We are all still nervous about getting overconfident, but all the signs indicate that we are winning and the Republicans are starting to crumble. If it doesn’t feel like we are winning, that’s the Trump reality distortion effect. It’s the years of anger and frustration as the Trump administration does one hateful thing after another and 40% of this country keep supporting him anyway. It’s that the man can say any old crazy thing that comes to mind and his die-hard supporters stick with him. It’s that he’s turned the congressional Republicans into a bunch of unprincipled lackeys, and replaced so many reasonable public servants with unqualified loyalists.
But the fact is, the way things are heading now, there’s a very good chance that all the bluster ends with a whimper at 8PM Pacific time on Nov 3, when all the networks call the west coast states and push Joe Biden over the 270 electoral votes we need to be rid of the clown in the White House. The rest of this post is about why I’m very hopeful that this will happen, and what it means for me in terms of what I will be doing between now and Nov. 3.
First off, there are way more of us than there are of them. At this point Joe Biden is put by over ten points in the national pools. Five-thirty-eight give Biden a 94% chances of winning the popular vote, and better than a 1 in 3 chance of winning the popular vote by over 10%.
Secondly, the polls have been stable all year, Biden’s advantage has never dropped below 5%, and now it’s at 10% and climbing as people react to the Trumpian shitshow of the past few weeks. It’s pretty clear that this isn’t going to change.
To quote Nate Silver, “we’ve still got a little over two weeks to go before Election Day, and Trump needs the race to tighten during that time — we’re way past normal polling error territory for Trump to close the gap.” The point of websites like 538 isn’t to repeat the polls, rather it is to use data from past elections to account for the chances the polls might be wrong and give us a clear picture of where we are.
Third, the majority of people in this country really don’t like Trump, and would like nothing more that never to have to worry about what crazy nonsense the man is tweeting. This matters not just in terms of votes, but also in terms of action. For every Republican out there working to make it harder to vote, or posting lies on social media, or getting worked up over the latest conspiracy theory that the President is spouting, there is a Democrat that is stepping up to help people vote, or debunking nonsense on social media, or pointing out just how comical and pathetic the latest conspiracy theory really is.
As much as it feels like the system is falling apart, and that the Republicans are going to come up with some evil genius way to steal the election, it is worth noting that the Republicans are even more freaked out than we are, and that even big business is starting to wish for a Trump-free America. On top of that, the Republican Senate candidates are starting to run away from Trump, and Republican staffers are worried about their job prospects. (Then again, that might just be because they are not very good at anything besides kissing up to Trump.)
All that having been said, I think that it is critical that we turn up the pressure on the Republicans even more.
- By running up the score in the presidential election we increase our chances of getting control of the Senate, which is still very much up for grabs. If we get be people to come out and cast a vote for Joe Biden, most of them will also for Democratic senators.
- By running up the score, we cut off any paths that the Republicans might have to steal the election. A few thousand contested mail-in votes in Florida don’t matter if we’ve clearly won Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona and North Carolina.
- By running up the score, we also make it much easier to dismiss any narratives about voter fraud. Given the expected turnout of around 150 Million Voters, a 10% margin in the popular vote is about 15 million votes. At that point you can pretty much end any discussion about voter fraud with “Come on, your guy lost by 15 Million votes, stop being an jerk.”
- By making it clear that we are winning, we can preempt whatever election night stunts the Republicans are planning. It’s a lot harder to get lots of angry voters in the street when they were expecting to lose.
- By making it clear that we are winning, we can put more pressure on Trump. That is very important, because the man is a coward and simply does not handle pressure well. Instead he melts down, rage-tweets, says insane things, and pretty much convinces even more voters that he is unfit to be president.
- By making it clear that we are winning, we can put more pressure on down-ballot Republicans in tight races. They have already fully demonstrated that they have no principles. At some point they will crack and run away from Trump, thinking only to look out for themselves.
So, as much as I would like to sit back and watch a TV show with lots of explosions tonight, I’m sitting at my computer, typing. And as much as I’d like to be spending most nights this week sitting on my porch, enjoying the bay area summer, maybe reading a book and putting together some planter boxes, I’m going to be phone-banking for Texas, North Carolina, Iowa and other swing states.
And if you are still worried about the election, I can tell you that the single best thing that you can do is to jump in and help out the campaign in any way you can.