Liberty Nation News’ Election Countdown: 18 Days to Go

By: Liberty Nation - Politics Posted On: October 17, 2024 View: 0

This article was originally published on Liberty Nation - Politics. You can read the original article HERE

All the latest polls, betting odds, and news. Updated Daily.

Kamala is hoping her Fox News interview will sway voters. NPR releases an Electoral College map based on current polling. And Trump continues to gain ground in the battleground states. With just 18 days to go before the election, Liberty Nation News wants you to have the full facts. We update this page daily, so please bookmark and keep checking back.

National Polling

According to the RealClearPolitics average of polls, Kamala Harris is barely hanging on to her slim lead. She currently has an average advantage of 1.6%, a total drop in support of 0.4 % in just the last few days. And things get worse for the Harris campaign, looking at NPR’s latest Electoral College projection.

Based on current polling, Donald Trump can rely on 246 EC votes compared to Harris’ 226. That leaves just 66 EC votes up for grabs across five states: Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nevada. Of note is that three of these were considered to lean Democrat in August.

NPR is actually one of the first organizations to come out of the gate and declare certain battlegrounds are now edging towards more comfortable territory for either candidate. Other outlets are still biding their time. But here’s what they have in terms of safe seats:

270toWin: Trump 219 – Harris 226
CNN: Trump 219 – Harris 226
RealClearPolitics – Trump 219 – Harris 215

As you can see, RCP has a different figure than the rest. This is because it has Minnesota (ten EC votes) listed as a toss-up. The last five polls from the state show Harris with a 4.8% lead, but polling is sparse because the last time a Republican won here was Richard Nixon in 1972. Even Ronald Reagan lost out in his 49-state landslide due to hometown boy Walter Mondale. One should not, however, forget that the margin of error of these polls averages 3.6% – the whole state could be decided by a single-point swing.

Battle for the Battlegrounds

National surveys are one thing, but the electoral contest is decided by the handful of states known as battlegrounds, where the real action takes place. Polling in the swing states is always much thinner on the ground than for national surveys, which is why parsing the numbers differently often provides valuable insight. The superb RealClearPolitics average of battleground polls grants Donald Trump a lead in six out of the seven states (with Kamala leading in just Wisconsin +0.3%). An average here suggests Trump is now ahead across these subsections by 0.7% – a full half-point increase since the beginning of the week. And while this is valuable data, it is worth narrowing the lens – due to the sparsity of polling – to get a feel for the zeitgeist.

Rather than take the last ten polls to paint the pertinent picture (because these can range from as far back as mid-September), Liberty Nation News opted to take the average of the five most recent surveys. We feel this provides a more up-to-date snapshot of the race as it stands today. Using this rubric:

Arizona – Trump +1.6%
Georgia – Trump +1.6%
Michigan – Trump +1%
Nevada – Trump +0.8%
North Carolina – Trump +1%
Pennsylvania – Trump +0.8%
Wisconsin – Trump +0.6%

Since Monday, October 14, Donald Trump’s overall average lead has expanded from 0.4% to 1.05% (although there is a slight dip from yesterday’s figure of 1.17%). The latest polling shows a drop of 0.2% for Trump in Georgia and a tightening of the race in Nevada. This may signify a swing back to support for Kamala Harris, but will it be enough to start a trend?

Of note is that polling seems to be drying up. No new polls carried out within the last seven days for Wisconsin or Michigan have been released. One might presume that as we get closer to Election Day, surveys would be landing in a fast-and-furious fashion, but not so. That, in itself, might be telling.

Betting on Election 2024

It is often the betting markets that prove most accurate when it comes to predicting electoral outcomes – and why wouldn’t they? It takes a high level of confidence to put one’s money on the line. On Election Day 2020, the odds* looked like this:

Joe Biden: 4/7 (-175)
Donald Trump: 6/4 (+150)

And the cash players turned out to be right. So, what do the gamblers have to say about November 5 this year?

Donald Trump: 13/18 (-138.89)
Kamala Harris: 11/8 (+140)

The odds continue to swing in Donald Trump’s favor with an overnight increase that, yet again, directly reflects the drop in support Harris received from the cash players. Yesterday’s betting markets saw the total cash bets placed on Trump double that of Harris. Based on these latest betting market odds, the probability of Trump winning in November now stands at 58.48% compared with 41.32% for a Harris victory.

Betting odds change more frequently than polling because they are updated as each tranche of betting happens, rather than waiting for a multi-day poll to be completed. This allows the interested observer to see how the world is reacting to events in near real-time.

To be a one-stop shop for all things Election 2024, Liberty Nation News will be updating this page every day with the latest polling info, betting data, and campaign news.

* Betting odds explained: Betting odds are displayed here in the British format, known as fractional odds, and the American format, often called moneyline odds. With fractional odds, the second number represents the amount of money bet, and the first number is the return. 3/5 means a winning bet of $5 would yield a $3 profit. Moneyline odds show a minus (-) or plus (+) symbol for favorites and underdogs, respectively. The favorite may have odds of -300, meaning somebody would have to bet $300 in order to win $100. An underdog might have odds of +250, meaning a person would win $250 on a $100 wager.