The MAGA men have worked themselves into a frenzy of false expectation, while simultaneously becoming terrified that women - lowly women!...OMG women – are stealing the White Male election!
Their premature ejacu-lection comes from pleasuring themselves recklessly in a fantasy-land. Now, with almost one-third of Americans having voted already, they are beginning to get off the couch.
The MAGA leadership had cranked out a ream of bogus polls that showed that Trump was going to win. Right-wing influencer Ian Miles Cheong pushed out a forecast from a new polling company suggesting that Trump would take 74.3 percent of the national vote. “Trump is absolutely going to win,” he said. “The data shows it.”
In the final stretch of this campaign they have released 37 surveys showing that Trump will win. Now, all the MAGA bros expect to see that result.
Betting platforms like Polymarket that allow people to place bets on election outcomes have seen a jump in Trump’s odds recently - one that does not track with the overall state of the race. The bump-up appears to have been pushed almost entirely by a very small number of high-value bets from just four accounts linked to a French national. They have collectively placed $30 million on a Trump victory this month. I wonder who is behind it?
The false braggadocio will make it easier for MAGA leadership to claim, when the Trump victory doesn’t happen, that the election was stolen.
The hard voting reality is that women vote in much greater numbers than men. This hard factoid will be impossible to deny after the polls close.
Women tend to vote earlier than men anyway, but even accounting for this the voter turn-out has been “disproportionately female…If men stay at home, Kamala is president. It’s that simple,” warned conservative organizer Charlie Kirk.
There is currently a ten-point gap between female (54%) and male (44%) early voters. More than one-quarter of all potential 231-million voters have already cast their ballots.
Men turn out to vote in higher numbers on election day, although the turnout gap between women and men voters has grown in favor of women in every presidential election since 1980. And there are simply more women voters than men.
The expected bump in male numbers will be at best a blip.
Personally, I don’t put my faith in polls. I trust what seems right to me. I bet on Trump ahead of Hillary in 2016, because he had a great connection with the crowd that she was not able to replicate.
I put my money on Biden in 2020, because I could not face the prospect of another four years of the orange idiot. Reflexive luck.
In 2024 I am betting again with my heroes Michael Moore and Allan Lichtman, who have non-polling judgements that are based more on the meaning of the candidates.
Polling is perhaps especially weak this year, because the polling gurus have solved the problem of looking like fools again by underestimating the Trump vote; this time they are determined to look like fools by over-estimating it.
This at least is the view of CNN analyst Harry Enten, who says that the orange man's position might not be a strong as it looks. A similar embarrassing moment occurred in 2022, when the predicted “red wave” did not occur. It turned to have been an expectation mirage created by a flood of Republican-flavored polls.
So the gurus this time are busy over-estimating Trump’s chances. They are “underestimating the idea that maybe Kamala Harris will be underestimated by the polls,’ says Enten.
There are also the betting markets, which I looked at until they started being over-run by billionaires who have a vested interest in promoting a sustainer of the monied aristocracy.
Now I have fallen a bit under the sway of the “Votes Already Cast” information. Many states provide details about the early votes that are cast, including partisan divisions and age of voters, as well as voting method.
More than half of Americans are expected to vote ahead of election day, according to Gallup.
Democrats are more likely to vote early than Republicans. They are more enthusiastic. One of their own is running.
Also, more people plan to vote this year than in 2020 (67% v.s. 60%). This increase is largely a result of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents expressing heightened enthusiasm after Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden. They have maintained that enthusiasm.
This is worth putting a number on, because it will figure in to the “Votes Already Cast” prophecy:
The Democrats have a ten point ‘enthusiasm jump’ over the Republicans.
This is where I personally have to be careful, because I can’t understand why ANYONE would want to vote for a fuddled-mouth dictator whose own former executive team hates him and who can’t even climb into a garbage truck. Watching him grope for the door handle is painful; watching him drag his right foot across the ground reminds me of one of those horror films.
CNN’s Jeffrey Evan Gold said: "I don't think he's going to pass the physical for the garbage job but at least he's trying."
Another commentator noted that "The irony is that no city or state could hire Donald Trump as a garbage man, given he's a felon out on bail awaiting sentencing."
Garbage aside, Americans are paying close attention to this election, with more than 80% of voters saying they have given “a lot of thought” to the subject.
More voters have been contacted by the Harris campaign than by the Trump effort, which would fit with funding availability. Which, BTW, is a minor miracle for Kamala – to have come from nothing to more than a billion dollars in donations is spectacular. Her donors are mostly small-value gifts, while Donald hits the billionaire class:
All of them reply on government for a significant portion of their profits.
In any event, the results of all these expectations and efforts look like this in terms of the 60+ million people who have already voted:
Summary of Status Based on Votes Already Cast
States “at risk” within 4% of voting difference in Early Ballots.
Notes on Republican “at risk” states: Georgia went Democrat in 2020, by an incredibly tight 0.2%. The polls show the race as an even call this time, though the advance voting is going Republican, so I put it in Trump’s category.
North Carolina is actually too close to call, but I put it in the Republican category just to be safe. The October Quinnipiac poll showed a 2 percentage point difference in the presidential race, on the upside for Harris, but the previous polls had shown Trump ahead.
It is interesting: as you march further South into the Confederacy, the larger the Republican margin grows.
All told, there are three national scenarios:
First, we make a simple assumption that the early polling is an accurate foretaste of the final election vote. In this case, Kamala wins with 276 Electoral Votes.
Second, the defection of the ‘at risk’ Democratic states of Colorado and Iowa to the Republicans, leads to a Trump win of 273 to 260.
Third, a defection of Republican states to the Democrats, leading to a larger Harris win of 308 to 225.
I’m going with Option 3: a larger Democratic victory.
Partly because, as admitted, I can’t understand why he would get any votes at all.
Mostly, though, because we know that some ten percent of Republicans plan to vote Democrat this time around.
So when the voting registrar makes a note of the voters’ party registrations, it is not a clear-cut ‘fact’ that Republican-labelled is Republican-voting.
It would easily be a much bigger swing for Kamala.
And if Trump pushes back against an election verdict that says “you’re fired”, what is likely to happen? Riots in the streets after a call for a recount?
No, nothing.
Would a recount change the results of the election? Not likely. Trump requested a recount after the last election and nothing changed.
He doesn’t have the power anymore to lead a mob attack on the Capitol, and new mobbers will probably remember what happened to their predecessors (still in jail).
I would expect a brief explosion of fascist rage, and then the swastika flags will be put away for the next dictator.
But there won’t be one; the trick being played on the MAGA folks is that they are going extinct. Their demographic is shirking.
There will be other effects…
China has suggested that Trump could ‘discard’ Taiwan if he were elected. Zhu Fenglian, a spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said that in view of Trump’s known ‘American First’ preference, “Taiwan at any time could change from a pawn to a discarded piece.” Never mind that Taiwan supplies America with most of its micro-chips…if Trump can decide that tariffs are paid by the producing nation and not the importing nation, who knows what he would do about a strategic asset?
Taiwan would not have to worry under Kamala’s watch.
Russia is hoping for Trump because they own him. If Kamala gets in they will be stuck in a war where their generals are turning on themselves and the coffers are bare.
But the biggest impact will be in America, with women who will regain control over their bodies. It will be an entirely new era; a new America to wake up to.
And great will be the rejoicing therein.
Except perhaps for a band of MAGA misfits, who will hopefully be required to put away their guns, go back downstairs to their mother’s basement, and fall for new Q Anon cult rumours.
The rest of us will not miss them.
Thank you for following Barry’s Substack, focusing on the meaning behind the headlines. To join our community, please support our work by becoming a paid subscriber; your comments and thoughts could be included in future articles.
Thank you, Barry, for an optimistic piece! I hope you are right in your prediction, because the alternative is depressing.
CO is at risk? I’m thinking not