Look, if you’ve ever been sucked into one of those social media video medical advertisements where some physician or chemist claims to have discovered a ridiculously easy way to detox the superfund-grade contamination of your liver without dieting or exercising or giving up your Jim Beam, you know you’re going to have to endure twenty plus minutes of tease before the secret is revealed that for $59.99 for can purchase a magical elixir, the great great great grandchild of 19th Century snake oil, and presto, no more liver problems.
But I’m not going to put you through that. I’m going to explain right away why Kamala Harris is going to win the presidency, maybe by a comfortable margin, and I wouldn’t be risking my stellar reputation as internet sage the weekend before the election if I were not positive.[1]
Let’s start unscientifically by plumbing the rich grotto of my intuition, a storehouse of data and sensations forming what the vulgar call “a gut feeling,” or what I’d prefer to call “an intestinal foreshadowing.”[2]
Okay, let’s get this show on the road.
Although I don’t believe that yard signs and crowd sizes are accurate predictors of election outcomes, this cycle seems somewhat different. At her rallies, Kamala’s audiences hang on her every word as she catalogues a future marked by communal problem solving whereas the less populous crowds at the Trump rallies tend to leave early during Trump’s interminable dystopian descriptions of mongrel hordes laying waste to municipalities or children exiting their school buses an entirely different gender than when they boarded in the morning. Any sane person who doesn’t reside inside the un-fun house of QAnon conspiracy theories knows that Trump is lying and/or delusional. Not a good look for someone entrusted with nuclear codes.
He offers no specific plans, but all the world’s and the nation’s ills will be solved, like the magic liver elixir, by his magical presence.
Slathered with orange make-up and topped with clownish platinum hair, like a cartoon character in the same clothes, he shambles around the nation in a haze that very well could be drug-induced. I mean who falls asleep during his own felony trial? At any rate, his campaign has devolved into a Roman circus where he cosplays fast food minimum wage earners or sanitary workers. Yesterday, the garbage truck driving in circles with Trump staring out the window seems an apt metaphor for the campaign’s final stages. It’s almost as if his staff wants him to lose.
Segueing into a more data-driven arguments, early voting seems very promising for Kamala. Although Republicans have been voting early, unlike in 2020, the voters have tended to be elderly high propensity voters, and Jen O’Malley Dillion, Kalama’s campaign chair, says, “We feel really good about what we’re seeing out there.” Even in Nevada where early voting rural Republicans have established a red fire wall, Dillion says in the last two days in Clark County, a Democratic stronghold, “we’ve had higher turnout from young voters than we have at any other point in this cycle.” She adds, “We are seeing Republicans voting early, but these are Republicans that are going to vote no matter what. So what they’re doing is that they’re changing their mode of voting. They were going to vote on Election Day, now they’re voting early.” She also claims that in other states low propensity voters are voting Democratic early. Polls also show that undecided voters are more open to voting for Kamala, not to mention than more women than men are voting with reproductive rights being one of the major issues.
Then there’s the discrepancy in the ground games. The Democratics boast a well-trained, well-staffed group of dedicated, enthusiastic doorknockers, postcard writers, phone-callers and texters whereas the Republicans are relying on paid workers, mercenaries you might say, to attempt to get the undecided to vote.
In short, the Republicans are, like their Dear Leader, disorganized (cf. Trump’s stashing classified documents in his bathroom). In the last days of the campaign you have Mike Johnson promising to end Obamacare if Trump wins, you have Elon Musk predicting Trump’s slashing spending will create temporary economic hardship, and Nikki Haley trashing the campaign. I suspect that Kamala will win at least 10% of Republican voters and a majority of independents. After all, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove are voting for Kamala.
Lastly, the Democrats have several pathways to 270 electoral college votes, even if they were to lose Pennsylvania, which seems unlikely with a half-a-million pissed off Puerto Ricans living there.
Last, but certainly not least, the last three heart-breaking presidential loses in 2000, 2004, and 2016 featured wooden candidates incapable of warming the hearts of non-partisans. Obviously, Kamala is charismatic, out-Obama-ing Obama in my opinion.
Now that’s it. Excuse me while I check out some new promising dietary supplements. Cheers!
[1] Caveat: I’m not as positive that fawning Republican state legislatures and/or Speaker Mike Johnson will allow the certification of a Harris victory.
[2] Please note, I have now removed my tongue from my cheek.
You Do Hoodoo 