Thoughts on November 5, 2024

I’ve moved around quite a bit, and changed occupational trajectories repeatedly, so I know a lot of people.

First, a CRM start-up in the San Fernando Valley, next an environmental non-profit in Santa Monica, then an advocacy group addressing traffic violence in San Francisco, followed by a stint as campaign manager for an Arizona state senator, and currently, as part of a team working to pass low carbon fuel policies in states including Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and Pennsylvania.

Right now, lots of these people are feeling anxious about November 5, 2024. Are you one of them? If so, given the choice before us, you should be anxious.

This year, Americans will choose a future where we either:

• protect our freedoms to decide if, when or how to start/grow our families, to love who we love, to be who are (no matter our race, gender, our birthplace), and to thrive, by continuing to see the kind of economic progress that has made America, post-COVID, the “the envy of the world,” OR;

• allow a twice-impeached, twice-popular vote losing, convicted felon and rapist who—along with his MAGA enablers in state legislatures, Congress and on the Supreme Court—lied and stoked a violent and treasonous attack, and is now doing the rinse/repeat to use this election to become a dictator, under whom we would lose all our freedoms.

But I have to ask, are you anxious because of the ‘stakes’ to yourself, your friends and neighbors, and given the climate crisis, the future of your children and grandchildren? Or are you anxious because you’re watching this election through the lens of media coverage, which pits one candidate against another in a horse race narrative that’s focused on the ‘odds’ of who will win?

This unhealthy obsession with the ‘odds’ vs ‘stakes’ has created a dangerous false equivalence.

It sane-washes one party’s racist, nativist, misogynist, LGBTQ-hating, and fascist ambitions, and puts MAGA on a level playing field in a head-to-head, neck-and-neck race against a democratic party trying to earn our votes, by delivering record low unemployment, record low uninsured rates, caps for the costs of prescription drugs like insulin and hearing aids, cuts to student loan debt, investments in our roads, bridges, and high-speed internet networks, and by bringing back American leadership in manufacturing and innovation, this time in clean energy.

Tr*mp wants to ensure a white, wealthy, well-connected few don’t have to pay the taxes they owe (he has plans for a second trillions of dollars giveaway), won’t be held to equal justice when they pollute our air, water, or climate, or can’t be reigned in when they price gouge (his anti-consumer tariff plan). That includes putting Russia and Putin’s interests over Americans’.

Harris wants to lower taxes for working families—not billionaires and corporations. She wants to lower everyday costs for working families (groceries, medicine, healthcare, childcare, senior care, housing, and energy), and she wants to lift up small businesses, unions, and industries strategic to our independence and national security (see plan).

So, how’s it possible this race so close?

Because for horse race coverage to generate the clicks/views that drive media’s profits, by necessity, this election HAS to be close. In this case, not simply close: it has to appear that Tr*mp has a better chance of winning, because that feeds our anxiety and drives the compulsion to click and view. Especially, when the media relies on polling to push this horse race frame.

So, with 14 days of early voting left, where Americans can choose their future, I’m writing this blog not to predict what will happen on November 5, but to tell you a story the media simply is NOT.

Deep Cuts: Election 2024 Edition

This (abbreviated)¹ list explains what has kept me from feeling anxious, and instead, feeling hopeful. But beyond hope, the reasons below have kept me focused to DO SOMETHING (in my case, contacting Arizona and Nevada voters and persuading them to vote, vote early, and encouraging their own friends to vote, too).

Remember—as in 2018, 2020, and 2022—in 2024, WE, the American voters, can (and will) win again. Here’s a list of why, in reverse chronological order-ish:

• First, let’s not forget that in 2016, nearly 3M more Americans voted for Clinton, than the draft-dodging, wife-cheating, race-baiting, six-time bankrupt, reality-TV grifter. And in 2020, more than double 2016’s number, nearly 8M Americans voted for Biden. Why would any of the 91M Americans who’ve voted for Biden/Dems since 2016, now switch their vote?

• Skipping ahead to June 2022, the Tr*mp-appointed and previously bought-and-sold MAGA Justices on the Supreme Court took away Roe v. Wade’s protections of our reproductive freedoms, by putatively ceding control to state government.² Since then, voters deciding state ballot initiatives (even in red states like Alabama, Kansas and Kentucky) have loudly spoken out to defend their rights. In the seven ballot elections since Dobbs, voter turnout has been more intense than expected (i.e., polled), and voters have been far more pro-reproductive freedoms than forecasted (i.e., polled). Remember: KS was supposed to be razor close; the results were anything but.

• The reality of a post-Roe/Dobbs world is no longer theoretical; it’s now the law of the land in nearly 25 MAGA-controlled states with restrictions or bans, including in some, criminalization of patients, doctors and/or caregivers helping patients seeking healthcare...this has already driven record numbers of women to vote, and continues to drive out even MORE women to vote for control of their bodies and lives (and the candidate(s) who share their values). Consider, reproductive freedom is on the ballot in 10 states, including key battlegrounds like Arizona, Montana, and Nevada. How will that do anything but juice democratic turnout, as it did in the 2022 midterm?

• With key groups that back Harris (i.e., young women, young people, people of color), NEW voter registration has gone through the roof. For example, per Targetsmart analysis, which compared updated voter files this summer against the same July - August period in 2020, new registrations increased by an eye-popping 262% among Black women under 30! Unprecedented registration jumps like this happened first with the Dobbs decision, and are again now (and in fact, surpassing the post-Dobbs jumps). Also, NEW registrants don’t get counted in polls of registered or likely voters.

• Now, let’s go to July 21 of this year. Since then, the Harris/Walz has campaign has not only raised a RECORD $1B, doing so in record-short period of time—but also, via record numbers of small and first-time donors. This starkly contrasts with Tr*mp where GOP donations are down (other than from billionaires like Elon Musk, using dark money Super Pacs to illegally buy votes).

• Harris is more popular at this point than Biden has been this election cycle (both in head-to-head and favorability), and remember he won by a huge margin. And, when you consider only the quality, topline polls since July 24—not the now 30+ MAGA Repub pollsters flooding the zone with fake polls to move the average, as they did in the midterms to create the ‘red wave’ mirage (I also wrote about this before here)—this is what’s actually happening:

  Since Harris entered the race, quality polls have been remarkably consistent AND she’s has been ahead.

  So, seriously, ignore the polls because they don’t tell us anything we don’t already know.

Since late August more than 100 right-aligned polls have been dropped into the polling averages. There are now at least 31 right-aligned pollsters and sponsoring organizations have released fake polls in the last seven weeks

Let me say again for those skimming:

• Moving on from polls. Following the Democratic National Convention in August 2024, consider ALL of the Republicans who’ve now publicly come out AGAINST the convicted felon, going on record, not just against him, but FOR Harris. It is unprecedented (and didn’t happen before January 6), especially given how many were in his own White House administration. Moreover, it’s created a critical permission structure for other anti-MAGA Republicans to move on. Since 2020, his base has ONLY decreased. Consider just three data points: how he did in the primaries compared to Biden, his shrinking rally sizes (which were always overinflated), with bored audiences wandering off, and Truth Social.

  Here are his primary results in just the battlegrounds—a clear indicator Biden/Dem base is more enthusiastic about their candidate, than Repubs.

  

  USA Today Primary Tracker

  His social media platform has dropped from 1,199,616 million app downloads when it launched in 2022, to an anemic 40,293 downloads. As shown below, both active users and the stock price have also crashed.

• The Harris campaign is doing the incredibly hard work of GOTV (Get Out the Vote) in battleground states, including by staffing field offices and outspending Tr*mp in ads. Unbelievably, the convicted felon has outsourced this critical (race-determining) campaign field effort to an Elon Musk-funded Super Pac that is, to put it mildly, underperforming.

• And, not only is Harris’ campaign putting in the margin of effort needed, but a literal, unheralded army of grassroots volunteers (active since 2016) is helping, too. Election-focused volunteers in organizations like Sister District Project (70,000 ) and Swing Left (1 million), and so, so many others, including a fantastic new group called the Blue Voter Guide³ are a key winning factor, a secret sauce/secret weapon essentially. It’s a movement that’s gone almost entirely under the radar of the mainstream media. While I personally know over a hundred people doing this work, there are hundreds of thousands, even millions (perhaps 3.5% of Americans) across the country, quietly volunteering and making a difference.

• And then…there’s this: since June 2022, in over 65(!) special Congressional/state legislative elections in battleground and non-battleground states (where people actually voted, not answered some random poll), Dems have averaged 3.5pts better than Biden in 2020! Why would that winning streak, along with the preceding streak of Democratic wins in 2018, 2020, and the 2022 midterms (see snippet of earlier post below), now suddenly flip in favor of the demented trainwreck that is Tr*mp?

• Finally, there’s actual voting in the 2024 election, which started on September 20 in Minnesota and South Dakota. And yes, voting matters MORE than polls. How people vote, is a definitively a stronger predictor than polling, of if/how people will vote in the future. First day voting in Georgia and North Carolina were at record levels, exceeding 2020! Four states—California, Florida, GA, and Michigan—have each already seen 1 million voters go to the ballot early.

So, to wrap up, I leave you with one other item that might be of interest (though it wasn’t part of my list of considerations when I started writing this blog). Remember Michael Moore? He called both the 2016 and 2022 elections. Check out his 2024 EC maps at the end.

The electorate is getting bluer, but is it enough to overcome a racist Electoral College, decades of active voter suppression by the GOP (starting in 2000 when Jeb Bush purged so many Florida voters), and today’s Russian/Chinese/MAGA-bots and AI spreading disinformation to confuse voters?

We must vote SO blue, MAGA can't deny our win.⁴  

It’s clear they don’t have the votes to win—after losing so many times up and down the ballot—which is why they’re spending huge sums to file bogus lawsuits and update their 2020 plans to overturn the election with more lies and cheating. THIS is what you need to be anxious about.

The key is not simply to win, but to win SO big and so decisively that we send them to the dustbin of history (AND get the vital Dem majorities needed in the Senate/House to finally make REAL substantive changes—like addressing the corrupt MAGA Justices).

No One Can Predict 2024’s Election

I didn’t blog to predict 2024 (no one can). I wrote to tear you away from the media’s siren song, with its dangerous drumbeat. In the next 14 days, IF we vote, vote early, bring everyone we know to the polls, and (for those of us who can) volunteer for GOTV—we can and will make history, AGAIN!

Rather than act as spectators of a horse race where we’re expected to have no agency, let’s—as Michelle Obama said at the DNC, and as Peter sings—

“Do Something.”

1  I say ‘abbreviated’ because I’ve done a more detailed analysis on the battleground states of AZ, GA, NC, NV, MI, PA and WI (going back to 1976 to look at how they vote in the Presidential, for Senate/Congress, Governors, and their state legislature majorities), and I also have more data/articles than shared above, for all points listed.

2  Ah, the oldest dog whistle of them all: states rights. Let’s stop pretending this is anything but the living, breathing Frankenstein that is our modern-day manifestation of white, wealthy, slave-holding interests from our nation’s founding, cloaked in fascist, Christian nationalism.

3  The Blue Voter Guide gives high-potential, but low information democratic voters a single, fast easy-to-use quick tool to make informed, pro-democracy choices for candidates and propositions, addressing critical down-ballot roll off issues.

4  This Republican operative, on a recent MSNBC interview about early voting, interestingly said that GOP state parties (vs. Tr*mp) are telling their voters to vote early, so the the GOP win is “Too big, to rig.”