How They Won

As the candle flame of the election burns down we're seeing a return-to-form from 2016. The narrative Team Trump tells is this:

1. The polls were lies. The Silent Majority wanted Trump and on election night, that vote CAME OUT and Trump WON!
2. Crooked Hillary had the nail put in her coffin by the Comey investigation!
3. Trump, immune to all scandal, avoided the pussy tape-backlash and other things that would have sunk a mere mortal (bragging about his dick in a debate?)

At the endgame here, things look a bit like 2016 . . . don't they? Well . . .

Ask Not For Whom the Polls Toll .  .  .

The story that The Polls Were Off is, under investigation, not especially compelling: (a) the national polling was right on target--Hillary hit her numbers on the national vote about dead on. (b) While the state polling in several key states was off the reasons were that there wasn't a lot of polling in those states and the pollsters didn't weigh for education in their turnout projections.

The real warning-light of 2016, though was the large numbers of undecideds in the final numbers. Hillary was up--but if you gave those undecides to Trump---and history did--then he looked a lot closer to a tie.

That, essentially, is what the election was from a vote-by-vote standpoint: Hillary won way more where it didn't matter, Trump won by very  little where it did. Trump's margin of victory in the states where the polling was off was so slim that it was essentially a guy playing Texas Hold'em and lucking into a straight on the last card. Yes, they won--but 9 times out of 10 that strategy isn't really going to work.

This time, however, again, we don't know: the turn-out models have been adjusted and for 2018 they were alright--but with COVID it's a historical unknown and with various legal challenges to mail-in-voting sure to arise almost no matter what, turnout and stuff may be unknown again for different reasons.

Still, Biden's lead over Trump and the numbers of undecided voters are way more solid than Hillary looked in 2016. If the polls are even close, the race isn't so much (538 gives Trump about a 12% chance to win--which is horrible considering the damage it would do--but they gave Trump about 30% in 2016 and they may be overly cautious this time too).

This Time: Again, with the polls showing Trump down, his team--and his faithful--say what they said in 2016: Don't Believe It. So they don't really care about the polling . . . which is good . . .  except if you are trying to determine if the election is fair or not and can't use polling as a guide-line.

The October Surprise Isn't

The Comey investigation was a knife in the heart for Clinton. Whatever the case, polling that was designed to show quick movement showed Hillary decline rapidly in the race. Comey swung the vote (given how close it was, just about anything could e said to swing the vote--but Comey would go to the top of the list of various issues).

This time we had a whole line-up of scandals. The Durham Report, the Huber Report before that, and now the Biden-Son-Laptop. Trump even tried to gin one up earlier with the Ukraine call.

None of this has worked (one got him impeached). Basically, no one not already convinced is buying it and the media isn't salivating to GET Joe Biden the way they were for Hillary. Maybe they learned their lesson? Maybe it's just misogyny? Whichever, the October Surprises we've seen thus far aren't all that surprising and everyone is voting already.

Also: how crooked with Biden have to actually BE in order for you to switch your vote from Trump?

This Time: Rudy's hail mary might included scooped up Russian intel (assuming some of the material is real, which The Omnivore thinks it maybe is) but it is the saddest attempt at a smear campaign The Omnivore has ever seen. Engendering laughter is probably not what you want in your attempt to lower the boom on your opponent.

Immunity To COVID, Immunity To Scandal!

Trump's pumped-full-of-experimental drugs recovery may have gotten him back on the campaign trail but it hasn't moved the polls. No, Trump's 4 years of scandals have done what the "pussy tape" ought to have: badly turned off women everywhere across virtually all spectrums. Trump's basic incompetence has turned off senior citizens in large numbers. Trump's racism has worked for a segment of the populace but .  . . really? 

The 2016 Trump was immunized against scandals because the Clintons were scandal-machines  (valid or not). Biden isn't. It isn't any one scandal that sank Trump--his base is unshakable due to not receiving any information that doesn't make Trump look heroic---but there are a lot of voters who aren't in his base and they don't care for him much.

This Time: A poll that tracks the same pool of people over time showed Trump crash with undecides or weak-Trumpers after the first debate. Maybe a new debate will get them back--but in this case, they recoiled in horror at what they saw and well they should.

His scandal actually hurt.

What This Means

Go out and vote straight Democratic Ticket like your life fucking depends on it. Because it basically does.