Tuesday, November 05, 2024

Election Day Diary

My main advice for anyone stressed out about the election today is to go outside, and weather permitting, take a walk. Call a friend. Meet up with somebody. Get a latte. Have sushi for lunch. Treat yourself to a chocolate milkshake. Smile at a stranger. Put out your flag.

Forget about the media until later in the day — we journalists will be driving ourselves crazy pouring over scraps of data. There is no good reason for you to watch television coverage or log on to election sites until about an hour before the first polls close on the east coast. That’s when the pre-election rumors will peak, which might be amusing, at least to the political junkies out there.

But when you do tune in, get ready for a long night.

As to how the polls moved on the eve of the election, there was some very good news for Democrats. According to 538, for the first time in over two weeks, Harris erased Trump’s lead in the Pennsylvania to move ahead by a slender 0.2 point margin. This represents about 14,000 votes, which is a hairs-breadth in a state where some 7 million are expected to vote. But it also comes as other polls indicate that independent voters in the state are breaking in Harris’s favor.

Furthermore, 538 now has Harris up by a full point in the other two Blue Wall states, Michigan and Wisconsin. I can therefore project Harris victory margins of 57,000 and 34,000 votes in those two, respectively.

If these projections come true, Harris will almost certainly be the next president. 

Trump leads in the other five battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada and Iowa, but his lead in Nevada is only 0.3 points or roughly 4,000 votes out of ~1.5 million cast.

To quote the experts: “According to 538’s final presidential forecast, Vice President Kamala Harris has a 50-in-100 chance of winning the Electoral College after all votes are counted (which could take a few days). We give former President Donald Trump a 49-in-100 chance to win.* Practically speaking, those odds are virtually indistinguishable — about the same as flipping a coin and getting heads versus tails.’

Of course, all of these polling numbers are within the margin of error, so it just appears to be excruciatingly close right up to and beyond the last moment.

So, for my part, this concludes my many, many posts leading up to the election. I’ve tried my best to provide honest, accurate coverage. But now all I can say is whatever happens, happens. So that, as we say in show business, is a wrap … 

… except to say that this past weekend, we got around to celebrating two family birthdays, for Oliver (13) and Bettina (6). When I was wrapping Bettinas present, my latest dose of Carbidopa-Levadopa had not yet kicked in, so my left hand was shaking and I did a lousy job of the task at hand.

Later, when I gave my youngest granddaughter her present, I apologized for how badly wrapped it was.

“That’s okay, Grandpa,” she said. “You’re my favorite wrapper.”

At least I think that’s what she said. Maybe it was “You’re my favorite rapper.”

In any event, that is a wrap.

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