‘Panic, He’s Going to Win!’ Five Top Journalists Discuss 2024 Predictions And The Candidates’ Closing Messages

The Economic Club of Washington, D.C. held a panel discussion on Monday with some of the country’s top journalists to discuss the state of the presidential race. Moderator David Rubenstein, the billionaire investor and philanthropist, ended the discussion by asking his panel for predictions in the race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

“So let’s wrap up and say your final predictions for the next president of the United States, where you’re willing to say in a call who you think it will be?” Rubenstein asked.

CBS’s Nikole Killion responded first saying, “I’m going to keep a big question mark.”

“Peter, do you have a view on who the next president is going to be?” Rubenstein then asked New York Times political reporter Peter Baker.

“No. I mean, I would say that I think that Harris has more potential than Trump does to grow her vote. Even now, in the last couple of weeks, we’re only talking about a small number of people. If she heard– his vote has not changed. His vote and — Amy knows better — his vote is static,” Baker replied, referring to Cook Political editor in chief Amy Walter.

“It hasn’t moved. He hasn’t gained votes and lost votes for her. The question is, can she get those Biden 2020 voters back who didn’t like Trump by reminding them how much they didn’t like Trump, even though they’re not pro-Democrat,” Baker concluded.

“Yeah, I would get myself in very big trouble if I were to say one way or the other. But I will say that, by the way, I sort of follow my instincts and gut in the final days is to figure out just which direction the ball is rolling,” replied CNN’s Kasie Hunt, adding:

Which is it? Because it tends to pick up speed for one candidate or the other in the final days? I would say last week everyone I was talking to felt like Donald Trump was really starting to pick up that kind of speed. I think there are still I mean, there’s only 15 days left. But remember, the Comey letter was 11 days out from the election in 2016. So and this this election has just been marked by I mean, somehow I think we’ve all gone through so much that perhaps we forget just the enormity of the things that happened this summer with this election.

The idea that we’re just going to watch this go to the finish line without something happening, it just feels I feel very afraid of getting comfortable in that space. So I think there is still space. But wherever that momentum is swinging, I think momentum is really a very real thing, wherever that is rolling in the last week, I think.

“Where do you think it is?” Rubenstein pressed Hunt for an answer.

“Now? Who wins? You know, again, last week I thought Trump I woke up today and, you know, the conversations I’m having like through the weekend, watching the events of the weekend, it feels a little more balanced. But I also would say it’s still probably with Trump. I haven’t I don’t know that she has really managed to swing the momentum yet, but I think she still could,” Hunt replied.

“Who’s going to win?” Rubenstein then asked Semafor’s Ben Smith.

“I’m also going to avoid your trap. But I do think there’s a thing happening in which Trump’s message right now is ‘I’m going to win.’ And Harris’s message is ‘Panic, he’s going to win.’ And both of those are strategic rather than based in reality. And it does, it does create the sense that he’s going to win, which they’re both trying to create. Right now,” Smith replied.

“Well, the panic is to get her people to come out. Which goes to Peter’s point,” Walter added.

“Amy, who’s going to win?” Rubenstein added.

“Which is why I’m with Kasie, where it has felt like and you’re seeing it in the data, too, where he’s Harris did her best at the end of September and it’s been kind of narrowing since then all of those swing states and yet. I don’t feel 100% confident that this is where we’re going to end up. But it’s where he’s definitely been able to turn this from a race that was Harris just on the upswing and the momentum with her to one where her momentum has not just stalled, but where he’s been able to narrow the gap,” Walter concluded.

Watch the clip above and full event here.