Yesterday, a central advisor to the presidential campaigns of both George W. Bush and John McCain made a startling prediction about the election coming up in November. In fact, he said it was almost a foregone conclusion.

“This sucker is baked.”

No, not like a certain rapper who’s slim with a tilted brim. Mark McKinnon means baked like a potato. McKinnon served as chief media advisor to both of the former GOP candidates, one of whom disastrously won his race largely because of media advice like “act like someone people want to have a beer with.”

Unfortunately for Trump, he doesn’t drink beer. That’s too bad, because if McKinnon’s right, he may want to start drowning his sorrows sooner rather than later.

In an article Friday in Vanity Fair, McKinnon said “I’m going to make a bold prediction. Kamala Harris is going to win. Maybe easily.”

As a matter of fact, he put it even more plainly, saying that the election is “Harris’s to lose,” and he laid out his facts and figures in reaching that conclusion.

“In these waning stages of the late Trump era, everything and nothing is a surprise. We’ve become immune. I mean, when you have the nominee of a major political party mentally unplugging during a town hall, stopping answering questions, and swaying along to his own Spotify playlist for 39 interminable minutes—and no one seems to blink—we’re out of surprises.

There’s no big last debate. No tentpole events likely to shake up the race in these dwindling days. Yes, a full-on war could break out in the Middle East. Or another hurricane could blow ashore, wreaking havoc—and Category 5 conspiracy theories. But the reality is that if nothing or everything happens between now and November 5, it’s unlikely to change the outcome.

This sucker is baked.”

Okay, that feels good to read. “But WHY, Mark?”, many of you might ask. McKinnon reckons it’s simple. Basically, this election is going to come down to turnout. And higher turnout almost invariably guarantees a Democratic win.

That’s not speculation: Look at the number of Americans represented by Democratic Senators. Yes, the Democrats “control” the Senate right now, if you automatically include the 4 Independents who regularly caucus with them and vote the same way. But technically speaking, there are only 47 Democrats to 49 Republicans.

But let’s say we include those 4 Senators, especially since they’re pretty reliably likely to vote with the Dems. The US population that’s actually represented by those 51 people is 36% higher than those represented by Republicans. You read that right. 150 million people live in areas with Republican Senators, while 204 million people live where Democrats are elected.

That’s the old California-versus-Wyoming effect. Every state gets two Senators, so Californians — who number 68 times more than the residents of Wyoming — have exactly the same representation.

That may not be good for the state of our Congress, but it is indicative of the theory that the more people there are, the more likely it is a Democrat will be elected.

That’s going to work entirely Kamala’s favor this year, says McKinnon.

Because the fact is, he argues, there are no “undecided voters” this time around. It feels like that should go without saying, but it still has to be said, because “undecided” is still being included in polling data. That means the polls are largely worthless.

And it’s not like the polls can’t be gamed, anyway. Pollsters do it regularly, with the intended effect of creating a wave of sentiment.

More importantly, Kamala is winning the enthusiasm metric in a landslide. Democratic voters haven’t been this excited for election day since 2008.

“Trump voters may be committed, but Harris voters are excited and enthusiastic. In August, the Harris–Tim Walz ticket enjoyed an eight-point lead when it came to voter enthusiasm. And there is a big difference in the ground game. Democrats are largely paying their field workers, while Republicans are mostly relying on volunteers. These are factors not being picked up on the radar of the head-to-head polling.”

McKinnon goes on to cite the fact that Trump is looking old, acting old, and saying things an old man might say. He sounds mentally ill much of the time, and has been flaking out on debates, interviews, and even simple town hall questions that he straight-up refuses to answer.

He looks weak. He’s on the ropes, mentally and physically.

And in the Blue corner, Harris has hardly broken a sweat. She takes every interview, she goes on even “unfriendly” media outlets, she WANTS another debate. Even if Trump has somehow convinced himself that she wants a rematch because she lost, he and his MAGA troops are literally the only ones who think so.

But what it’s going to boil down to, turnout included, is the gender gap, says McKinnon. He opines that “enough women have sufficient outrage from the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, and PTSD from 2016, that they are going to crawl over broken glass to break the glass ceiling.”

Just recapping this stuff for you has got me excited.