Wednesday, November 04, 2020

The Blue Ripple; some thoughts on the election

 So much for the blue wave.

* The election has not yet been called but realistically Biden has won. Based on his behavior, President Trump seems to realize this as well. As of the moment Biden needs only one more state to put him over the top.

* But... his victory is going to be a very narrow one.

* The Democrats had hoped to substantially pad their majority in the House. Instead it looks like they will actually lose seats, albeit only a few.

* Democrats had hoped to take control of the Senate. As of right now they are going to pick up just one. There are still a few opportunities for some pick ups, but realistically the majority is no longer within reach. 

* Once again, most of the 'reputable' polls blew it. The vast majority were well off the mark. In many cases their performance was worse than in 2016. Trump's supporters who have been shaking their heads at the polls for the last six months have by and large been vindicated. Yeah, Biden is probably going to win. But by a popular vote margin of around 2%. That's a long ways from the 8-9% that was averaged out from the major polls on election eve. And some of the polls weren't just off; they were not even in the same plane of reality. To cite just two; there was the Washington Post/ABC News poll from Oct 28 that put Biden ahead by 17% in Wisconsin. And then there was the election eve poll of the same state from the NY Times that put Biden up by a more reasonable 11%. Holy crap! The final result has Biden carrying the state by just a tick over .5%. (Note the decimal point.) The major polling entities and news orgs have some serious egg on their face today, especially after their failures in 2016 and the repeated assurances that they had learned from the experience and made adjustments. Tonight there are more than a few Trumpists and conspiracy theorists who are suggesting that the polling errors were deliberate. I'm not buying it. But I don't blame people for wondering when you look at the error margin. These were by and large not near misses. They were epic failures. The lonely exception was Rasmussen which consistently defied all the major news orgs and more reputable pollsters by publishing data showing a very close election, with Biden holding a super thin majority nationally and most of the battleground states being basically a coin toss that would be decided by turnout in what they predicted would be a long election night. As for the others; they need to take this seriously and offer some sort of public explanation. Because right now their reputation, already poor among right leaning voters, is, or should be, in serious question among people of every political persuasion. 

In conclusion, the firm rejection of Donald Trump and what he stands for has not materialized. He has probably lost the election, but by a margin that can hardly be called a national repudiation. The GOP is unlikely to see any reason to distance itself from him. In fact, and assuming his health permits it, I would not be at all surprised if Trump attempted a Clevelandesque comeback in four years. 

4 comments:

The Anti-Gnostic said...

FINALLY, under a (possible/likely?) Harris/Biden presidency, the muted, shrinking Republican Congress can get back to its important work of partisan sniping, speechifying, investigating, and getting re-elected.

Because manifestly, the only thing Republicans are really good for is Newman's notional assent--ideological preening--and the last thing they actually want to do is govern.

123 said...

You aren't interested in governing if your ideology assumes government is never the answer, taxes are theft, etc. "Many parts of sub-Saharan Africa are a libertarian's paradise" - and there is a direct correlation between the rise of the the small government, anti-tax, anti-regulation, anti-consumer conservative movement in the 70s and 80s and the complaints of Trump voters yearning for a yesteryear the pied piper culture war politicians they elect have destroyed. When America was great Johnson, Kennedy and a RINO (by today's standard) like Eisenhower were in the White House, tax rates were sky high, labor unions were powerful, and the churches were full with no female clergy. Admittedly, the DMV was still terrible and we were an apartheid state.

The Anti-Gnostic said...

When America was great ... we were an apartheid state.

Racist. I'm calling Homeland Security.

David said...

Yup, so much for the Blue Wave ... I'm going with the Blue Drip or the Blue Piddle.