My prediction is that Donald Trump will win the election on November 5. I think he may actually win the popular vote as well. I’m referring to the actual votes of actual Americans, not the manipulated votes produced by computer tampering, illegals, and mail-in fraud.

That doesn’t mean that on the morning of the 6th, we’ll have a conclusive answer as to who the next president will be. No, sadly, given the Democrat propensity to cheat and the Swamp’s desire to defeat Trump, we’re likely looking at an adjudication clusterfark that could take weeks or even months.

So, despite polls currently telling us that the race is close or basically tied (currently, the NYT has Harris up by one while 538 gives Trump a 53% chance of victory), why do I believe Trump is going to clean the floor with Harris when it comes to real, actual votes? A plethora of reasons.

Yard signs. This is the most ambiguous measure, but it’s the one that resonates most viscerally because it reflects enthusiasm. I just spent three weeks in New York on business. I landed at JFK, drove 400 miles to Buffalo, and a week later drove back.

Over that entire trip, I didn’t see any random Harris signs on barns or sides of buildings, nor did I see flags seemingly bigger than the houses they were flying in front of, all things I saw for Trump. The ratio of Trump to Harris signs throughout was probably at least 10 to 1. And this is New York!

However, I did encounter three towns where Harris signs dominated: East Aurora and Williamsville near Buffalo and Hastings on Hudson, just north of New York City. All three are quaint, bucolic towns with coffee bars, art galleries, and lots of college-educated liberals. At the end of the day, in a hardcore blue state like New York, where Harris is projected to win by double digits, the dearth of enthusiastic support suggests that her support is tepid and the margin of victory may not be what’s predicted.

Right track, wrong track. Forty years ago, Ronald Reagan looked into the camera at the last debate with Jimmy Carter and asked, “Are you better off than you were four years ago? Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the store than it was four years ago?” Today, almost every single American understands that the answer to that question in 2024 is a resounding “No,” and regardless of what they think about Trump, they know that it was Biden, Harris, and the Democrats who created this disaster.

Two weeks out from the election, fully two-thirds of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. People know they’re paying more for gasoline, housing, food, insurance, and practically everything else in the economy. In whatever way each of those two-thirds of Americans might define that wrong track, those are real, tangible pain points of daily life, and most citizens recognize Democrats as the source.

Americans, including some Democrats, are not crazy, and when given a choice between more of the same—or worse—when things are going badly, will choose to make a change towards a better direction—or at least the promise of one. In our basically two-party system, that means that they will turn towards Trump and the GOP.

Facetime: Not the iPhone kind of facetime, but the time candidate’s faces are showing up on various media. Trump, of course, is all over the media, from his Pennsylvania rallies to his interviews to, most recently, his McDonalds campaign stop/fry-shift/photo op.

Harris, not so much, and when she is on, even when sitting for outlets that support her, like CBS, the story ends up being a controversy about her answers rather than the typical hagiography. At the same time that Trump was generating enormous amounts of engaging press coverage serving fries out of a McDonald’s drive-through window and posing for selfies, Harris was making news for taking only pre-approved questions and telling Christians they were at the wrong rally.

Personal connection: When Trump talks, he talks a lot. Harris, not so much.

According to the New York Times, at three rallies, Trump averaged 98 minutes of speaking, while Harris averaged a mere 24 minutes. And while Trump talks about pretty much anything and everything, Harris seems to have a very limited catalog of ideas upon which to draw. Indeed, the GOP made a full four-minute video of her repeating, “Unburdened by what has been.”

Americans see that Donald Trump is a guy you could have a beer with, talk at length to, and feel like you would walk away having made a friend or at least met someone who understands your problems. Kamala Harris, on the other hand, is a mannequin or a robot that’s been programmed with minimal RAM. If you ask, “What’s up?” rather than “How are you doing today?” the system will overload, and smoke will start coming out of her ears. She’s not funny, smart, or insightful and has no convictions beyond basic communism. Most Americans see that.

Betting: Polls are notorious for being more propaganda than reflections of reality. That’s because they’re run by elite organizations with biases seeking to bolster support for one candidate or another.

Betting markets (aka prediction markets), on the other hand, represent anything but that. As of this writing, the leading platform, Polymarket, sees a 64% chance Trump wins vs Harris’s 36% chance. The over $2 billion that this international crypto market has bet on the American presidential election is largely made up of small bets, not elites seeking to influence the outcome. The proof of the market’s potential as a prediction tool can be seen in the fact that the Wall Street Journal ran a piece seeking to delegitimize it.

Quality of life: Vermont is America’s socialist Nirvana. Today, however, the state capital, Burlington, has become a dystopian nightmare.

By day, the city is the quintessential small New England town. At night, however, it transforms into a scene from The Walking Dead with drug addicts, homeless, and violent criminals taking over.

And it’s not just Burlington. It’s also New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and, of course Denver, where violent Venezuelan gangs have taken over whole apartment complexes while extorting and terrorizing residents and owners. From schools that don’t educate to influxes of illegals to increasing crime, leftists across the country are coming face to face with the reality of the failure of Democrat policies. While all complain, some are objective enough to understand the source and vote accordingly.

All of this to say that, while most blacks, gays, Jews, crazy cat ladies, and antidepressant-addled college-educated white women and their beta male boyfriends or husbands will vote for Harris without ever considering or even knowing her policies, a certain percentage of them will be making decisions based on the reality of life that’s staring them in the face. Those people will be voting for Trump.

Together with the rabid MAGA following Trump has inspired, he should win the actual vote handily. But as we all know, Stalin’s aphorism applies: “Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.”