Some New Numbers, And My Take On Them

Chill. I got this.   President Obama after losing the first Romney debate

Three weeks until election day, and here we go again. Today a new NBC News/Marist poll came out, and as usual, many Democrats are soiling their codpieces and looking behind them for a fainting couch. Every time one of these polls come out, I can’t help but visualize these namby-pamby Democrats as the monk in The DaVinci Code, stripping down and beating themselves with a knotted rope. It’s like their penance for not having enough faith.

Let’s deal with the poll first. The new poll shows Harris and Trump tied at 48%, which is a -3 for Harris since the last poll taken after the debate. If I had known the poll was coming out, I would have bought stock in Depends, since weak kneed Democrats immediately went on a salmon spawning run to the store.

Here’s the problem with that. The poll was taken from a pretty good sized pool of registered voters. And personally I don’t give a fat-rats-ass about registered voters. Some of those people who just happened to pick up the phone and answer the questions probably haven’t voted since LBJ dropped out in 1968. But they’re sitting there poisoning the polling gene pool. For the last three weeks, the only polls even worth considering are polls of likely voters.

The poll also showed that Harris enjoys a +14 among women voters, while Traitor Tot has a +16 advantage among male voters, which is down a few points. That makes it a 30 point gender gap, which if it holds until election day will be damn near, if not an all time record. And since there are more women voters than men in this country, and they vote more often, it’s advantage Harris.

Those were really the only two real takeaways from the poll, but we’re just getting started. Earlier today on MSNBC, the founder of one of the leading voter strategy and statistical groups was on Alex Witt, and he crunched some very interesting numbers.

For starters, it’s not really to hold the 2024 numbers up to the 2020 numbers for comparison. In 2020 a record number of 100 million votes were cast before election day. This is largely due to the logistics of being in the middle of a global pandemic. Still and all, he still expects somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 million votes to be cast before election day, a healthy number. But to balance that, he also expects to see a higher election day voter turnout.

Which is a twin edged sword. In the last few cycles, with Traitor Tot pissing in the early voting punchbowl to fuel The Big Lie, Democrats have dominated early voting. That figures to hold this year as well, although El Pendejo ex Presidente’s grudging approval of early voting may have a few more GOP voters, especially elderly and handicapped voters out early, which could narrow the Democrats advantage there.

But there’s an offset that may well work to the Democrats advantage. In the era of the Trumpster Fire, the GOP cedes the early voting advantage to the Democrats, and tries to overdo it with massive voter day turnout. That failed miserably in 2020 when Trump lost by some seven million votes, and again in 2022 when the vaunted Big Red wave failed to materialize.

But here’s the possible Democratic election day voting edge. 2020 was an exceptionally high turnout for early voting, and here’s why. As a tradition, African American and even Latino voters, suspicious of GOP voter suppression laws and cheating, tend to show up to vote personally. They voted early in 2020 and 2022 for health purposes, but with continued GOP tomfoolery, likely a lot more of them will once again turn out on election day.

The same thing goes for the youth vote. This as I’ve written is the hardest vote to track successfully with polling. But a large number of them every cycle are first time voters, and a large part of the thrill is the experience is to actually show up to cast your ballot on election day, and bask in the experience. They largely voted early in 2020 and 2022 for health concerns, but this year will be their first opportunity to vote in person on election day for the experience, with minimal health risk.

Here’s how I see it. Whatever GOP voters actually decide to vote early will cut into the Democrat’s early voting edge, as will Democrats that decide to vote on election day. But historically the Democrats still figure to win the early ballot by at least 10 points. In 2020 I believe the margin was closer to 16 points, so that may be conservative.

On the other hand, any GOP votes that go into the early vote hopper will eat into their vaunted Election Day vote machine. And the increase of Democratic voters switching over to come out and vote on election day will narrow that gap even further. And here’s why I think this simple switch could end up being devastating for the GOP, and why I think that this race is Kamala Harris’s to lose.

First of all, forget the national vote totals. Thanks to the Founding Fathers wanting to give slave owners more clout in rural areas, and their suspicion that everyday slobs like you and I can’t make an intelligent decision. We’re stuck with the Electoral College. Which means the election will be decided in a handful of about 7-8 battleground states. That’s where the action is, and from where I’m sitting, that’s where Kamala Harris’s edge is.

Because like in any close election, it’s all going to come down to two common factors, turnout and voter enthusiasm. And the Democrats have a distinct advantage in both areas. I’ll explain.

Turnout boils down to one thing, a world class grassroots organization. And in 2024, the Democrats are Olympic Gold Medal grassroots champions. Harris’s uplifting message and popularity have unleashed so many volunteers that the Democrats have to keep opening new district offices to house and coordinate them all. And they have the luxury of all the money they need to do that, as well as flood the zone with advertising.

On the other hand, the GOP is cash starved. Traitor Tot forced the RNC to divert their own fundraising to his campaign, and his small donor teat suckling stripped state parties of any operating funds. GOP strategists and state party leaders are moaning that not only don’t they have the money to support local legislative candidates, they don’t even have money to support statewide candidates. And worst of all, The Clueless Wonder eliminated grassroots funding to instead fund a moronic election integrity force of scruffy dudes with grammar school educations glaring while they watch other people vote. Harris owns the field in turnout.

The second thing is voter intensity. And for that one we actually have some empirical evidence. The last voter intensity poll I saw was about 2-3 weeks ago, and it was a walking disaster for Trump and the GOP. In that poll, 74% of Democrats were highly motivated or certain to vote. Meanwhile only 61% of GOP voters were jazzed to vote. That’s like spending $200 a pop for tickets to Hamilton, and then finding out that the understudy is playing the lead role on the night you’re going. You might still go, but the thrill is gone. But you’re just as likely to sell the damn things for $100 each and chalk it up to experience.

I have spent my entire life as a rabid sports fan, and as such I know that no single game, or even a week forecasts an entire season. Maybe some of these weak kneed Democrats should discover sports. My personal opinion, for what it’s worth Harris holds the Blue Wall, flips North Carolina, wins Nevada, possibly Arizona, and possibly holds Georgia, becoming the 47th President. West Virginia is gone. Tester loses Montana narrowly, but either and/both Texas and Florida go Democratic, leaving a 50-50 senate, with Tim Walz as the deciding vote. And one more thing, If that happens, with Manchin, Tester and Sinema gone, there will. be. no. filibuster.

I thank you for the privilege of your time.

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