Up til this weekend, every election poll has had the race still tied between Vice President Kamala Harris and once-and-future Viceroy for Russian North America Donald Trump. But apparently because Trump has so much built in support, from his Party, the “liberal” media and his cult of apes in pants, he figured he could afford a few unforced errors.
Like, when he went back to New York, a state he will never win, and held a Sunday rally in Madison Square Garden in New York City, for some reason, and the first speaker was a “famous” podcast comedian that I’ve never heard of until now telling jokes about the fecundity of Puerto Ricans and saying their homeland was a floating island of garbage. And at least he could make the excuse that he was using roast humor. The other guest speakers, who used various slurs for Harris and called her campaign staff “pimp handlers” weren’t even as funny. But apparently it’s the garbage comment that everybody fixated on. So in his when-you’re-in-a-hole-dig-to-China way, Trump decided to embrace the image by wearing a garbageman’s orange reflective vest to a campaign event. Cause apparently he didn’t look orange enough. You know he’s a professional garbageman cause he still had his tie on. He also decided to make the metaphor even more perfect by bringing out a white garbage truck with the Trump/Vance logo on it. And then he flubbed it by trying and failing to get in the cabin, displaying further evidence of his deteriorating motor skills.
And in this one speech Friday in Arizona, he got so frustrated at a bad microphone that he started doing the hawk-tuah like he was simulating oral sex on it. So Trump must think he’s going to win. He’s already rehearsing for his next meeting with Putin.
But otherwise, with everything we now know at this point, if Trump wins it is either because they ginned the results the way Maduro ginned the results in Venezuela, or because the American public as a whole is too damn stupid to find their faces in a mirror.
There’s a reason that the media is only focusing on a few swing states: Cause all but seven states are pretty much spoken for. If you look at, say, 270towin.com, it’s got Harris listed at 226 electoral votes cause those are the states that are pretty much sure to vote Democratic. Like, you know most of the Northeast and the West Coast are going to go blue. Trump is listed at having 219 votes. Because Alaska and most of “flyover country” are guaranteed to go Trump. Democratic Senate candidates in Texas and Florida are making a serious challenge, but ultimately, both states are going to go Trump. After all, if one of them did go Democratic, that would be the end of the election. If both went Democratic, that would be the end of the Republican Party.
Allan Lichtman’s final analysis for the Electoral College map shows Harris winning with the following spread on the remaining swing states: Trump gets Arizona and Nevada. That’s 17 Electors. Pennsylvania is still up in the air, which it probably would be given the amount of time it takes to get the votes. But Harris gets Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina and Georgia. Now, if Harris got Wisconsin and Michigan that’s 25 Electors. If she got Pennsylvania that’s 19 more and that would be 270 by itself. Of course that still won’t be enough because the Trumpniks will try to contest the results everywhere and if she has only that many, flipping one state would be enough to deny the election. Which is why North Carolina and Georgia going blue is important. I personally think Pennsylvania is more likely to go Democrat than North Carolina, but North Carolina is almost even money at this point. Georgia is always the wild card. It’s been red for some time and has a Republican government that has done a lot to restrict voting, even if it isn’t quite as Trumpnik as the governments in other red states. Yet voter turnout (and the repellent nature of local Senate candidates) has caused federal elections in Georgia to go to the Democrat the last few times.
And speaking as a Nevada native, frankly if I were a Harris campaign staffer looking at the Electoral College map, I’d say North Carolina for Nevada is a great trade.
And then there was the news that everyone on the Internet was going on about, where a major poll Saturday by Anne Selzer showed Harris leading by 3 in conservative Iowa. At the same time, more sober prognosticators don’t think Harris is actually going to win Iowa, but the telling thing is that a reputable pollster is showing her gaining and potentially winning a state Republicans can usually take for granted.
Maybe, contrary to what the media is telling us, Americans don’t want a country where Elon Musk is running economic policy, Robert Kennedy Jr. is running the health system and a rapist is deciding whether we have a national abortion ban.
My bet would be similar but not quite the same as Lichtman’s: Arizona and Nevada go Trump, although there’s a possibility that the popularity of the Democratic Senate choices in those states might carry Harris. Pennsylvania goes Harris, though that may take days to determine after Tuesday. North Carolina goes Trump, though that may take days. Georgia goes Harris. Again, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania would be just enough for Harris to clinch and if she gets either NC or GA, that would cement the victory, and if she gets both, or gets one of those plus either or both of AZ or NV, that would really cinch it. Remember, we all knew in 2020 that Trump wasn’t going to admit if he lost, and Biden won mainly because he won enough states by wide enough margins that Trump couldn’t steal anything by recount or state government interference, and as it turned out, none of the states he contested after Election Day went back to his column. That looks like what we’re going to see here.
All that being the case, I’m more interested in seeing how everything plays out, how quickly it plays out, and, just as important in the long term, who wins the Senate. Part of the reason I’m more optimistic about Harris is that Democrats in Senate races – especially Colin Allred in Texas – are polling a lot better in their races than Harris polls against Trump. And while there is always cross-voting it’s a little hard to believe that people who are voting for Democrats in downballot races are that disinclined to vote for Harris. (Just as, Democratic optimists not withstanding, it’s a bit hard to believe that all those rural Republicans in Nevada are flooding the early voting lists so that they can vote in Harris.) I’m also interested in seeing how the state election Questions, especially Nevada Question 3, turn out.
But still, we can never assume that Trump is done for or that he’s not going to win this election. Always remember: God is real, and he hates us all.