For last-gasp prognostications and bold predictions, we turn to the all-star panelists of Mishpacha’s Fourcast politics podcast

Project Coordinator: Gedalia Guttentag

After one of the most volatile election campaigns in political history, it’s zero hour: the epic clash between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

What haven’t we seen in this race? One candidate seemingly back from the political dead after losing four years ago, having faced multiple indictments and assassination attempts. Another whose campaign gave up the ghost on the debate stage, to be superseded by a third who had 100 days to convince skeptical voters that she was both the continuity and the change candidate.

For many Jewish voters, this is no ordinary election, but a post-October 7 referendum. After a year of disquieting anti-Semitism on campus and on the margins of politics, some see this race as pivotal in determining the course of American support for Israel, and the battle against Jew-hatred domestically.

Yet despite the upheaval, the dynamics of the race have remained surprisingly stable throughout. With two unpopular candidates, it comes down to a neck-and-neck battle in the swing states. Who will come out ahead in the race, and which party will hold Congress next week? Is this election indeed a pivotal moment for Israel and the fight against rising anti-Semitism?

For last-gasp prognostications and bold predictions, we turn to the all-star panelists of Mishpacha’s Fourcast politics podcast.

Our panelists:

BINYAMIN ROSE

is former news editor and current editor at large for Mishpacha, and a popular commentator on US and Israeli political affairs.

MAURY LITWACK

is the founder and CEO of the Teach Coalition, one of the nation’s largest faith-based lobbying organizations in education funding advocacy, and writes Halls of Power, a semi-monthly column in these pages.

STU LOESER

is a Democratic communications strategist who has worked on three presidential campaigns as well as congressional and gubernatorial campaigns. His media strategy firm helps companies in crisis.

ELI STEINBERG

lives in New Jersey with his wife and children. They are not responsible for his opinions, which have been published broadly across Jewish and general media.

Guest panelist

SETH MANDEL

is the senior editor of Commentary magazine.

1

Nate Silver calls the popular vote a “beauty contest”; it’s irrelevant, because what happens in the swing states decides who wins. Based on what we’re seeing now in Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada, where polls show Trump either ahead or within striking distance of Harris, give us your tally for the swing states.

Binyamin Rose

My instincts tell me since Harris never padded her early lead, that’s a sign she peaked too early and has faded. Trump should win at least five of the seven swing states above, including Pennsylvania and Michigan, where voters trust him more to tackle the economy and immigration. Not sure yet about Wisconsin and Nevada. A new Marquette poll is due out this Wednesday. Marquette had Harris in the lead all along, so if the new poll shows Trump ahead, it will confirm his momentum.

Seth Mandel

I don’t have any special insight into the swing states beyond the polling, so I tend to look at what the campaigns seem to think about their own positions there. I’m seeing more nerves from the Harris campaign toward North Carolina than I expected, and more confidence from Trump in Pennsylvania, so it’s possible they both know something we don’t.

But I have also said all along that I think the Harris campaign has a poor ability to assess battleground states and tends to catastrophize. For example, the numbers have always shown that the Arab-American vote in Michigan isn’t going to cost her the state. Yet the campaign clearly believes otherwise. That could be because the Harris campaign sees Trump momentum there and in North Carolina and in Pennsylvania — or it could be because they’re nervous, and that’s all.

Maury Litwack

Nevada and North Carolina don’t belong with these other swing states. In the last two presidential elections, Nevada went blue and North Carolina went red. I predict they follow that trend. Now let’s get to the fun:

Michigan — Harris. This is the first presidential election in which Michigan has early voting, and this gives the edge to the Democrats.

Arizona — Trump. I’ve discussed this before in my column. There is an immigration ballot initiative that gives Republicans the edge.

Wisconsin — Harris. I think the Democratic Party has grown its ground game in the last four years and they can eke this out.

Georgia — Trump. The margin was a tiny 11,000 in 2020, and I think the GOP has improved its turnout and early voting to swing this state back to their column.

Pennsylvania — Trump. If Fetterman is nervous, the Democrats should be too. He believes Trump has intense support in this pivotal swing state, and that’s enough to put this in the GOP column.

I think it won’t be close in Michigan, Wisconsin, or Georgia, but it will be close in Arizona and razor-thin in Pennsylvania.

Stu Loeser

Actually, there are almost no polls in these states that have one candidate up over the margin of error. Every real poll — ones using actual contacts with voters and basing educated predictions on that — caution that they could be off by two, three, or even five points in either direction. So the new large, credible, cautious Quinnipiac poll that shows Harris up by four points in Michigan could actually mean that she’s up by only one point there — and a real lead of one point isn’t much of a real lead.

Every one of these states is actually tied. That might seem shocking in Arizona, but the Democrat running for Senate there is leading by several points even outside the worst-case margin of error. When Trump won in 2016, Democrats in the US Senate races in tight states were all in free-fall. This year, none of them are. That doesn’t automatically mean Harris is going to win Arizona, where the Republican Senate candidate has huge weaknesses (and some strengths). But either candidate could win these states.

Eli Steinberg

I think you have to consider the following. Polls in the past have undersampled the Trump vote, and we really have not heard of any substantive adjustments to their methodology to try to capture it now. So while they have made changes, there is no real way to know how those are playing out until we get actual results.

At the same time, we are seeing clear movement to the Republican ticket over the last weeks, up and down the ballot, as voters who did not want Trump are “coming home” in all these states. So in light of that clear movement we see across the board, it is more likely for Trump to sweep all these states than anything else.