Geopolitics Review - 23rd September 2024

State-Level Hypothesis Testing

Contents

1. Introduction

2. Harris 2024 vs Biden 2020

3. Urbanisation By State

4. Problems With Polling and Forecasting

5. Concluding Remarks

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Bitesize Edition

• If we focused on how every event could affect the outcome of the U.S. election, we’d drive ourselves crazy. Many events have little impact on the overall result, and some events aren’t even seen in changes in the polls. There is a lot of noise when it comes to elections.

• In the United States, the presidency is won through the electoral college which I’ve discussed previously. Biden beat Trump in 2020, and so I questioned how Harris is currently polling today in comparison to Biden in 2020. If Harris is polling better, is victory in November nailed on? If Harris is polling worse than Biden, does she have a tougher path to the White House, or is her path completely blocked, paving the way for a Trump victory?

• In the buildup to elections, there are no certainties. We can look back with hindsight after the election has occurred and reflect on our predictions, but when approaching the election date, we can’t assume anything with certainty. What we can do prior to an event, is see if the probabilities and odds are on our side with any prediction we make. Does the data support the trends and evidence we believe exist? That’s what I’ll explore today on a state level. Is Harris polling better or worse than Biden did in 2020, and how will this affect her campaign from here?

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Introduction

In what will be my final piece for now covering the US election, I’ll explore how Harris is polling in 2024 in comparison to Biden in 2020. Biden eventually won the Electoral College by a margin of a few states in 2020. Will Harris command such a victory, will her battle be tighter than Biden’s, or is she set for a defeat?

I’ll also explore a longer trend unfolding in the United States, with that being urbanisation and its effects on politics in the United States.

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Harris 2024 vs Biden 2020

• Null Hypothesis (H(0))= Harris's polling in 2024 is the same as Biden’s polling in 2020.

• Alternative Hypothesis (H(1)) = Harris is polling worse in 2024 than Biden was in 2020.

Data (Figures Are Percentages):

Note: Figures are rounded and so gaps between candidates sometimes appear miscalculated.

From the data, Harris is polling worse than Biden in 14 of the 17 states I’m analysing. I chose these states due to their narrow margins in the 2020 election results, or in the current 2024 election polling. The Harris underperformance is seen in the bottom row, with Harris polling better than Biden only in Alaska, Maine, and Colorado as represented by a positive figure.

Of course, the important aspect is which states fall to which candidate, and not if Harris or Biden is polling better.. Harris could perform worse than Biden and still win, of course. Its here that were have to once again explore the election on a state level.

Of the states explored in the dataset, Biden won 13 of the 17 in 2020.

By Harris’ polling, she is predicted in 11 of the 17 states. The losing states for the Democrats from Biden 2020 to Harris 2024 are Georgia and Arizona. All other states are currently predicted to fall as they did in 2020 in 2024.

Before November, this of course can shift, but Georgia and Arizona along with Pennsylvania are, in my view, shaping up to be part of the most important states in this election.

Let’s continue with the hypothesis test.

\(X^{*} = \frac{1}{n} \sum_{i = 1}^{n} (X_{i})\)

Mean Difference Between Biden and Harris = -2.85%

\(\sqrt{\frac{1}{n-1} \sum_{i=1}^{n} (X_{i} - X^{*})^2}\)

Standard Deviation = 3.5%.

The standard deviation shows the potential spread of results when comparing Biden and Harris. Hence, in taking the mean of -2.85% and adding and taking away one standard deviation, Harris could outperform Biden by 0.65% in all states or underperform by as much as -6.35%.

We will be using the Student T-Test for this hypothesis test. This is due to the small sample size of less than 30, and we had an unknown standard deviation which we had to predict using the data as seen above.

• Test Statistic

\(t = \frac{X^{*} - \mu}{\frac{s}{\sqrt{n}}} = -3.36\)

• Degrees Of Freedom = N - 1 = 16

• P-Value = 0.002.

• Decision = The P-value of 0.002 is less than our 5% significance level of 0.05. Hence we reject the null hypothesis. This means Harris is polling worse than Biden did. The mean of -2.85% when comparing Biden and Harris supports that Harris is polling worse than Biden. Of course, we could have determined this without the hypothesis test, but I wanted to highlight the process that is performed.

With this conclusion in mind, where do we look next?

By current polling, the Democrats would win 292 electoral votes versus 246 for the Republicans. The finest margin states are North Carolina (0.2%), Nevada (0.8%), Pennsylvania (0.8%), and Arizona (-0.8%).

What does leaving these four states as undetermined lead to?

With all these states as tie-ups, the Democrats have three pathways to victory, versus two for the Republicans.

One of three such paths to Democrat victory requires they win Pennsylvania only (19 Votes).

The two Republican victories in this scenario must see the Republicans win Pennsylvania.

If the Democrats don’t win Pennsylvania, they need North Carolina (16 Votes) or they have no pathway to victory.

Again, regardless of how many scenarios are considered, it seems all roads lead to Pennsylvania. This is likely an indication as to why the Presidential Debate was likely held there. Note, that this is one such scenario. As I’ve discussed before, many other states can change before November.

Many questions could be asked, such as will Tim Walz as VP pay off for the Democrats? As many thought before the pick, would Josh Shapiro, the Governor of Pennsylvania, have put the race for the electoral college to bed?

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Biden eventually won victory in the Electoral College in 2020. Harris polling worse than Biden means she’ll face a greater challenge than Biden did in winning the electoral college and hence the presidency.

One thing is clear. The race is far from over, especially in these key battleground states.

I’ve now explored this election in depth. However, there are long-term trends where politics and demographics intersect. One such area is urban voter support for Democrats.

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Urbanisation By State

Last week, I discussed party systems. This refers to periods that often see one party dominate US politics for several election cycles.

In my analysis of demographic trends in the United States, one aspect that pointed towards strong and growing Democrat support was amongst Urban citizens. With urbanisation on the rise, I wanted to explore if this hypothesis is supported by the data, and hence could indicate a long-term potential trend in US politics.

• Null Hypothesis (H(0)) = Urban voters do not align more with Democrats compared to suburban and rural voters.

• Alternative Hypothesis (H(1)) = Urban voters align more with Democrats compared to suburban and rural voters.