Jeremy's Den: She Was Moving Like A Dragon Princess

To surrender to bullies, to bow down to dictators, it is simply unthinkable. Make no mistake, we will not bow down.
(Joe Biden)

Democracy is never guaranteed. Every generation must preserve it, defend it, and fight for it.
(Joe Biden)

There is nothing really thrilling happening in the United Kingdom right now, is it? Other than Keir Starmer reneging on more pledges as Prime Minister than he did as Leader of the Opposition, that is. So it's time to switch our attention to the elections that will shape the future of civilisation-as-we-know-it, the whole batch held in the United States on the 5th of November. Which is unfair to our Conservative Party, as it will wipe the election of their new leader off the news cycle pretty fast, but never mind. I stick to the pattern established in my previous entry, using a full album in running order as the soundtrack, instead of a cleverly witty compilation. Since we're heading for the USA this time, I have picked Jefferson Starship's Spitfire, released in 1976, their first album to chart in the UK.

As always, click on the images for bigger versions, you're really gonna need it this time.

Let's have a look first at nationwide presidential polls, the most widely fielded ones that pit only Donald Trump against Joe Biden and then Kamala Harris. This is only a partial vision, as it omits third-party candidates, but it is significant because it's what the electorate generally have in mind. It definitely proves that Joe Biden's dismal performance in the debate against Trump was a major factor, that could have sunk the Democratic Party for good. But then miracles happened, as they always do in American TV series and corny movies, and Democrats have high hopes and boosted morale again.

There were three main factors at play here. Obviously Kamala Harris instantly emerging as the new candidate, and not a substitute. She would have been on the ticket anyway, and her competing for the top slot just happened four years earlier than anticipated. Then there was the Democratic Convention, so carefully orchestrated to project an image of happy unity, which did work. And finally Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dropping out of the race, as the trendlines show that it helped Harris even if Kennedy chose to support Trump. The aggregate of polls in July, when Biden and Kennedy were still running (which, as you know, is, in this context, American for standing) and in the most recent batch, with Harris in and Kennedy out, clearly show what happened.

Kennedy's campaign was obviously running on fumes some weeks before he dropped out, but he was still bagging 5% to 6% of the popular vote, with the potential to harm the Democrats in some key states that will likely shape the result. After the debate debacle, Biden was clearly losing, not just his marbles but also the election. Harris has not yet turned the tide back to where the two major candidates stood in 2020, but she is already in a much better position than anyone expected. The remaining candidates (Jill Stein for the Green Party, Chase Oliver for the Libertarian Party, Cornel West as some sort of alienish radical left woke independent) will probably leave less a of mark than they did in 2020, and are totally unable to influence the outcome in any state. It's already clear that none of them will be able to appear on the ballot in all 50 states, which can happen because candidacies are not national, but validated separately by the states with different requirements and deadlines. The fight will be then only between the two main candidates, which is actually the normal state of things in the USA, outwith very exceptional alignments of the stars like in 1912 or 1992. And it will be up to Harris to debunk Trump's lies and fake news, and also build a strong counter-narrative in advance of Trump's very predictable claim that the election has again been rigged and stolen.

For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders. Insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before.

(Matthew, 24:24-25, 21st Century King James Version)

Think of how stupid the average person is, and realise half of them are stupider than that.

(George Carlin)

It is common wisdom that the American electoral system, with the President being elected by the Electoral College, means that the popular vote is not the most important factor, but the states where the candidates get their votes are. Technically Joe Biden won the 2020 election by 7 million votes and change. In reality, he won it by 123,473 votes total in the four states that propelled him past the tipping point to victory (Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania). One British pollster, Redfield & Wilton, have added probing swing states to their to-do list, usually fortnightly. They started with six (Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania), then added two more that are genuinely swing states (Nevada, Wisconsin), and finally two who genuinely aren't (Minnesota, New Mexico). For a broader picture, I added two of my own (Texas, Virginia) that are perhaps not the first names that spring to mind, but you never know. Various American pollsters have also been polling their own picks of swing states quite regularly, so we a have a pretty good picture of what is happening in all of them. Let's go to Arizona first.

The last time, before 2020, Arizona voted for the Democrats was 1996 for the Clinton-Gore ticket. Then it went reliably Republican for five successive elections, before going for Biden-Harris by just 10,457 votes and 0.30%. It was the closest result in raw numbers and the second closest in percentage. It is poised to be on the knife-edge again this year, which is why Arizona Senator Mark Kelly was rumoured, and probably actually considered, briefly as Kamala Harris's running mate. Kelly clearly ticked far different boxes from Harris's final choice Tim Walz, as he has more of a centrist non-woke tough-on-crime profile, so this was really a purely ideological choice from Harris. So far, she has had no reason to regret it, but will the woke-plus-woke double bill stay on top until Election Day? Arizona voters are visibly not impressed by it, so I see it narrowly flipping back to Trump for now. Florida next, which you may remember decided the election in 2000 and brought George W. Bush to power, for worse or worst.

Florida went to Donald Trump by only 1.2% in 2016 and 3.4% in 2020, after going to Barack Obama twice, so it's definitely a legitimate top-tier target for the Democrats. They thought they would be helped by the state's fast evolving demographics, but it didn't quite work. The Republicans have even gained ground in Florida at every election since the 2018 midterms. Biden's numbers were quite bad down there and Harris's are barely better so far. There is also a high-profile Senate race there, which I will discuss later, so you can expect the Republicans to do everything they can to lock it. On top of that, Governor Ron DeSantis was conclusively flattened into the ground by Trump in the Republican primary, so he certainly needs his self-esteem restored by offering the Republican Party a win in his home state. Before the next musical interlude, we have room for Georgia, which was the biggest upset at the 2020 election when it flipped to Biden after going to the Republican candidates for six presidential elections in a row.

Biden won the state last time aboot by 11,779 votes and 0.23%, the closest in percentage and second closest in number of votes. In 2020, Georgia also elected two Democratic Senators, the first time they had one since 2004, and the first time they had two since 2002. In the same period, the Democrats managed to only slightly dent Republican majorities in both Houses of the State Legislature, but failed to get more of the state's House of Representatives seats. So there is still a lot of work to be done for the Democrats, who rely heavily on massive GOTV in Fulton County, the most populous in the state, that also covers 90% of the State Capital Atlanta. It has only 10% of the state's population, but a very strong turnout there might be enough to flip a vote that's decided by a fraction of a percent. It worked in 2020, and also at the 2022 midterms when one of the Senate seats was up for election again, so the Democrats will certainly make it a priority. So far, poll aggregates rate it as a tossup, which you surely remember is American for tie, but I consider it a very weak Republican gain, while not discounting local Democrats again achieving a last minute surge.

What would you rather do? Go round and round on the hamster wheel or actually make a little bit of difference once in a while?

(Shane Bradley, Blue Lights: The Stamp Of Nature, 2024)

The thing about self-destruction, it’s not something you can blame on someone else. The clue’s in the wording.

(Madeline Crow, Douglas Is Cancelled, 2024)

Then we have what are probably the most watched states of all, the Rust Belt states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. When you look back at their electoral history, it's a bit odd to call them 'swing states' at all. The last time all three went Republican was 1984, Ronald Reagan's second election. They were split in 1988, and then all three went Democrat continuously from Bill Clinton's first election in 1992 to Barack Obama's second in 2012. Then they swung twice. To Trump in 2016, and their combined 46 votes were enough to cost Hillary Clinton the presidency. Back to Biden in 2020, and their votes would have been enough to make him President, even if he had not gained Arizona and Georgia too. Their iconic status rests on something else, being the prime American example of the post-globalisation industrial wastelands that were deluded into thinking that the populist xenophobic far-right would solve all their problems. That's the transatlantic equivalent of the English North, who cemented Boris Johnson's victory in 2019 and gave Reform UK their biggest vote shares in 2024. Or the German Länder of Saxony and Thuringia, who have just granted the far-right Alternative für Deutschland major electoral successes. So let's start with Michigan.

Michigan is definitely in the danger zone for Harris, having gone to Trump in 2016 by 0.2%, and to Biden in 2020 by only 2.8%. Its largest city, Detroit, and other iconic once-industrial cities like Flint have often been chosen as the perfect examples of the massive post-industrial decay of once thriving parts of the American North East. There were signs of discontent already during Barack Obama's presidency, with massive Republican gains at the 2010 midterms. The Democrats then gained back the governorship in 2018, but had to wait until the 2022 midterms to narrowly switch the state legislature and the House of Representatives delegation back to their side. Statewide polls show that it was a lost cause as long as Joe Biden was the Democratic candidate, and that Robert Kennedy Jr's withdrawal benefited Trump more than Harris there. It could be a very narrow hold for the Democrats, but sounds more like an ultra-marginal that still could go either way. The next one in this Trio Of Doom, Pennsylvania, does not look much better for Harris.

Pennsylvania was the tipping-point state in 2020, going to Biden by a meagre 1.2%, after going to Trump by a just as measly 0.7% in 2016. The 2022 midterms were less successful for the Democrats than in Michigan. The Republicans actually gained the positions of State Treasurer and Auditor General after 20 years in Democratic hands, held control of the State Senate, and conceded the State House by just one seat. Democrats also flipped the state's House of Representatives delegation by just one seat, quite a success in a state that is notorious for repeated outrageous Republican gerrymandering of its Congressional districts. Which, as you surely remember by now, is American for constituency. Statewide presidential polls were bad for the Democrats under Joe Biden, and have not gone conclusively better after Kamala Harris took over. Here too, Kennedy's withdrawal was more beneficial for Trump than for Harris. Right now, I count it as a very narrow ultra-marginal hold for Harris, as the Walz factor might work here to her advantage. Then we have Wisconsin, which was the closest of the three in 2020.

Trump's gain in 2016 was hardly brilliant, on just 0.8% of the vote, but neither was Biden switching it back in 2020, on an even less impressive 0.6%. The Republicans have held firm control of the State Senate, the State House and the state's House of Representatives delegation in 2022. They even increased their number of seats in all three, which was not the most common situation at those midterms, and definitely not a good omen for the whole array of 2024 elections. Presidential polls have nevertheless been more regularly good for Kamala Harris here than in the two other Rust Belt states. The Democratic presidential ticket may also benefit from greater mobilisation here, because of a high-profile Senate race. Democratic incumbent Tammy Baldwin, who was the first openly lesbian candidate elected to the House of Representatives and later the Senate, is seeking a third term. A staunch 'progressive' by American standards, Baldwin can be expected to throw her full support behind Harris, and her personal standing makes Wisconsin a very likely, though plausibly quite weak, Democratic hold in the Electoral College this time.

The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.

(James Baldwin)

To everyone keeping up the fight, you are doing something. You are the reason I know we are going to bring our country closer to realizing its great promise.

(Kamala Harris, Medium, 15 August 2017)

Redfield & Wilton belatedly added Minnesota to their list of select swing states, after Kamala Harris chose its Governor Tim Walz as here running mate. The one Republicans so cleverly nicknamed Tampon Tim after he had tampon dispensers installed in the loos of high schools in his state. Because, obviously, nothing says 'we know what a woman is' louder than 'why the fuck would anyone offer free tampons to teenage girls?'. To be fair to them, Tampon Tim also had those dispensers fitted in male loos, but who are we to second guess what a teenage boy might pick as a Valentine's gift, especially when it's free? Minnesota does not qualify as a genuine swing state as its presidential vote has been steadily Democratic since Jimmy Carter's first candidacy in 1976, and resisted the Reagan Wave of the 1980s. It was one of only six states that stayed with Jimmy Carter in 1980, and the one and only that went to Walter Mondale in 1984, obviously helped by Mondale being a local and one of the state's Senators before becoming Carter's Vice-President.

Minnesota is also an odd one out in American politics, being one of only two states where the Democratic Party technically does not exist. The local brand of the Left is the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, a mix of traditional blue-collar populism and the variant of agrarian populism that was quite a thing in the Northern Midwest before World War Two. This is definitely one of the states where the Democrats can safely ignore Labour spads offering free advice on how to win an election. Saying that the winning formula is targeting key groups of "squeezed working-class voters who wanted change" is a bit rich, coming from the party who scored big gains in the English North and Midlands only because the disgruntled working-class swung further to the right to Reform UK, and thusly doomed the Conservative intake of 2019. Furthermore, that kind of tip is totally useless in Nevada, another swing state where the Democratic ticket is at risk, and where voting patterns look nothing even remotely similar to Minnesota, let alone the English North.

Nevada is quite a tricky state for the Democrats. They have often been predicted electoral doom there, but prevailed most of the time. It is also more of a bellwether state than a swing state, having voted for the winning ticket at 32 out of 40 presidential elections since it was granted statehood 160 years ago. The Democrats also have a few precedents to reassure them. At the same point in time in 2008, Barack Obama was predicted to lose Nevada by 4%, and he ended up winning it by 12%. In September 2016, it was on the knife-edge with Trump and Clinton alternatingly coming on top in statewide polls, and Clinton won it by 3%, one of the few times it went against the national result. One of the keys here is the Latino vote, that has very rarely failed the Democrats. It is more socially conservative than average, so Harris will have to tone down here usual woke rhetoric here. But she can also paint Trump's, and especially Vance's, obsessively anti-immigration discourse as a threat to even those who live legally in the USA. Because it actually is, and even viciously attacks those who have become American citizens. That's the same kind of deliberately offensive talking points from the Republicans that will help Harris in neighbouring New Mexico.

I was really surprised when Redfield & Wilton added New Mexico to their selection of swing states to poll, as it actually isn't one. It has failed the Democrats only once in the last 32 years, going to George Bush in 2004 by a tiny 0.8%. More revealingly, it elicited very little interest from American pollsters, even when Joe Biden was still in the race, and polls predicted that the underlying libertarian streak in parts of the state would switch many Democratic voters to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. These Libertarian leanings have been observed at the 2016 presidential election, when former Governor Gary Johnson, a former Republican turned Libertarian, bagged 9.3% of the state's votes, the highest Libertarian vote share nationwide. Johnson did even better at the 2018 Senate election, on an unprecedented and also unexpected 15.4% of the popular vote. But the twin withdrawals of Biden and Kennedy have cleared the way for a solid Harris win there. It seems fairly safe to bet that it will be quite similar to Biden's win in 2020, on a margin of more than 10%.

I believe in that old adage that 'as goes California, so goes the country'.

(Kamala Harris)

Ozymandias © Paul Kantner, Craig Chaquico, John Barbata, David Freiberg, Pete Sears, Grace Slick, 1976

Don't Let It Rain © Paul Kantner, China Wing Kantner, 1976

When seagull droppings landed on my head at a campaign event two days before Election Day, I chose to read it as a sign of a coming success.

(Joe Biden, Promises To Keep, 2008)

The most fun part so far is that some British pollsters, feeling a bit neglected since nobody orders general election polls any more, have polled their British panels about whom they would vote for at the American presidential election. Both YouGov and Deltapoll now tell us we want Kamala Harris for President, as if it mattered. Spoiler alert, mates, nobody in the USA gives a fucking shit about that. But they're definitely interested in what may, or may not, happen in North Carolina. Which may be an upset of the same magnitude as when Biden flipped Georgia in 2020, or a big fucking dud if it stays in the Republican column. But just the fact that it appears to be in play right now, and just marginally favours Trump, is in itself quite an event. Of course, it went to Trump by only 3.7% in 2016 and 1.4% in 2020, his closest result of all. The Democrats even managed to split the state's delegation to the House of Representatives down the middle, 7-7, at the 2022 midterms, which is a better result than in Arizona and Georgia, as both returned Republican majorities. So I count it as a very weak Republican hold in this year's Electoral College, with the plausibility of an upset.

North Carolina is also summat of an odd one out among Southern states as it has never become a Republican one-party-state. The Republicans have strong majorities in both chambers of the State Legislature, but Democrats hold the Governorship and three of the other elected executive positions in the Council of State, a uniquely North Carolinan thing dating back to the days of the Thirteen Colonies, and fulfilling the duties of a government. At presidential elections, North Carolina has been reliably Republican since 1968, with only two exceptions. Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Barack Obama in 2008. Current polls are so close that it could very plausibly be this year's upset. There is even a not very likely, but still possible, scenario where the election is so close that North Carolina becomes the tipping point state. The one that swings the Electoral College to Kamala Harris, and that would be fucking ironic. Next, I have picked Texas on top of Redfield & Wilton's selection, as it is definitely a battleground, and plausibly more of a swing state that some of their picks. It went to Trump by 9% in 2016 and 5.6% in 2020, and Democrats entertain high hopes of it flipping because of changing demographics. Maybe in 20 years, though, as we are not quite there yet.

We tend to have this image of Texas as a Rust Red state because it is the Bush family's home state and headquarters, and has steadily voted for Republican presidential candidates since 1980 and Ronald Regan. But there is a another side to this story. When George W. Bush first became Governor in 1995, he had to share power with a Democratic Lieutenant Governor and Democratic majorities in both chambers of the State Legislature. Republican dominance over the state's politics didn't actually happen until 1999, and it did not become a Republican one-party-state until 2005. That's not even 20 years, and it had been a Democratic one-party-state for 120 years, give or take, before Bush became Governor. Current polls say that it won't switch to Harris this year, but the result could be closer than in 2020, possibly down to a 4% lead for Trump. This is in itself good news for the Democrats, just like a too-close-to-call situation in North Carolina, as it would force Republicans to spend more resources there than they originally intended, thusly counter-balancing the Democrats having to spend significant amounts in other swing states like Virginia. Neat transition to my second and last pick, a Democratic state that is definitely in the Trump campaign's crosshairs, and for good reason.

Democrats are an acquired taste in Virginia, which didn't even vote for John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, and switched only in 2008. Joe Biden may have carried it by 10% in 2020, but it still elected three Republicans to its three executive positions a year later, as state-level elections are held on odd years there, contrary to the common pattern of having them on even years to coincide with the national election cycle. There was a slight Democratic surge in 2023, which granted them narrow majorities in both chambers of the State Legislature. All things considered, Kamala Harris has rather good odds of carrying Virginia, better than Joe Biden actually, as Barack Obama did before, but it's not a shoe-in. There is some irony in there when you look back in history, where you see that Virginia was the state that demanded that the land they had contributed to establish the District of Columbia be given back to them, and later turned their state capital Richmond into the capital of the Confederate States, besides being the home state of James Madison, a President and slave-owner who was the architect of the infamous Three-Fifths Compromise embedded in the original text of the United States Constitution. And also a major character, performed by black actors, in the woke revisionist musical Hamilton two centuries and change later.

I don't feel responsible for the sins of my father and grandfather. I feel responsible for what the situation is today, for the sins of my own generation. And I'll be damned if I feel responsible to pay for what happened 300 years ago.

(Joe Biden, An Interview With Joe Biden, 13 September 1975)

Survival is a nasty piece of business. But we do what we have to do. We reconfigure. We reinvent. We rearrange. Let’s put our hope in our own hands.

(Cornelius Hickey, The Terror, 2018)

Before I go further into the possible make-up of the Electoral College, a reminder of the rules, like I'm required by law to do every four years. Each state has as many votes in the Electoral College as it has seats in Congress, House and Senate combined. Washington D.C., which is not represented in Congress, has by law as many votes as the smallest state, so three. And that makes 538 Electors in total, and 270 needed to win. 48 states and the District of Columbia go full first-past-the-post and give all their votes to the statewide winner. Nebraska and Maine give two votes, those representing the Senate seats, to the statewide winner. Then allocate the rest, three in Nebraska and two in Maine, by Congressional district. That's how Biden got one vote in Nebraska and Trump one in Maine in 2020. Before we look at the current situation, we have to go back in time just a wee bit, and take a look at what state-level polling predicted for the Electoral College on the day before Joe Biden was strongarmed into standing down by his wife and Chuck Schumer. Which, as you might expect, was not a pretty sight for the Democrats. And that's where you really need to click on the image if you want to actually see what's in it.

That's the stats Kamala Harris and the party leadership had on their iPads on that fateful day. Trump winning by a wider margin than Biden in 2020, after flipping six states and the 2nd district of Nebraska. So that definitely required a fucking intervention to convince the old man to let it go. And the miracle happened, as you surely remember from the trendlines of nationwide polls and the select sample of swing states. But just. The tide may have turned, sort of, but it is still not strong enough to carry Harris safely up the Potomac to the White House. What we have now is Arizona and Georgia flipping to Trump, and the 2nd district of Maine to Harris, for a 277-261 split in the Electoral College. It is so uncomfortably close that it will take more than the quintessentially American belief that the righteous shall be protected and the deceivers will perish, as the saying goes, to propel Harris successfully past the finish line. Some elbow grease and Hollywood money is needed here, and grassroots boots on the ground will be more useful than woke incantations. Unless the unexpected support of Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz flips enough voters to Harris. Naw, just kidding. It's make or break for both candidates, they know it, the Great American Public knows it, so it can only get dirtier from whence on. Tonight's debate, which will surprisingly not be simulcast on the BBC, will certainly be the first step in that direction.

Speaking of which, the United States Department of Justice have indicted a media company that employs a number of right-wing influencers, all close to Trump's MAGA mob, that has been funded by the Kremlin for years. Its mission, handsomely paid in the millions of dollars, was to flood the American public with Putinist propaganda and lower support for Ukraine in the USA. The final goal being of course to have Trump back at the White House, and as many MAGA maniacs elected to Congress as possible, to stop military and financial aid to Ukraine, giving Putin the USA's blessing to totally invade it and enslave it. That's definitely something Kamala Harris could and should use. It's a golden opportunity on a silver platter to paint Trump as Putin's candidate and the MAGA mob as Putin's agents, shitbrained traitors. Of course it would sound better if the Biden Administration were not Putin-enablers themselves, with their insanely criminal and irresponsible restrictions on the use of American weapons by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. But Harris surely must use any ammunition karma casts her way, as the projected Electoral College is far from being favourable enough for her to start planning her Inauguration. Four of her states (Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin) and three of Trump's (Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina) are too close to call with complete certainty, so the competition is still wide open.

This is actually a very tricky situation for both candidates, because there is still a path in there to a perfect 269-269 tie in the Electoral College. In which case the Constitution stipulates that the House of Representatives elects the President and the Senate elects the Vice-President. This is called a contingent election, and it has happened only thrice. In 1801 for both positions, in 1825 for the President only and in 1837 for the Vice-President only. This was before either of today's two main parties existed, and party lines tended to be blurred by very personal considerations. It doesn't work that way anymore, with the partisan divide stronger than it has ever been, and the system favours the Republican ticket. Because the contingent election is not one-person-one-vote, but one-state-one-vote. Right now the Republicans have a majority in 26 House delegations and the Democrats in 22, with two tied. The Republicans hold both Senate seats in 22 states and the Democrats in 23 states, with five having a Senator from each party. Odds are that the next Congress, the one who would be voting for the hypothetical contingent election, will have a majority of Republican states in the House of Representatives and a plurality in the Senate, and would thusly get the Trump-Vance ticket elected. Definitely not the best way to start a new term.

“Truth is subjective” is precisely the key tenet of postmodernism. This is why I refer to it as the granddaddy of all parasitic idea pathogens.

(Gad Saad)

If only you believed like I believe, baby, we'd get by. If only you believed in miracles, so would I.

(Marty Balin, Miracles, 1975)

The 435 seats of House of Representatives will also be up on the 5th of November. The previous elections, in 2020 and 2022, delivered only narrow majorities, once for Democrats and once for Republicans. The two years of the 118th Congress were marred by the Republicans granting disproportionate power to their loony Putinist MAGA faction, which blocked the biggest aid package to Ukraine so far for seven months. Alas, little did we know that the Biden-Harris Administration would then drag their heels in Ukrainian blood. First failing to deliver all of what had been approved by Congress, as $6bn from a previous Act will expire unused at the end of this month. Then denying Ukraine their unalienable right under international law, to strike back at the invading war criminals on their own soil with all they have, in the name of imaginary red lines and outdated Cold-War-era bureaucratic groupthink. But Ukraine is not at the top of the Great American Public's list of priorities, so generic polls, after many twists and turns, are now quite favourable for the Democrats.

We may have some interesting situations in Congressional districts that went against the current in 2022. Eight districts elected Democrats in 2022, that had voted for Donald Trump in 2020. Eighteen districts elected Republicans in 2022, that had voted for Joe Biden in 2020. If all realigned with their presidential vote, which will obviously not happen, that would be a bonus of ten seats for the Democrats and narrowly flip the House back to them. More realistically, it is not unreasonable to expect Democrats to lose seats in North Carolina, while Republicans would lose some in Alabama, California, Louisiana, New York and Oregon, and the rest would follow the general trends of polling. Even that low profile scenario would generate a bonus of seven seats for the Democrats, as more marginals went to the Republicans in 2022. So my projection now delivers a majority for the Democrats, albeit not a massive one.

The most recent batch of polls predicts a reversal of fortunes, with the popular vote pretty much returning to what it was in 2020, give or take a few decimal places. This would deliver a few more seats to the Democrats, given the number of marginal seats inherited from the 2022 midterms. This does not mean massive changes in policy, even domestically. Democrats have a two-tier approach to women's rights, standing strongly in favour of abortion rights, but also in favour of gender ideology. Nothing will happen about abortion, as the Supreme Court has taken the issue out of the hands of the federal government and Congress, and handed it to the individual states. Any attempts to reverse that would trigger a massive legal war lasting for years and years, that Harris will be unwilling to wage. Most 'trans issues' are also within the prerogatives of individual states, with only generic anti-discrimination legislation being decided at the federal level. The Biden Administration tried to tweak it without approval from Congress, and this has fortunately been blocked by a District Court in Kentucky, ruling on a case originally filed in Tennessee. But a Harris Administration, especially if they feel emboldened by Democratic gains in the House, will surely choose this as one of their hills to die on, in the name of wokeism.

When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, 'Look, here's what happened'.

(Joe Biden, CBS Evening News, 22 September 2008)

Make sure of two things. Be careful, microphones are always hot, and understand that in Washington, D.C., a gaffe is when you tell the truth. So, be careful.

(Joe Biden)

As I pointed out already two years ago, and four years ago, and six years ago, but not eight years ago as this blog did nit exist yet, the elections for the United States Senate have a life of their own, which does not always follow the pattern of other elections held on the same date. This partly because of the inbuilt inertia of the Senate, that is up by thirds every two years. So a political earthquake would need a full cycle of six years to really impact the Senate, which has rarely happened because six years is more than enough for another political earthquake to happen, but in the opposite direction. This year, 34 Senate seats are up, 33 Class 1 seats as part of the scheduled cycle, and one special election (which, you surely remember, is American for by-election) in Nebraska to fill the Class 2 seat vacated by Republican Ben Sasse, for the remainder of the term ending in January 2027. 19 Democratic seats are up, with 15 incumbents seeking re-election. Republicans have 11 seats up and 9 incumbents seeking re-election. Independents have four seats up, with two incumbents who were elected as Democrats standing down. So the punditariat's common wisdom is that it is a tough cycle for the Democrats, who can only lose a shitload of seats. But I allow myself to have a dissenting opinion on this, not on the probability of losses, but on its magnitude.

I have included the composition of the Senate after the last three elections, 2018, 2020 and 2022, to cover the full length of the election cycle. And also the current composition, to come closer to what the punditariat base their verdict on. It's easy to see here how you can draw opposing conclusions from the same facts. If you do it the English way, you will compare the expected results to the last time the same seats were up, because that's how it's done for their Council elections that also have staggered terms on a multi-year cycle. You thusly conclude that Democrats will gain seats and Republicans lose seats, because that's what the 2018 results tell you. If you do it the American way, ruthlessly pragmatically, you compare the expected results with the current composition. Which leads to the unavoidable conclusion that the Democrats will lose seats and control of the Senate. And, for once, the Americans are right here, as what matters is the political impact. And that is clearly that the next President will have to deal with a Republican majority in the Senate. All good for Donald Trump, bad news for Kamala Harris. The seat-by-seat detail shows how we get there.

Based on the incumbents, Democrats are predicted to gain one seat from Independents (Arizona) and lose one to Republicans (Montana), while Independents would lose West Virginia to Republicans. Compared to the allocation of seats after the 2022 elections, it's Democrats losing two to Republicans (Montana, West Virginia). Don't worry if you need a deep breath and a dram before it all clicks, it took me some thought to get my head around it too, as the numbers did not spontaneously add up. All of this because of the two elected-as-Democrats who then chose to sit as Independents, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and are now both standing down anyway. Independents Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine are counted on the Democratic side as they both caucus with the Democrats, which is pretty much the equivalent of 'taking the Democratic whip' in British Parliamentary English. These last of the independents are an interesting pair as they are both in their 80s, which puts them past shelf-date and long due retirement in the real world. But not in the United States Senate, where there is no limit on the number of terms you can serve. Robert Byrd of West Virginia sat for six years in the House of Representatives and then an uninterrupted fifty-one-and-a-half years in the Senate before dying in office at 92, right in the middle of his ninth term. Whatever they do, Sanders and King will never beat that record.

Full disclosure: I do not have absolute faith in the judgment and wisdom of the American people.

(Joe Biden, Promises To Keep, 2008)

It required a lot less energy, intelligence, and competence to run against government than to try to make government work.

(Joe Biden, Promises To Keep, 2008)

The United States Senate is a slow moving organism as Senators serve six-year staggered terms. This pretty much rules out anything resembling a landslide. Though one does happen occasionally in some serendipitous alignment of the stars, but may take three election cycles to reach its full effect. The most sensational case was the 1932, 1934 and 1936 elections, the first three of the FDR era, that reduced the Republicans from 50 to 17 seats out of 96. Even the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s and the Conservative Revolution of the 1990s failed to match this, despite much media hype, as the losing Democrats never fell below 45 seats out of 100. But it's not uncommon to see four to six seats changing sides at any election, which does not always mean a change of Senate majority. All depends on where you start from, and usually triggers media interest in a batch of key Senate races. I have identified twelve such seats this year, nine with Democratic incumbents and three with Republican incumbents. All were last up for election according to the regular cycle, six years ago in 2018.

In this first quartet, Arizona and Michigan show how Senate elections follow a different logic from the presidential election. Both states are too close to call for the presidential election, but are predicted to elect a Democrat to the Senate on a larger share of the popular vote than in 2018. Interestingly, the Democratic Senators elected in both states in 2018 are standing down this year, which hints that the mythical incumbency bonus is not always a thing. Conversely, it seems to work in Florida, a seat Republicans gained from Democrats by a hare's breadth in 2018, and are now predicted to hold, albeit on a narrow margin again. The incumbency bonus doesn't work at all in Montana, where Democratic incumbent Jon Tester is predicted to lose his seat after three terms. Tester was elected with narrow margins all three times, in a state that usually favours Republicans, so his luck may have run out this time. Unless he can channel his 'one of your boys' agrarian populist persona again in the last mile, as that worked quite well at previous elections.

The Senate race in Nebraska is one of these uniquely American oddities that don't actually happen very often, even in the American Midwest. Independent Dan Osborn seems to have been offered the endorsement of the state's Democratic Party, and refused it, though the stories differ. Whatever actually happened, the Democrats don't field a candidate there, so we may witness a real upset on Election Night, with a really independent Independent kicking out a Republican incumbent. Then we have three cases of the American Election Paradox. Nevada and Pennsylvania are marginal swing states at the presidential level, and nobody doubts that Ohio will go to Trump. But all three are predicted to convincingly re-elect Democratic incumbents to the Senate. Interestingly, not one poll in any of the three has found the Republican candidates ahead since serious Senate polling started in mid-2023. So the incumbency bonus does work wonders sometimes after all.

The final quartet includes really interesting situations. In Texas, Canada-born Republican incumbent Ted Cruz, affectionately nicknamed 'the American Taliban' by some of his opponents because of his radical religion-infused stance on social issues, was clearly in the danger zone in 2018. He looks safer this time, but not massively, which totally reflects the state's rather weak support for Trump at the presidential election. In West Virginia, we are likely to see the Senate vote align again with the presidential vote. Former Governor Joe Manchin, who finished his last Senate term as an Independent, won this seat as a Democrat thrice solely on his personal credentials as a social and fiscal conservative in a state that has voted for the Republican presidential ticket at every election since 2000. Manchin was summat like the sole survivor of that brand of maverick conservative Democrats who roamed the American Global South unchallenged for more than a century after Reconstruction. He is retiring now at 77, and his seat will go to the Republicans in the same proportions as the state's presidential vote will go to Trump. Finally, in Virginia and Wisconsin, Democratic incumbents, who were comfortably re-elected in 2018, are facing tougher challenges this year. They don't look actually threatened, but it fits with both states' marginal status in presidential polls.

To close this chapter for now, I offer you a bonus track that was not on Spitfire. Jefferson Starship's guitarist Craig Chaquico wrote it for the Star Wars Holiday Special that was broadcast on CBS in 1978, and it does not appear on any of the band's regular releases, but only on the Gold compilation of 1979. Maybe some of the candidates will follow it to the letter, with celebratory fireworks on Election Night. You never know.

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

(Sun Tzu)

Jeremy's Den

10/09/2024

She Was Moving Like A Dragon Princess

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She Was Moving Like A Dragon Princess