Goldman Sachs' latest US election forecast: Harris wins but will become a "lame duck president"

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Goldman Sachs said that at the national poll level, Harris is about 1.5 percentage points ahead of Trump and is leading in the key swing state of Pennsylvania. Overall, Harris's chances of winning in November are about 52%-54%. Since she took over the banner of fighting Trump from Biden, her election prospects have continued to rise over the past month.

Since August 1 this year, the probability of the Republican Party winning the election has dropped by 10 percentage points, and the probability of the Democrats winning a "divided government" - meaning that Harris becomes the president of the United States, but the Republicans control both the House and the Senate or at least one of them - has increased by 11 percentage points.

Goldman Sachs also pointed out that although this is the most likely implied scenario at present, the outcome is still highly uncertain.

According to statistics, various US election polls generally believe that Harris is in the lead, but the lead is not large - at most 5-6 percentage points.

Compared with the stalemate between Harris and Trump, Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Waltz's support rate has already opened up a 6 percentage point lead over Vance.

The next big test for the support rates of both parties is the campaign debate. The first debate between Harris and Trump is scheduled for September 10, and the second debate will be held in October. The only debate between Waltz and Vance will be held on October 1.

As Harris began to announce her economic agenda, U.S. stock analysts were dismayed to find that the "Trump deal" they had just written about last month would face a "Harris deal" with completely opposite trading logic.

For example, on Monday, Harris proposed raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%. Her team called this "ensuring that billionaires and large corporations pay a fair share." In contrast, Trump reduced the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% during his term and sought to make temporary tax cuts permanent.

The good news is that higher tax rates are expected to ease the big problem of the US budget deficit, but Goldman Sachs also expects that every one percentage point increase in corporate tax rates will cause the S&P 500 index (component stocks) to lose "just under 1%" of profitability.

In addition to raising taxes, Harris also proposed a plan last Friday to combat price fraud by retailers, while also expanding the Biden administration's "federal health insurance pooling" and clean energy projects. These proposals could put pressure on consumer staples and healthcare stocks, and also ease the pressure on new energy stocks. The previous "Trump" deal was seen as a boon to small-cap stocks and cryptocurrencies, with the core logic behind it being deregulation and tax cuts.

Judging from the current trend of political extremism and division in the United States, it would be difficult for Trump and Harris to advance the most concerned economic policies in a "lame duck" state.

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