Trump vs Harris - And The Winner Is?

The answer is Harris, of course, by a modern day landslide!

I think Harris will win the popular vote by 10 million votes.

And I think Harris will win the electoral college vote count by 308 to 230. See electoral college projected map below.

In the post mortem analysis, the following points will surface in favor of Harris:

1. The polling error will end up more like 2022 (which favored Democrats) than in 2020 and 2016 (which favored Trump).

2. The pollsters will have undercounted the so-called "cross-over" vote where Republican and right-leaning Independents crossed over and voted for Harris.

3. The abortion issue is still front-and-center, and pollsters will have undercounted the number of women from both parties who will have voted for Harris (and/or against Trump).

4. The U.S. economy is the envy of the world right now with historically low unemployment, record high stock prices, and rising hourly wages, which favors Harris.

5. The Trump campaign seemed a bit complacent to me when the PolyMarket.com betting odds recently soared to over 70% in favor of Trump. Since "everyone" loves an underdog, the Harris campaign was able to paint itself as the underdog which lit a fire under the Harris supporters to get out and vote. Of course, one of the reasons that I am so sure that Harris will win is because the PolyMarket.com odds have now dropped to only 58% for Trump. The Predictit.org betting site odds actually have Harris now at 53% to win which is up from just 35% two weeks ago. And I think the real odds of a Harris win are 99.4%, especially after the Trump campaign called Puerto Rico a garbage island last Sunday (which almost certainly guarantees a victory for Harris in the key swing state of Pennsylvania where there are 450,000 Puerto Rican residents)!

6. The Harris campaign's ground game for election day is supposedly the best there ever was in Presidential politics (and very well funded). Trump's ground game for election day will be seen as weak, uninspired, and less than needed to win the key swing states. Somebody at the top of the Trump campaign will almost certainly yell "You're fired!" as the election results come heavily in favor of Harris on Tuesday night, November 5th. Of course, it will be too late by then. 

And because Ted Cruz will likely lose his Senate seat to Colin Allred in Texas, and because Deb Fischer is in danger of losing her Senate seat to Dan Osborn in Nebraska, the Senate majority will remain in the hands of the Democratic Party. And it looks to me like the Democrats will handily win back to the majority in the House of Representatives as well. Wow, a clean sweep for Democrats now appears likely by me this coming Tuesday, November 5th!

Projected Electoral College Vote Map for November 5th, 2024

How will the financial markets respond to this "unexpected" outcome? It appears to me that most investors and many pundits have already discounted a Trump victory on Tuesday despite the fact that almost every pollster predicts a close race and currently calls this contest a "toss up".

The U.S. bond market had its worst month in more than two years last month (October 2024) while the stock market posted record highs almost every day until last week. Bond prices collapsed because investors see record budget deficits under Trump (and maybe even record deficits under Harris, but just not as high).

I think bond prices will rally on a Harris victory. In fact, I am more confident that bond prices will rally than I am about any prospects for the U.S. stock market.

However, on Friday, November 1st, after the close of NY trading, my proprietary trading algorithm triggered a weekly chart sell signal in the Nasdaq-100 Index (symbol QQQ). Here is a copy of that chart with the latest sell signal in RED:

Nasdaq-100 Index (QQQ) Weekly Chart with latest Sell Signal

Bottom Line: Kamala Harris is likely to win a convincing victory in the Presidential Election this coming Tuesday, November 5th. U.S. bond prices are likely to rally when her victory is declared, stock prices are likely to decline, and the Federal Reserve is likely to lower its target on the Federal Funds rate by 25 basis points on Thursday, November 7th.