Dear Friends -
I want to write about the passing of Jerry Jeff Walker, whose album ¡Viva Terlingua! Is perhaps my favorite country music album (it was recorded in Luckenbach, Texas using hay bales for sound baffles). I could say a lot about Jerry Jeff Walker and country music. But my desire to do that is preempted by my obsessive compulsive behavior around the election, so here it goes:
Over the next few days, you will see a giant avalanche of polls and predictions on voter turnout and vote-by-mail. It is a data nerd’s paradise of especially dubious value in a year like 2020. I’m following it, even though it has wreaked havoc on my mood: one report has me confident of victory, the next one of defeat. All of that takes us back to where we started this newsletter: ignore the polls -- and especially the predictions.
Among the political consulting and punditry class, there are two views of the state of the election. The first was best summarized by Matt Stoller in a short tweet: “This race was over in March when Trump refused to do anything meaningful about COVID.” For a detailed argument on this front, lose yourself in Peter Hamby’s excellent Vanity Fair piece. The alternative point of view is that it’s going to be very, very close -- and given the state of American politics, including an unpredictable President and the GOP-dominance of the courts and state legislatures, anything could happen. This point of view is best summarized here with these two notable quotes, the first from Tom Bonier (a noted Democratic pollster): “There are more known unknowns than we’ve ever had at any point,” And the second quote:
In addition, while Trump is behind in critical states, he is close to or within the margin of error in many of them. And that’s “after a f---ing historically awful year,” said Jeff Roe, the Republican strategist who steered Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign.
My mantra (and Rule #1) since 2012 has been that it will get crazier. I hope it isn’t true, but Americans are a difficult bunch (as the rest of the world knows). Here are some crazy things that are shaping the election:
Bigly Turnout: This will be the highest turnout in American history. Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic makes everything unpredictable, especially as the current spike is likely to peak around election day and disproportionately impact red states: in Missouri, medical centers have had to turn away ambulances, while in Wisconsin they’ve set up emergency field hospitals.
In 2016, about 137 million Americans voted -- about 58% of the eligible voters in this country. (Yes, that’s right: 93 million people didn’t vote in 2016.) We’re on track to see about 160 million Americans vote this year. Between mail-in ballots and the early vote, 96 million votes will be cast before election day. In other words, most Americans will vote long before Tuesday, Nov. 3.
That’s good for Democrats, right? The Economist makes the case that “Republicans owe much of their electoral success to liberals who don’t vote”. But keep in mind that our government -- the Electoral College and the Senate -- are explicitly designed to disadvantage the majority. That’s why Democrats keep winning the popular vote but losing the presidency. The conventional wisdom is that vote-by-mail favors Democrats. We must ignore the polls and the projections: all of it is based on prior behavior. And thanks to the pandemic, this election is entirely unlike prior elections. In 2016, about 32 million people voted by mail. We’re going to end up at something like three times that number. It is unprecedented, and prior models will not be accurate. Not to mention the historic number of people who have relocated due to the pandemic.
Let’s look at Texas: more people have voted in Texas so far than voted for Trump in 2016. The Cook Political Report did an analysis and found that the early vote (including vote by mail) was about equal across regions of Texas that went hard for Trump and went hard for Clinton in 2016. The bases of both parties are very, very fired up to vote -- so that enthusiasm combined with the unpredictability of the pandemic means that we just don’t know. Make sure you vote and get everyone you know to vote. Today I’m painting a massive sign for my yard to remind people to vote; I’ll send you a picture next week.
I am also watching youth turnout closely. It’s pretty high on vote-by-mail -- although again, it’s such an unusual year that it’s impossible to figure out what that means. Last week saw the single largest political rally of the year, driven by a youth audience. Unless you love video games, you probably missed it; it was on Twitch (an online place where people play video games together, owned by Amazon) and it was hosted and organized by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, heroine of the American Left. That’s right: more than half a million people watched AOC play video games and talk about the importance of voting Democratic. The aftermath was even more dramatic with social media (most notably TikTok) filling up with clips of the rally that racked up millions of views. The video game she played -- Among Us -- is a favorite in our household, so much so that when the game was hacked over the weekend (in apparent retaliation for AOC’s success with it), one of my sons was a victim of the hacking.
Deterrence and Disenfranchisement: If you wondered about Trump’s appeals to Black voters in Thursday’s debate -- Biden has done nothing for you while he’s been in charge, he doesn’t deserve your vote -- the Miami Herald details the effectiveness of the Trump campaign’s efforts to target Black voters in Florida. This under the radar play is right from their 2016 playbook. Deterrence through messaging and media is a wholly different category from disenfranchisement, and we’re seeing plenty of that. (I did mention that this campaign is all about racism, right?) The latest salvo is that voters in Alabama could have their ballots thrown out -- a sure sign that the GOP is actually worried that Doug Jones will win. (This also means you should give Doug Jones $50 this morning -- he’ll need it this week. I’ve resurrected my 2003 graphic-design-moment-of-fame -- the infamous red Bat -- for the Doug Jones campaign, so give here.) It is, frankly, totally crazy that millions of people are voting and the courts are still changing the rules all over the country. And while the Trump campaign is pushing messaging at Black voters to dissuade them from voting for Biden, their online advertising for white voters is chock-full of racism, a la the Neverending Story.
Foreign Interference: Don’t forget the big news this week that got lost in the debate madness: the Director of the FBI held a press conference to reveal new efforts of foreign governments to interfere in our election. For those of you sleeping too soundly and in need of insomnia, let your imaginations run wild with Garrett Graff’s detailed reporting on the cyber threats to the election.
Anyway, who needs foreign interference when the government is being disassembled from the inside? This week Trump issued an executive order that Prof. Don Kettl says "wipes away 140 years of federal policy promoting professional expertise in government." Part of the continuing American assault on expertise, it also lays the groundwork to clean out the government of any sane, evidence-based policy makers. My conclusion? Trump is going to fire Fauci.
Knowns and Unknowns: There is a lot of other madness and crazy that I have been exploring and contemplating, from electoral college shenanigans to violence in the streets, but much of it is speculative. What I do know: an overwhelming, dominating victory for the Democrats is the only safe scenario, and it is impossible to tell if we’re on that path or not.
Speaking of paths, this week I was thinking about the longest track of fossilized human footprints ever discovered — found at White Sands National Park in New Mexico. About 10,000 years ago, a young woman “carried a child on one hip (asymmetrically deep tracks), stopped to set the child down at one point (two tiny footprints in one spot), and crossed paths with a Giant Ground Sloth and a Wooly Mammoth”.
For literally thousands of years, mothers have carried us through all manner of misery, full of personal courage, sound nerves, and stark beauty. My friend Kate Schroder is a first time candidate - public health expert, cancer survivor and mom - in Ohio, running the most competitive House campaign in the entire United States. Kate’s recent video about parenting while campaigning during a pandemic brought to mind the tracks at White Sands. If a mother 10,000 years ago can carry her child across the path of a Wooly Mammoth, you can help Kate across the finish line: join me and David Letterman in a Zoom fundraiser for her tomorrow night. To RSVP (Monday night at 6:30pm ET) or to contribute online, go here or email me.
I have so much to say I may have to write another email since I haven’t even mentioned the final presidential debate (Trump won, IMHO) or the rising tide of QAnon. Enough, for now at least. Time to take a break and go make my weekly batch of homemade kimchi.
lotsa love - nicco
PS. The New York Times’ recent "R.I.P., G.O.P." was full of bunk. They seem to forget the Whigs won the 1848 election. I wrote about the future of the GOP back in July. The NYT still doesn’t get it.