


Harris had pulled ahead, but now, perhaps, the "joy dividend" from her coup is fading, and non-joyous reality once again dominates people's thinking.
The Joyful One had pulled ahead in Silver's forecast earlier. And he still thinks she's likely to win the national popular vote -- but not by so much as to lock up the electoral college.
Silver thinks it's meaningful that the latest poll from tipping-state Pennsylvania -- the state which will be the key state whose winner will win the election -- shows Harris in a tie with Trump. That may not sound great (and I don't think it is great), but I guess he thinks this is Harris's high-water mark, and if she still can't manage to get a poll showing her in the lead in Pennsylvania, she will probably lose it, as the "Joy" fades.
PJMedia's Matt Margolis digests Silver's new forecast:
[N]ate Silver's famous election projection model has Trump ahead for the first time in weeks.
That is a nearly ten-point swing in Trump's favor in the projection model in just a couple of weeks. Even Silver is trying to calm down his leftist readers.
"Although we wouldn't advise worrying too much about the difference between a 52/48 race one way versus a 48/52 race the other way -- it's not a big difference -- this wasn't a good day for Kamala Harris in our model, as Donald Trump is the slight favorite for the first time since August 3," he wrote. "There's one big reason for that -- Pennsylvania, which is the tipping-point state more than one-third of the time and where it's been quite a while since we've seen a poll showing Harris leading (including two new polls today)."
He continued:
The model is also applying a convention bounce adjustment to Harris's recent numbers, who has made gains in national polls, and you could argue about whether that's the right assumption. But the bottom line is that the model has the Electoral College/popular vote gap opening up again, a concern for Harris all along. There's now a 17 percent chance she wins the popular vote but not the Electoral College, the model estimates.
I'm not so sanguine. Pro-Trump site MXMNews is hyping the fact that Trump now leads Harris with Independent voters, but the Republican almost always leads with independent voters. The question is: By how much? By a little or by enough to swing the election? Right now the lead, 42-37, is "a little."
I'm a bit depressed over the fact that Trump world considers this good news. Is this the best polling they can point to?
I hope Silver is closer-to-right.
Meanwhile:
Noted Hollywood Nepo-Baby Ben Stiller says he's voting the way he is because "it's time for a change," and so, of course, he supports the incumbent.
That's how you make change, baby.
Tropic Thunder was autobiographical, TheJamesMadison says.