
  • A widening gender gap observed in opinion polls suggests that this year’s prediction markets may indeed be more heavily biased toward Republicans than in the 2020 election.
  • Political fundamentals are in the Democrats’ favor, as noted in the October 20 news posting.
  • For the last week of the race, most of the movement has been in the direction of the Democratic ticket. If this movement continues through election day, the Democratic ticket will win.
  • Ours is a divided nation with strong opinions on both sides. Kamala Harris’s closing message of the campaign has been one of unity, bringing the country together. Harris has demonstrated a willingness and ability to work with others across the political spectrum. Voters hoping for a return to civility in politics may respond to Harris’s closing messages, as they appear to have done in the last week of the race.

The Virtual Tout® listens to all sides of the political debate. We post research results, election forecasts, and political commentary on this site. And we post up-to-the-minute forecasts on TinyTicker™.

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