Election Day Offers as Many Reasons to Believe as to Doubt
If you want to stay up to learn the winner of the presidential election, maybe skip coffee and consider a three-day meth bender.
The final NBC poll shows Donald Trump at 49 percent and Kamala Harris at 49 percent. The Leger poll taken for the New York Post also shows the same result. Ditto for the survey conducted by Emerson College. The RealClearPolitics poll of polls reveals a 49 percent stalemate as well.
Couple this closeness with the convoluted way in which various states now collect and count ballots — a century ago, Calvin Coolidge knew on Election Night that he won — and Election Day can very easily become, as it did in 2020, Election Week. Coming up with comforting rationalizations seems like the best a nervous nail-biter can do.
On the one hand, Donald Trump underpolled his final count in 2016 and, especially, 2020, when surveys showed Biden registering 3.9 points higher than he actually did on Election Day. Polls habitually undercount Trump. This, coupled with “the Bradley effect,” the name given to the phenomenon of surveys overestimating the performance of black candidates, suggests a better night for the Republican than, say, NPR/Marist College/PBS pollsters forecast.
On the other hand, in a more recent election, 2022, Republicans underperformed both expectations and polls. Possibly the outrage over the Dobbs decision and the former president’s emphasis on the perceived injustice of the 2020 election that fueled Democrats fuels them again.
On the one hand, in five of the seven swing states, including Pennsylvania, Democrats sit in the governor’s office, which awards them an infrastructure of organization unmeasured by polls.
On the other hand, Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo, one of the two swing-state Republican governors, helped engineer a reversal in early voting that witnessed the GOP, trailing badly in this category in 2020, surpass Democrats by 45,000 voters heading into Election Day.
On the one hand, North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, hampered by fundraising disadvantages and allegations he made offensive comments on a porn site, may drag rather than ride on Trump’s coattails.
On the other hand, North Carolina Republicans, 6 percentage points behind Democrats in 2020 early voting, edged Democrats by a point this time around.
On the one hand, late-deciders generally swing toward the challenger. That’s Trump, right? Right?
On the other hand, Harris, whose face appeared on the back of a milk carton at all during the Biden administration, in some ways feels like the challenger. The New York Times found late-deciders, albeit just 8 percent of the electorate, swinging 55 percent to 44 percent for the vice president.
On the one hand, Republican registration surged vis-à-vis Democrats since 2022.
On the other hand, this may merely align registration with existing voting patterns and not change anything on Election Day.
On the one hand, Trump felt a momentum surge in October.
On the other hand, it may have arrived too soon, as polls show that momentum stop and recede toward Harris in the closing days.
On the one hand, women vote in higher proportions than men. Each candidate suffers from a gender gap among the opposite sex, but given that women represent a larger portion of the population and a greater proportion of them vote, this feels like worse news for Trump.
On the other hand, Donald Trump surges among Hispanics and in one poll actually beats Harris.
On the one hand, Donald Trump courageously raised his fist and yelled “Fight, Fight Fight” after an assassin came within centimeters of taking his life. How can he lose after winning so dramatically in Butler, Pennsylvania?
On the other hand, Democrats replaced Biden with Harris, who performed better than Biden in a debate setting, ran a more effective campaign, and infused life to a moribund party.
On the one hand, one can mine the internet for data, factoids, and historical context that provide comfort by buttressing the idea of one’s desired result.
On the other hand, nagging doubts last for both sides until officials count the final votes in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and beyond. Tuesday may prove a long night’s journey into day — and then into another day or two.
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