Weekly Report from Peter Huessy and Montgomery County on November 4, 2024

Dear Friends: We have new polling data, economic data re Trump’s economy vs Harris/Biden; the windfall Iran has received from oil sales; job openings are dropping; retirement accounts lost $2.5 trillion in purchasing power since 2021; school choice on the ballot; plus, some interesting voting numbers from elections going all the way back to 1976.

Our report today starts with a newly released poll from the Daily Mail released Thursday, showed Trump with 49 percent support among likely voters, while Harris had 46 percent, marking a four-point swing since last month, when Harris led by one point.

The poll came as some national forecasters echoed a similar shift. Aggregators such as RealClearPolitics have recently placed Trump slightly ahead of Harris, with a lead of just 0.4 points. Meanwhile, polling averages from FiveThirtyEight showed Harris holding a narrow 1.4-point lead, but with a declining trend over recent weeks.

With just five days remaining, the election's outcome is likely to hinge on seven swing states—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—where polling shows the candidates are locked in neck-and-neck races or holding slim margins.

But according to the DailyMail.com/J.L. Partners poll, Trump's gains among independent voters and slight national polling edge might give him a path to 270 electoral votes if he manages to secure battleground states. Trumps polling numbers are better than they were in 2020 and 2016.

Trump Retakes Lead in RCP Average

Adeline Von Drehle

Former President Donald Trump leads in the RealClearPolitics National Average for the first time since Aug. 4. With just eight days until the presidential election and millions of ballots already cast, Vice President Kamala Harris is down 0.1 points nationally and 0.9 points in the RealClearPolitics Battleground State Average.  

Trump’s lead in the battleground states is no recent feat, but his gains in the national polls have made headlines as further proof that the former president has taken back command of a contest he had in the bag before the Democrats’ switcheroo. Read more

Oil, Energy, Iran and $s for Terrorism

Iran and Energy

The climate crisis folks want to drive the price of oil up to European pump prices. And the drive-by media usually applaud and write dutifully that it’s a wonderful idea.

Well, under Trump Iranian oil production---due to sanctions by the USA—dropped from 3.4 mb/d down to 2 million mb/d. That’s millions of barrels per day. (By contrast the USA produces 13.2 mb/d, the highest production of any country in the world.) Under Biden Iran oil production has gone back up to 3.3 mb/d as of September as sanctions against receiving oil revenue have been lifted by Biden/Harris.  

Now under Trump oil averaged $45 a barrel. But oil averaged $90 under Obama and around $70 under Biden/Harris.

Thus, what is the difference for Iran of oil at $80 barrel and between selling 2 mb/d vs 3.3 mb/d? In just the volume of oil that comes to $10 billion. So, the Biden/Harris Iran dividend was giving the crazy Mullahs an extra $27 million a day!!

But that is not all. Since the price went from  $45 to $80 barrel, Iran is thus taking in an extra $42 billion a year at the higher price, or $115 more millions a day. That’s the second Biden/Harris dividend.

The annual military budgets of Hamas and Hezbollah are a combined $1 billion, so the annual daily increase in oil revenue for Iran from 2021-24 of $64 billion annually comes to $175 million a day. So, in 6 days or about one week it pays the annual military budget of the two largest terrorist organizations in the Middle East. So, in 6 days Iran pays for the military budget for Hamas and Hezbollah with the increased oil revenue received from the lowered sanctions against Iran. .  

In January 2021, Iran made $32.8 billion in crude oil sales. Now in November 2024, Iran makes $96.3 billion in crude oil sales. That’s a $63.5 billion annual increase. Or $174 million a day.  

Some interesting numbers re past elections.

Hillary Clinton got 65 million votes in 2016 and Trump received 62 million in 2016. 127 million voted in all.

But four years later, the number hit 155 million which was a totally unprecedented increase of 28 million…….10 million greater than any other 4 year increase.  

Hillary Clinton however only received 389,000 more votes than Obama in 2012. Romney got 60.9 million in 2012 so Trump got about 1 million more than Romney, which were both relatively low increases. .

But in 2020, Biden got 81.2 million votes or 16m more votes than both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in 2012 and 2016.

However, Trump received 74.2 million votes or 12 million more than Trump got in 2016. Matched Bush from 2000-4 and exceeded Reagan 1980-84 in terms of increase in his second run for President vs. first run. And 13 million more votes that Romney. .

Now what is interesting is that Incumbent President Obama lost votes in his second run; Carter lost votes in his second run. And GHWB went down a big 12 million (Perot got 17 million votes that election) in his second run.

Three Prez went up: GWB went up 12 million votes between 2000 and 2004, Clinton went up 2.5 million votes even with Perot out of the race. And Reagan got 54.5 million or 10 million more votes than in 1980.

So, 3 Prez got more votes and 3 got less votes in their second run vs first run. And Trump from 2016 to 2020 was among the top vote getters in terms of an increase the second time around. He matched Bush 43 and was way ahead of Clinton and even ahead of Reagan. The thing will be to see where the national vote total for Trump comes in compared to 74 million in 2020. THAT IS KEY!!!!

Johnson, Ford, Kenndy only ran once. But Nixon got a whopping 15 million more votes in 1972 vs 1968 as Wallace wasn’t running, and McGovern got 10 million fewer votes than Humprey which was a huge decline.

In 1988 some  91 million people voted and then in 1992, 106 million, which was a big increase of 15 million more people. Due to Perot? Some certainly.  

Let’s compare 1976 Ford and Reagan, and Carter and Carter in 1976 and 1980:

Carter got 40.8m vs Ford at 39.1m over a little less than 2 million vote margin, so 80 million total votes,

But in 1980, Reagan got 43.9m or 4.8 million more votes than Ford while Carter got 35.5m or 5.3 million fewer votes than he got in 1976. That’s a swing of 10 million!!  But Cong Anderson, a third party candidate and former R got 5.7 million votes. Or 86 million total votes, which was an increase of 6 million from 1976. And Reagan got 4.8/6 million new voters.

Now what is interesting is that in 2008, Obama got 69.5m votes and McCain got 59.9, a pretty big 10m vote margin. Bigger than Trump vs. Biden where the margin was 7 million.  So, the big shot independent maverick lost by more votes that the supposed far right Trump.

And Hillary in 2016 actually got 4.5 million FEWER votes than Obama in 2008. But Biden got 12 million more votes than Obama in 2008……So Biden who campaigned from his basement got a huge uptick in votes vs the first potential black President. And Hillary got 4.5 million fewer votes even as the first women potential President.

But Obama got 4 million fewer votes in his second race than his first race while Trump actually went up 12 million in his second race. And at 74 million, that was 15 million more than McCain. And Biden was 12 million more than Obama in 2008.  

School Choice is on the Ballot

In Nebraska, teacher unions are spending millions to overturn a 2023 law creating education scholarships for non-public schools. 
In Kentucky,  Amendment 2 would amend the state Constitution to allow tax dollars to flow to students "outside of public schools." Two powerful statewide officeholders have taken opposite sides, with Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear backing the unions and Republican Senator Rand Paul siding with parent groups.
In Colorado, Amendment 80 would ensure all children have "the right to school choice," including private schools, charter schools, and homeschooling options.

So, the Economic News of the Week

Retirement Accounts Lose Purchasing Power of $23,000 on $100,000 investment value

A $100,000 retirement account from 2021 to today, according to UP senior fellow EJ Antoni in a study on how inflation-adjusted investment performance cratered under Biden, lost lots of money. He's updated his findings in a new UP paper. The big takeaway: the typical plan has lost between $12,000 and $23,000 in purchasing power value since Biden entered office.

Job Openings Continue to Decline

Job openings are now at the lowest level since early 2021 and below end-of-2018 levels.  Openings have been trending down since early 2022, as have quits, which are now at the lowest level (excluding covid) since early 2018. (People hold on to their existing jobs longer when hiring slows down.) Hires increased, only 12,000 but are still within their own downward trend that also began in early 2022.
What does this mean for workers? Their leverage in the job market "has eroded significantly, with the labor leverage ratio (the ratio of quits to layoffs) dipping below pre-COVID levels for the first time since the pandemic recession, falling about 50% since the peak of the Great Resignation," according to Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter in FOX Business.
JOLTS data can be very noisy and see very large revisions (down 16 of the last 21 months) because the survey has a mere 30% response rate. Still, the trend is not friendly and indicates a significant softening of labor market conditions.

Yet elected Democrats have routinely opposed voter ID and 198 House Democrats voted against proof of citizenship for voter registration.

___________

Peter Huessy is a Member of the Montgomery County Republican Central Committee. Since 1981 he has been President of Geo-Strategic Analysis of Potomac, Maryland. He was a former special assistant to the Secretary of the Interior and consultant to the US Air Force. He can be reached at [email protected]