There has been a definite narrowing of the gap between our two candidates in the RCP Polling average. The most recent 3 polls favor Biden by only +2, +4, and +5. This brings the average of the most recent eight polls to Biden by 7.1%, which is about where it stood before the first debate.
Also, just over 71 million early ballots have already been accounted for.
Many experts on these matters have been suggesting that the closing days of an election often see a improvement for the incumbent, a "coming home" of voters who had been thinking they might flip to the other guy. This could be happening.
Cook Political and 270towin.com both suggest that Biden already lays claim to 290 Electoral College votes. For Donald Trump to pull off an upset, he needs to win all the remaining tossup states and pick-off 21 more votes from the Biden-leaning states (say, Pennsylvania and the 2nd District of Maine!).
Pennsylvania seems to be everybody's swing-state this time around. Journalists and pollsters will be thick on the ground in the Keystone State this week.
The RCP map gives Biden 232 Electoral College votes (combination of solid for Biden, likely for Biden, and leans Biden). But Wisconsin and Minnesota remain among their "tossup states." I think these two states seem likely to break for Biden, which would then put his total at 252. Pennsylvania's 20 EC votes would then put him over the top.
Moral of the story: watch Pennsylvania.
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One more note on yesterday's theme, the catastrophizing of undesired election results by political actors. Both parties have been depicting that if the other side should win, it will be Day 1 of your worst dystopian nightmare. It will have been, in other words, a catastrophic failure of the American electoral system.
All this does is breed distrust in the electoral system itself, as if elections are only legitimate if the right side wins. This has the effect of nudging people toward extra-electoral means to effect the change they want to see. The catastrophizing of unwanted political outcomes justifies at least in some minds the turn to extra-legal responses: violent street protests, for one.
It all contributes, in other words, to the further fraying of the civil compact that includes an agreeing to disagree. The election of 1800 is considered a seminal moment in American history. The reason? Because it was the first time that the control of a government changed factions by an agreed-upon democratic process. The people who held power willingly gave it up, without so much as a Molotov cocktail! Many people at the time wondered if it was even possible. But it was possible in the end because people believed they would live to fight another day, and they did. In other words, it wasn't the end of the world, and they knew it. Adams went home to his Quincy farm, which was his true joy anyway.
So one more time: my advice for people on the losing side of this election is, stay calm, and seek a grounding for your happiness that is higher than (or upstream from) political outcomes.
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