Four reasons why Trump is likely winning right now

Party registration, party identification, early voting, and strong polling numbers in the important battleground states

Let's just get down to brass tacks here folks. The fundamentals mean more than what the pundits say and we have the strongest historical reference (two previous Trump election cycles) of any recent election to compare our fundamentals to:

• Party Registration: This has been an overlooked factor when discussing the state of the election, but it is obviously quite important. For the first time I can recall, the GOP has outmaneuvered the Democrats by gaining Party registration in comparison to the Democrats. Generally that is a Democratic advantage especially when it comes from registering newer younger voters. But not only has the Republicans made gains, but many polls are suggesting that first-time voters are actually leaning towards Trump, so this bodes well for the GOP as a whole.

• Party Identification: For the first election in recent history, the GOP goes into the election with a Party identification advantage. In the most recent Gallup, more people say they are Republican than Democrat. Sure, the number is only by a single percent, but it is real none-the-less. I have seen a couple of other polls that mirror the idea that Republicans now outnumber Democrats and in one poll it was by three points. But even if this is "even" it is showing very positive movement since the previous two elections.

• Early Voting Numbers: The old saying goes in election prognostication that you should never read too much into special elections and early voting. But the early voting numbers are so substantially different that it would seem prudent to at least point out that Democrats are falling well short of their 2020 early voting numbers, while the GOP seems to be running ahead. While the latter can be written off as stealing election day votes and casting them early, the former is not so simple. It may not be as easy for the previous year's early voter to simply go vote on election day. If someone voted early last election and got used to that, why would they go back to election day voting? So there are two potential problems for Democrats here. One is that the GOP might be picking up some hard to reach low-propensity voters (as is their strategy) and padding their numbers. The other is that the people who voted early in 2020 but have not done so in 2024 decide not to vote at all. As of two days ago, the Democrats were over 800,000 early votes behind their 2020 final number in Pennsylvania. They are only adding about 30,000 or so a day at this point. Are they really expecting several hundred thousand more Democratic voters to cast ballots on election day?

• Polling is much better for Trump: Yeah, I get the caveat that everyone is throwing around. No way do they get it wrong three Presidential elections in a row. But they also over-estimated the GOP vote in the 2022 midterms which appeared to be more alarming to these pollsters than what took place in the previous two Presidential elections. So they may be weighing in both factors and that might end up evening out a bit. My spreadsheet is not showing much difference between the averages vs the cross-tabs, which suggests that they may be more accurate than in the past on the national front. But the battleground state polling perspective I am still seeing pollsters that seem to be providing numbers that are out of whack with the previous partisan breakdowns. As I have stated, those seven states run about four points better for the GOP on voter identification than the nation as a whole. I am not seeing that reflected in the polling as we did when Clinton and Biden held big National leads but smaller battleground state leads. We are seeing these numbers much closer to even, which seems counterintuitive to the reality of the partisan difference. Are these pollsters taking into consideration the registration gains and the party identification changes from the previous elections? Some seem to be, but others seem stubbornly sticking to the idea that Democrats will outvote Republicans in these states when they have not in either of the previous two.

Obviously none of this is "proof" of anything. Democrats could surge on election day in Pennsylvania or outnumber Republicans in Georgia or early voting advantages in North Carolina and Nevada could turn out to be a mirage. We don't know anything for sure. But given what we "do" know, there seems to be a lot more good news for Trump in the fundamentals than their are for Harris.