Oh, Nebraska! Land of wide-open spaces – most of them in Republicans’ heads.
We’ll get to that in a moment. First, the good news: Kamala Harris – the presidential candidate in this race who actually believes in democracy – is well up nationally in the averages of polls – 2.9% according to the 538 and 3% by the NY Times aggregate.
Second: my weird observation, and maybe some more good news:
The state polls actually look really good for Harris. Check out this collection of polls by 270towin.com.
Not only does she seem to be edging out Dirty Donald in Pennsylvania (up by 1.9%), Michigan (3.2%), Nevada (1.4%), and Wisconsin (1.7%) (while Arizona is essentially tied and Trump leads in North Carolina by 1.1%, and is up in Georgia by 1.6%), but Harris is doing pretty well in states that we think of as very red: down by about 5% in Texas, Florida, and Alaska. Down by 4% in Iowa.
What I’m seriously wondering is how it could be that close in those states, while Harris is up by massive amounts in California, New York, and Illinois, and yet still be just a 3-point race? When you look at the map, it does seem a bit questionable.
It doesn’t necessarily mean the national polls are off, of course: state polls could be off, too, no doubt. Also, we should remember that polling isn’t perfect, and there have been polling problems before, as noted by Pew.
Yet I now wonder if the opposite of what I accurately predicted in The Hill in 2016 could be occurring: Could the difference between what the state polls are showing and what the national polls show indicate that Harris is actually up by slightly more nationally, maybe 5 points instead of 3, say?
Now the bad news:
His Royal Hind Ass Trump could lose by 7, 8, 10 million votes and still become president – because of our stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid Electoral College that the Founders created in their utter genius (because we know they were divine).
As you can see by playing with this interactive map, if Harris wins in Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Arizona but Trump takes Georgia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania by a nose, he’ll win in the college even if he loses by millions and millions of votes (you know – actual people).
But it’s truly even worse than it seems. For starters, the Republicans are engaging in their usual tactics of closing polling stations, purging voters, preventing ex-felons from voting, voter ID laws to prevent fraud that does not exist (and which make it more difficult for transgender people to vote), and even trying to disenfranchise all of Omaha.
Yes, Trump and Co., fearful that one electoral vote could make the difference, are stepping up efforts to get Nebraska to go all-or-nothing again so that the people of Omaha have no say.
The sophistry involved in the arguments in favor of doing this are, of course, ludicrous. Yet Nebraska Senator Pete Ricketts and fellow Trumpolyte Representative Mike Flood joined Sean Hannity to make such arguments, ready to disenfranchise voters in their own state to kiss Donald’s ass. These arguments included, in not so few words, “Forty-eight other states are winner-take-all!” And, “We used to be winner-take-all, so that’s the right way!”
Literally, the arguments amounted to that.
Somehow they’re not interested in making Maine winner-take-all or, for that matter, the entire election winner-take-all by getting rid of the goddamn Electoral College completely.
(It’s worth noting, by the way, that we have little idea how Maine’s second district will fall, since there’s little polling there. Wouldn’t it be fun if all of our votes didn’t count and it just came down to Maine’s second? What a great system!)
And so, once again, the Democrats need to win by a touchdown. If everyone could vote in this country and every vote counted equally, Republicans would have trouble ever getting into power.
But now, I ask, what happens if Harris does in fact win by 5+ million votes and loses the Electoral College? Are the Dems really going to be stupid enough to go, “Well, that’s the way the cookie crumbles! You have to follow the rules of the game!” – as if we’re playing Parcheesi rather than determining the fate of the country?
Maybe it’s time to stop trusting in the system that gave us a completely disproportionate Senate, a gerrymandered House, a joke of a Supreme Court with lifetime appointments, and oh, yeah…Donald Trump.