[ Posted Thursday, November 12th, 2020 – 17:23 UTC ]
While Democrats are rightly excoriating President Donald Trump for his extended hissy fit over the election results (who's hiding in his basement now, Mister President?), they should also be in the process of dialing down expectations for what Joe Biden will be able to accomplish as president. Because in all likelihood, Democrats are not going to win both Senate seats in the Georgia runoff elections. It could happen, but even if it does it will still mean lowered expectations for what comes next.
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[ Posted Tuesday, November 3rd, 2020 – 15:44 UTC ]
I'm not even going to try to write an article today, because nobody would likely even read it. We're all just waiting for the results to start appearing anyway, so I thought I'd file this as a placeholder column so we can all start fresh down in the comments section tonight.
I got the following [...]
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[ Posted Friday, October 30th, 2020 – 17:30 UTC ]
We'll get to explaining that title further (as if it really needs it), down in the talking points section of our program. And happy Hallowe'en-eve to everyone ("Hallowe'en'en," maybe?).
The homestretch of the 2020 election has been rather bizarre to watch, since President Donald Trump has made his closing argument: "Pandemic? What pandemic? I don't see any pandemic anywhere!"
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[ Posted Monday, October 26th, 2020 – 18:38 UTC ]
Welcome to our penultimate Electoral Math column. Next Monday, I will post my own final picks for the 2020 presidential election, for better or for worse. And I promise, in the final column, there will be no tossup states at all -- I'll make a prediction even for those I've got to flip a coin to decide.
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[ Posted Friday, October 23rd, 2020 – 17:45 UTC ]
We are now only one Scaramucci away from Election Day. For those unfamiliar with the reference, a "Scaramucci" is a unit of time measurement equal to the time Anthony "The Mooch" Scaramucci spent as President Donald Trump's press secretary -- 11 days. And we're now only one Scaramucci away from the election.
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[ Posted Thursday, October 22nd, 2020 – 21:48 UTC ]
The second (and final) presidential debate tonight was as different from the first as it could possibly be. That will likely be the biggest takeaway for both the press and the public. President Donald Trump -- for the most part -- actually behaved himself and didn't try to dominate every single minute. Joe Biden debated the way he really wanted to in the first debate. It was, in a word, normal. Which is why this will be the big headline tomorrow, because whenever Trump does anything even halfway normal, it is big news.
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[ Posted Tuesday, October 20th, 2020 – 15:04 UTC ]
This is the phase of the presidential election when all the pundits start talking about what the candidates' "closing message" either is, will be, or should be. For Joe Biden, the closing message really should be one that has been there all along. In fact, it's the underpinning of pretty much everything Biden has campaigned on, whether explicit or merely implied. It's also easy to state and it is already on the minds and lips of voters everywhere. It is such a simple message that I identified it long before Joe Biden even became the Democratic nominee.
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[ Posted Monday, October 19th, 2020 – 18:14 UTC ]
Once again, it is time for our Monday rundown of the state-level polling in the presidential race. Since last week, Donald Trump has returned to the campaign trail in a big way, after his quick recovery from COVID-19. His rallies are (as usual) packed shoulder-to-shoulder with nary a mask in sight, even though we're on the leading edge of the next big wave of infections across the country (indeed, in many of the states Trump is travelling through).
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[ Posted Friday, October 16th, 2020 – 16:56 UTC ]
The second wave of the pandemic now appears to be upon us. Yesterday, over 60,000 new coronavirus cases were reported in the U.S. That number has been heading upward all week, in fact. And it's higher than it has been since the last wave hit (some call the impending wave the third wave, due to the two previous spikes, we should point out). And we are less than three weeks away from the presidential election.
This, more than any other factor, may become the key reason Donald Trump loses. Sure, we're all tired of hearing about the pandemic (and have been for quite some time). But then Trump caught it, which relaunched it back onto center stage in the political arena. Although he quickly recovered, for once Trump could not manage to change the storyline. And now it looks like the fall/winter wave is here. This will mean COVID-19 will, once again, lead most news coverage. For the next week (at the very least), stories will again appear about overwhelmed doctors and hospitals. It will be on everyone's mind.
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[ Posted Monday, October 12th, 2020 – 17:58 UTC ]
It's Monday, so it is time once again to take a look at the state-level polling for the presidential race. I have to point out as a reminder, right up front, that no matter what the national-level polling shows, it simply does not matter to how we actually elect our presidents, as both Al Gore and Hillary Clinton can easily attest to. This is why I never even mention these numbers in this column series.
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