Politics

NEW: Top Election Forecast Reveals Major Shift In The Race With Two Weeks To Go

Published

1 month ago

October 21, 2024

A top election forecasting model is finally beginning to show that former President Donald Trump is in the pole position with two weeks to go before Election Day.

The Hill’s Decision Desk HQ now gives the former president a 52% chance of winning on November 5th, a notable shift from previous results showing the two in a dead heat on October 17th. In a sign of just how positive things are shaping up to be for Trump’s side, the GOP is expected to win control of both the U.S. House and Senate, DDHQ models show. In 2020, the organization gave President Joe Biden an 87.6% chance of winning.

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Following third-quarter fundraising reports showing Republicans raising money at a healthy clip, pollsters are forecasting a 71% chance of the Senate flipping red while House Republicans have a 54% chance of retaining control in the lower chamber. In the Senate, Republicans are all but certain to flip the West Virginia seat currently held by Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) and have a favorable outlook on winning the Montana seat held by vulnerable Democratic Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT). No Republican-held seat is expected to be picked up by the Democrats, DDHQ predicts.

President Trump’s lead is the first time the venerable forecaster has given him the upper hand since Vice President Kamala Harris entered the race. The first forecast, released on August 20th, gave Harris a 53% lead to Trump’s 47%, a lead that began to quickly vanish as the race entered its final month. A closeted media strategy and several shaky national interviews have prompted more hand-wringing among Democrats about the vice president’s ability to hold it together before the election. President Trump has ripped his rival as “not smart” and “dumb” on the campaign trail as well as a “liar,” citing her oft-repeated and unproven story about working several summers at McDonald’s.

In the Electoral College, President Trump gathers 272 voters in DDHQ’s latest model, the first time he has passed the 270 threshold to win the presidency. Some of the most contested areas of the country, including one tossup congressional district in Maine and another two in Nebraska, now favor Trump, according to the latest results. And MAGA faithful may be heartened to see that pollsters’ conservative predictions for a number of swing states are far likelier to be red. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina are all battlegrounds where President Trump has posted clear leads, and even Nevada, not won by a Republican presidential candidate since 2004, had shown Trump up by 7 points in one recent poll.

The must-win state of Pennsylvania, despite being a toss-up in DDHQ’s model, trends slightly toward Trump, a sign that Democrats’ formidable ground game is failing to make inroads with voters traditionally aligned with their party. Locally elected Democrats have griped that the Harris campaign has failed to lean on their expertise while working the ground in Philadelphia, and U.S. Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) has stepped on their message as well, even predicting that President Trump would win his home state.