...since the actual election isn't over yet we can't do a post-mortem on that: but it looks like Biden will just barely win the electoral college, but it's unlikely that the Democrats will take control of the Senate--more on that in a moment.
First, the polls were again mostly worthless (pollsters are the new astrologers). People who make their living peddling analysis of this garbage data, like Nate Silver, should go get honest work. Races that were supposed to be close (like Florida and Ohio) were not; states where Biden had big leads (like Michigan and Wisconsin) are states he will win, just barely. There was some regional variation in how bad the polls were, but the bottom line is that the actual numbers were meaningless: in large parts of the country, every poll has to be adjusted upwards a few points for Republican voters. It's not, I suspect, that they're "shy" and not telling the truth about whom they're voting for; it's rather that--thanks to Trump and Fox and Rush Limbaugh--they are not living in a shared space with the rest of us, and view polling, like the "mainstream media," as dishonest and against them, so they simply aren't responding. That's my best guess, in any case.
Second, as of about 11:30 am EST, it looks likely that Biden will emerge victorious in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nevada which, even without Pennsylvania, will get him to 270 electoral votes. Georgia and North Carolina look like they are going for Trump, although they haven't been officially called yet. But the margin of victory, if that is what it is, is sufficiently close that Trump is likely to try to sabotage it through legal and illegal challenges. So while it appears Biden is winning the electoral college, we are in territory where the election might yet be stolen, with or without the help of the courts. Biden's only dramatic triumph was in Arizona, where one suspects his longstanding friendship with the popular late Senator John McCain helped him a lot.
Third, Gauleiter McConnell was reelected in Kentucky, and if the Republicans control the Senate, he will just repeat his tactics from the Obama years, preventing the appointment of judges, blocking stimulus money, and preventing any progressive legislation. And as things stand, that seems the most likely outcome in the Senate, since the Democrats needed a net gain of three seats. Alabama flipped back to the Republicans, Arizona and Colorado flipped to the Democrats: that's a net gain of just one. The Republicans held their contested Senate seats in Montana and Iowa [rather easily], and appear to have held it in North Carolina [somewhat less easily]. Collins appears likely to have kept her Maine seat in Republican hands,which leaves us with Georgia. In one Senate race, it looks like the Republican has prevailed. In the other, there will be a run-off between a popular African-American preacher and the cretinous social parasite, Kelly Loeffler--so maybe that will get us a net gain of two Democratic seats in the Senate. But to make matters worse for the Democrats, it is unclear whether the incumbent Democratic Senator in Michigan will win re-election at the time of this writing. Bottom line: it looks like the Democrats may have a net gain of one or two seats, so not enough to enable Biden to accomplish much of anything legislatively (unless Biden is able to cajole a few of his Republican Senator friends, which may be possible on occasion).
Fourth, as the post-election blame starts circulating, bear in mind what we do know from decades of political science literature on American elections. First, party identification drives most voting behavior, and voters adjust their views to those of the party leaders, rather than picking the party based on their own views. (Party identification is more a function of non-political group identification: e.g., evangelical Christian, union member, African-American, Cuban-American, Mexican-American, Catholic, etc.) Second, only a small segment of the electorate (e.g., folks reading this blog) has highly informed views on the candidates and the issues. Third, elections are decided by the least informed voters, whose choices are largely mysterious.
Recalling my pre-election musings, I'd say the outcome of this election is quite bad, but not catastrophic. But America is still doomed.
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