We're Not Doomed Yet!

Someone I know posted on his Facebook he quite literally couldn't sleep because of the prospects of a Trump presidency. I also had conversation with someone else who asked what my panic level was and I responded with “more like existential dread”, they thought this made sense. I’d argue the possibilities of a Trump Presidency make these behaviors pretty rational, but I don't think we are doomed quite yet. Anyway while the media is freaking out about emails and how Trump could win I want to make four big points that hopefully will let you sleep better.

1. Most of the models have Clinton as a heavy favorite: Nate Silver has been bearish all cycle about Hillary winning and has her odds at around 67 percent, but other fancy models are much more bullish. The NYTime's Upshot model gives her a 85% chance of winning, Huffpo's is in the high 80's, Drew Lizner (formerly of Emory) has her in the low 90's and others have here even higher. Maybe Nate’s right, but then again the whole boy genius thing might be a bit overrated.

2. GOTV: Jeff Blodgett (of Paul Wellstone fame) made a great point on Twitter yesterday that HRC et al have huge get out the voter organizations in crucial swing states. This includes her campaign, state parties, labor, allied organizations, everyone and your mom etc. Trump appears to have, well nothing. This is a crucial point largely ignored by reporters who want juicy stories or something with a universal scope like debate performances; getting your more marginal voters to the polls really, really, yes really matters. If one side is gangbusters and the other is nope this adds up, maybe up to 1-2 percentage points in the final outcome, maybe more.

3. Trump’s Latino Wall of Doom: Trump rode a wave of white anger about Latino immigration to political glory during the primaries, but this tactic isn’t as helpful in a general election. Who knows what Tuesday will bring, but Trump racism and nativism seems to be hurting him in the Silver State where crack reporter and long time student of Harry Reid’s Big Mean Nevada Machine has pointed out early voting statistics show Trump is doomed in the state. The Democrats just banked too many early votes to put it in play for Trump. He put it this way at 10 pm Friday night: “They just extended voting hours at a Mexican supermarket to 10 PM. Close to 1,000 voters in line. If you have a panic button GOP, find it.” That’s just one state, maybe an outlier, and Latinos aren’t as prevalent in more eastern swing states. But then again since most polls are still focusing on land lines, and few publicly released polls use bilingual staff it’s not crazy to think there’s huge turnout in the Latino community that’s not showing up in the polling and most of those voters are going for Clinton. 

4. Stop reading this dumb blog post! And go vote and knock doors! No seriously! It you want to influence the outcome on Tuesday you don’t have much time left!