12 days out, and this is not going to be your grandfather’s midterm election. In fact, with the almost complete polarization of our political culture, thanks to Traitor Tot, some analysts are saying that we may never have a normal midterm election again. Each side will find reasons to motivate their bases to come out and vote. The days of low voter turnout elections may be over.
Which means that a whole lot of the old matrices we’ve been using to poll and predict midterm elections are now out the window. For instance, there’s the generic control of congress question. I have long taken this poll as purely indicative of party affiliation strength. It asks 1 simple question, Who do you want to control the congress next year, Democrats or Republicans? It was a useful weathervane when there was a 15-20% independent vote, but in today’s climate, with a shrinking truly independent vote, it’s useless. For instance, A USA Today poll today showed the GOP +4, and a poll released on Monday showed the Democrats +1. Both within the margin of error, and both basically useless, since they eliminate candidates, locations, and issues.
But there are hard, statistical numbers out there, and they’re not good for the GOP. As of today, there have already been 1.3 million more votes cast in this midterm than the record setting 2018 Trump midterms. You have to remember that the 2018 midterms had a huge anti Trump backlash, and today we’re running ahead of that. I don’t see anything that the GOP has done this year with either their messaging or issues to generate that kind of GOP turnout. Which may tend to indicate that it’s not the GOP that is driving the turnout.
Now, add this. I have already reported that the gender gap of male-female new registrations is off the charts since the SCOTUS overturned Roe v Wade. Georgia is already showing a new record every day in early voting. Georgia had one of the largest gender gaps in new voter registrations in the country. And the beautiful thing is that these are new voters, that Kemp can’t purge from the rolls.
In Pennsylvania, there have already been more than 680,000 early and absentee votes cast, a record. PA was another state that had a record gender gap new voter registration. And here’s what makes the cheese bind. Of all of the early votes cast. But here’s what binds the cheese. In the PA early voting numbers? Some 74.3% of the returns were from registered Democratic voters. So much for whether or not Democratic voters are energized.
Back in the fall of 2020, Traitor Tot committed political malpractice when he set up his eventual electoral defeat by blaming it all on mail in and absentee ballots, claiming that they were ripe for Democratic voter fraud. And as a result, Trump got his cause celebre, heavy GOP turnout on election day showed the GOP leading, only to have the tides turn when the early and absentee votes were tabulated.What did Trumpenstein care? He had his Big Lie.
But now, in 2022, Trumptards are caught between a rock and a hard place. They have no choice but to back up The Big Lie, But statewide GOP candidates are imploring their voters to mail in ballots, or come out early to vote, so the simple reason that they all know that A vote is a vote! Teri and I voted early on Monday, and it took us less than 45 minutes car door to car door. And NV is posting strong early voting turnout.
Because election day voting is always a crapshoot. What if there are strong rainstorms in the more rural areas of Georgia? What if there are thunderstorms in rural red portions of PA, or snow squalls in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan or northern Wisconsin? Cars can break down, work schedules can change, kids can get sick, there are a myriad of things that can go wrong on election day. But Trump has indoctrinated the sheeple that only election day votes count.
One thing you can lay to rest. The Democrats are motivated, and the early polling results are showing it. The wild card is exactly how motivated the GOP base is, and whether the GOP can turn them out in numbers sufficient on election day to offset the huge numbers the Democrats are piling up. Which inserts a mammoth number of election day variables. One thing I know. November 8th will not be election night. Instead it will kick off election week. There are far too many close races, and far too many absentee and mail in ballots for us to get a definitive return on the razor sharp Senate races on election night. And after that? Let the GOP court games begin! Strap in, it’s going to be messy.
Yet, the corporate MSM refuses to accept early voting numbers as proof of anything. They (and Cook Political) have decided things are swinging back in the rethug’s favor based on polling, which has been verrueckt (crazy) since Orange Jesus oozed down the golden escalator.
With MSM, remember always this simple rule of thumb as codified by Bill Palmer: what is best for business? Forget whatever trendy lies you’ve heard about some “golden age” of journalism (does anyone remember that Pulitzer the man was basically a yellow journalist in the stripe of William Randolph Hearst?). In the end, it’s ALWAYS been about business with this profession, even as some folks working in it live up to the ideal better than others.
So what changed recently? Huffington Post. When it started in 2005, newspapers were laughing at them. Then online news took off, the Great Recession hit and the layoffs got started. Trump was a major shot in the arm for the industry, one whose effects faded after he started fading away. However, he did leave behind enough broken, traumatized people with an outrage/helplessness addiction to feed off of. Remember that the next time you see a headline that smells of BS.
It has always been about money, yes. But there was a time, some of it in my lifetime, when enough Americans placed a high enough value on accuracy and truth that that was also where the money was. That’s what has disappeared.
Sorry, Underwriter, but not buying that one. Arguments like that are too much like arguing “realism” in fiction to me. Quiet times are no less susceptible to bias and prejudice than loud times. “Things were once better” is a myth one needs to purge from the system if you’re ACTUALLY interested in the truth. And that’s NEVER been the American public as a whole. More often, they default to what makes them feel better.
Pretty sure it’s going to be for nothing, those upcoming election challenges. The GOP have pulled the same tricks too many times, long enough for the rest of us to prepare. Look no further than Stacey Abrams and her GOTV operation Fair Fight for one prominent example. Nothing new has been brought to the table by them and we’re ready for them.