Election Day Forum
It has finally arrived.
Steven L. Taylor
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Tuesday, November 5, 2024
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78 comments
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About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a retired Professor of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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I’ll be voting in an hour and a half and then will attempt a media blackout until this time tomorrow
Fingers crossed
@MarkedMan:
I suspect you may need to extend that media blackout in the event the race is called for Harris.
You got a bunker?
I don’t. My plan: get under my desk and cover my head, Cold War style.
Borrowed from a forwarded FB post:
Hey, what are you guys wearing for the civil war this week?
Tonight we are heading over to the neighbor’s garage to watch the returns and eat Tim Walz’ hotdish – the sparkling wine is chilled and we are cautiously optimistic that our noble experiment can continue another four years.
Dixville Notch results: Harris 3, Trump 3.
In line at the fire house waiting to vote. Twenty five people ahead of me and a few behind. They open up in one minute. Downtown Baltimore
Dear Wife and I voted already. We left for the polling place just after 6:30. DW is working today and has a doctor’s appointment this afternoon.
It is good we got to the polls early. There was 4 people in line already. By the time we were finished voting, there were about 20 people lined up.
No political advertisements on television. I’m going to so miss them. NOT!
@Kurtz:
Duck and cover!
We never did that when I was in school. Instead we were shown the video of the lemmings going off the cliff. Are American voters going to vote for something similar today? Stay tuned.
@Franklin:
I’ll be wearing my Florida Panther Stanley Cup Champs hat.
Will I survive wearing it when I’m in the Boston area soon? The Panthers have eliminated have eliminated the Boston Bruins in the last two Stanley Cup playoffs.
Here in the Houston area, it is pouring rain (yea, we needed it) but the front should be through by around 0900. Already early voted, so that’s done. What is different this year is that in many cities and suburbs, school is out due to the fact that schools are often voting sites and with the increasing threat of guns, districts thought it prudent not to subject their kids to the possibility of nut cases with guns. Whether the parents make that connection with their voting choices, I have my doubts.
Anyway, many people had to take the day off so voting may be more spread out during the day and actually have a higher turnout. Making election day a national holiday is a good idea by itself.
@Jen: I liked the Daily Beast headline: “Dixville Notch tortures America with first six votes of the election”
@Scott: Same here with schools off for election day. The reason, iirc, was that you couldn’t ban guns from election sites, even if guns are generally banned in school. So to keep the kids safe, the administrators decided they couldn’t be there with wackos running loose.
@Kurtz:
I always thought that that crawling-under-the-desk routine was supremely silly. Number one, I was astute enough to figure out that the Russians weren’t going to waste an A-bomb on my tiny little elementary school, and Number 2, if they did, what good was the desk going to do me?
A respected colleague gave me a free link to her Substack recently. This requires loading their app.
90% of the way into the subscription setup, I hit the notification that Substack requires full access to my entire contacts list (for reasons).
While I’m interested in what she (& others) have to say there, I’m too much of a Luddite to give that much access to the site.
ETA – @Kurtz:
Keep your fingers in your ears while saying “la la la la, I can’t hear you,” otherwise it doesn’t work. Good luck everyone.
@Franklin:
Here in FL polling places are one of the few places guns are banned. One doubts it’s 100% effective.
Did you know ice evaporates if you put it in a freeze-drier?
The way these machines work is by evacuating the chamber, whereupon water ice sublimates like dry ice (but without the fog dry ice creates). So you freeze things to turn the water into ice so it will sublimate.
That’s how they make instant coffee. It’s brewed, then frozen, then freeze dried, so you’re left with the stuff that was dissolved in the water.
@CSK: We were 50 miles from a major B-52 base. Even at the age of ten I didn’t think the Russians would be terribly accurate, so I got under the desk. But I didn’t really think it would help much, what with the radiation and all.
I seem to see a lot of discussion lately of the Cold War uniting the country and getting business interests to accept a little socialism, like SS. The Russian threat should still be uniting us, but since they’re no longer godless commies, conservatives see them as someone to whom we can sell rope.
Trump, Elon Musk, MTG, Tucker Carlson, many others say we should emulate or imitate Russia, what with them being properly culturally correct, exporting Jesus etc.
Trump thinks we should let Putin “do whatever the hell he wants” in Ukraine, also stop supporting the moochers of NATO.
Here’s hoping we don’t later mark November 5 as the last day of The Before Times!
Sticking my head up to add one datum: My niece is a resident of Pennsylvania but currently attending school overseas and she cast an absentee ballot by mail. Her vote has been challenged as part of a Republican scumbag campaign to disenfranchise registered Democrats. The leader of this effort is a PA politician named Scott Perry and who has voted a number of times overseas himself, and so is well aware of how hard it is to respond to such a challenge in timely fashion.
@MarkedMan: This will impact military personnel stationed overseas. More evidence the Republicans’ so-called support for the military is a sham.
Boeing strike over.
Bloomberg
I am going to be masking sooooo hard at work today…
If you want to worry about something other than the election, Rusia has been trialing a means for setting off incendiary devices on civilian aircraft.
Actually an aviation blog has a better summary of the story. (WARNING: DO NOT READ THE COMENTS).
Maybe they were just trying out methods. Maybe they were so incompetent the devices went off in warehouses rather than in the air. Note the devices use magnesium, which is notoriously hard to extinguish when it catches fire. Such a fire on an aircraft’s cargo hold would be fatal.
An actual use on a civilian airliner would be a major escalation that the US and NATO would have to respond to with some use of force. It’s not like piling up more sanctions would accomplish much by now. It’s not wise to provoke a nuclear power
At the same time, this indicates a level of desperation on Russia’s part I did not expect. Terrorism is the means of asymmetrical warfare, what the weaker party can use against the stronger one it cannot take on in open battle.
It also smacks of Japan’s objective when they attacked Pearl Harbor. They thought the Americans would back off, not engage in total war. Since Mad Vlad claims to know history, he would do well to study this particular period. He can inflict far more damage on America than Imperial Japan, yes, but he and his country can suffer far worse than Japan did.
@MarkedMan: WTF? Was there an “official” reason? I hope you are able to help her get her vote properly counted!
fafo – Philly
https://youtu.be/7rvuwnIfrZQ
Is there any way the US could shorten its election season? It’s way, way, way toooooooo f**ng long.
Mexico in theory has an official campaign season starting in March. But parties and candidates can do “pre-campaigns” for sixty days before then. As the candidates and party coalitions were settled early this year, the “pre-campaign” was the campaign. At least we don’t have primary elections, which just add more time. By April, two months before the election, people were already sick and tired of electoral ads, billboards, posters, and all other gimmicks and forms of publicity.
People who don’t pay attention to politics may pay less attention with a long campaign season. It’s easy to keep putting off taking a look at policies and claims and such when the election season seems to stretch into the far end of eternity. Whereas if you have only a few weeks, fear of missing out might focus the mind more effectively.
Or maybe not. arguments on hypothetical outcomes are easy to make and impossible to test short of changing the system.
For the first round of COVID vaccines, the opportunity window to get the shot easily was very short. Namely three days. If you missed your area and age group, you might get it the following week with the next age group, or you might not. I think that was when vaccination rates were highest. I’m less sure about the first and only round of boosters.
Now without time limitations, plus having to pay out of pocket, things have regressed. The other week we had government health care personnel offer flu and COVID shots (the Cuban vaccine, alas). A lot of people in my department did take both.
I explained earlier why I didn’t. but then I got too busy over the weekend that I moved my vaccines for next weekend….
@Kathy: I don’t understand the warning to not read the comments. I didn’t see anything there MR wouldn’t have replied to Jack or JKB with.
“I’m a proud, conservative man who’s afraid of everything.”
Maria Butina shares some thoughts (video):
https://x.com/Maria_Butina/status/1853637190053474743
Voted. 500 yard line, and hour 20 to get in and out.
@just nutha:
Well, I don’t read their comments 99% of the time either.
@Mikey:
Your party registration is a public record. I assume they will only be challenging Dems
@Kingdaddy:
Nailed it!
@Sleeping Dog: Wow. Is your polling place usually that crowded? Husband encountered a line when he went at 7:30 a.m., but he was out in around 30 minutes or so. I went at 9:20 and was out the door by 9:30 a.m.
BTW, has Beth checked in at all during the last few days??
@Jen: Not since a couple days ago that I’ve noticed. Stormy? Any word from her recently? I remember her saying you were in contact with her IRL, trying to cheer her up.
James Carville’s observations at the end of the election:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6Vhb1kkmrk&t=31s
@MarkedMan:
There’s a lot of ppl on TikTok, mostly young women, saying the same. Some telling their followers that they’re driving or flying back home to vote.
No idea how many or if some of those are be fake, but before this election, I hadn’t heard of this.
If true, I guess a lot more ppl are engaged and determined to vote. Especially women.
With this election we can now say, along with our English friends, “Remember, remember the 5th of November.”
I was voter #296 at 1pm, and the line was zero seconds long. It’s a crime if anybody else has to wait more than a half hour in a functional democracy.
@Mr. Prosser: But hopefully the only thing that blows up is the idea of Trumpism.
https://x.com/TimAlberta/status/1853618133229318422
@charontwo: Are we supposed to feel any sympathy to anyone who works for Trump?
@Scott:
Is your schadenfreude not working? 😉
@Mr. Prosser:
Hopefully leaving out the “gunpowder” part of the verse.
Currently hoping that, politically curious though I may be, I can on the morrow happily revert to ignoring the electoral politics of Arizona.
@MarkedMan:..Your party registration is a public record.
@Kathy:
I am shopping for an air fryer (never used one before). Do you have a suggestion on a good one?
@Skookum:
I’ve only ever used one. It’s a Ninja Foodi combination air fryer and instant pot.
Hoping the link works, it’s this one.
Thus far I’ve used it more for pressure cooking and slow cooking, though I want to try air fryer burger patties next week. It’s worked well thus far. My one big complaint is that it’s hard to get the crisping plate out right after use (to deglaze and gather the fond at the bottom of the pot).
This is an older model. Since then both Ninja and Instant Pot have come up with newer designs, which for instance have one lid instead of two.
It depends on what and how much you want to cook in it, too. There are some with double chambers, each with its own heating element. these seem great for cooking larger batches, or two different dishes at once. If I had the counter top space, I’d get one of those.
News possibly going unnoticed:
Netanyahu has sacked Yoav Gallant
Indications are the immediate cause was Gallant refusing to back-off on plans to initiate conscription of the ultra-Orthodox.
Plus the apparent ongoing complaints by Gallant that Netanyahu’s failure to establish a basis for a viable “end state” in Gaza, and Lebanon, was making practical use of military success out of reach.
This is all the more striking when the Iran strikes plan used seems to have been that of Gallant and IDF Command, over the wishes of some Cabinet who wanted all-out strikes on nuclear facilities, oil installations, or the government leadership. Or, unrealistically, all three.
In fact the strikes made seem to have been very effective: indications are the IDF destroyed all the S-300 SAM systems, plus other key radar installations.
Also seriously hit:
-missile propellant production sites at Shamssabad and Parchin;
– main missile booster production site at Sharud;
And little “reminders”:
– an oil refinery at Abadan;
– some IRG communications sites near Tehran;
– and at Parchin the Talegan nuclear explosives test facility, which has been dormant for almost a decade, but the Israelis wanted to make a point, I suspect.
The other point, of course, being that the combined F-35/F-15/F-16 (probably supported by air refuelling) attack suffered zero loss. And can hit even more freely in future with the S-300 batteries inoperative.
There seems now a high likelihood Netanyahu may end up squandering a position of massive strategic advantage that could force a favourable diplomatic resolution, purely because he remains fixated on his domestic political gains in pandering to the far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties.
I’m guessing Gallant does not want to keep up the war until Bibi dies of natural causes, and in any case there may not be much left to accomplish in Gaza (at least not within the realm of possibility, rather than fantasy or shots so long they may as well be fiction).
The conscription thing is big and goes back a long, long way. I recall much talk about it, as well as El Al being allowed to fly on the Sabbath, when I last visited Isreal in 1985 (side note: I was there when the big one struck Mexico City). It seems things moved past just talking in the last 4 decades.
If you want or need to start agonizing early, the first polls are closing and results are trickling in.
I haven’t decided yet whether I’ll watch the returns, or stream something totally divorced from politics like The Diplomat (what?)
@Kathy:
I don’t recommend it. As I wrote earlier today, the thing I’m am the most confident about (minus a blowout that will be apparent pretty early) is that we won’t know the winner until sometime tomorrow at the earliest. And recent history backs this up. Here’s a tweet that is on point:
Back in the Bush/McCain/Romney era, conventional wisdom divided Republican voters into 3 categories: war hawks/neocons, business conservatives, and the religious right. Adam Serwer had a recent article in the Atlantic that described three new categories for Republican voters in the current era. First, the architects of MAGA, which includes the Christian nationalists, white nationalists, and wealthy dudebros, all of whom want to remake society in an entirely different image. These are the folks we have the most to fear, because they have obscene wealth, institutional power, and a willingness to use violence to achieve their aims.
Second are a group he calls the true believers. These folks often overlap with Democrats in some of their policy beliefs. They often resent corporations and the wealthy for the ways they’ve harmed ordinary people, and they often value unions and the social safety net–but they also resent those whom they think have no claim to it. Serwer calls them true believers because they tend to live in an information bubble, and believe that Trump is the only one who cares about them. This group is the most easily manipulated by the folks in group 1.
Group 3 are the reluctant Republicans, people who greatly dislike Trump and hate what he’s done to the party, but continue to vote Republican either because of one big issue (such as abortion or tax cuts), or out of loyalty and peer pressure, or because they think the Democrats are worse.
Quite a few never Trumpers now voting for Harris were once in group 3, and finally decided that Trump was too dangerous and/or that their beliefs about Democrats were off-base. So there’s hope that more of them can break away.
Breaking out of group 2 is a lot harder, and it usually requires some sort of restrictions on their media and social media, plus exposure to people outside the bubble. I’ve known some folks in this group, and unlike group 1, which is proud of its bigotries (although they may deny it publicly), the folks in group 2 often genuinely don’t believe they’re bigoted. That is, they may believe and expound on all kinds of prejudices against different groups, but are often very kind and accepting of individual people of color, immigrants, and LGBTQ+ people they know.
Group 1 is a big problem, and we need to figure out how to solve it going forward, even if (as I believe), Harris wins.
ETA: an interesting exercise is to figure out where the old groups of Republicans landed. In my view, it seems like most of the neocons landed in group 3, or left the Republican party altogether. The business conservatives are split between groups 1 and 3, and the religious right is split between groups 1 and 2. A very, very few members of the religious right landed in group 3 (like Al Mohler of the Southern Baptist Convention), and can’t understand why they’re in the wilderness.
@Skookum: I like the Ninja Foodie Digital Air Fryer/Oven (no picture, sorry 🙁 ), but I already have a rice cooker and a crock pot, so I wasn’t as much in the market for an instant pot as for a small convection oven. Either way, Ninja Foodie products are consistently good from what I’ve seen and heard.
@JohnSF:So, Israel is now locked even tighter into eternal war posture. Good news. 🙁
@Matt Bernius:
I do’t know. I’m getting anxious already. Besides, I didn’t stream ep. 3 yesterday because MNF was on (like I care about Tampa or KC). I expect I’ll stream and keep the PC on with CNN or The Guardian.
@Monala: I’m not clear on one point you’re asserting: Are you seeing the architects of MAGA wanting to remake the society on/in only one image? It seems to me that the three groups are more likely to have 3 less-than-marginally-different images than one single vision, but I may need to get my Occam’s Razor out.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
My take is that each of those groups think they are the pilot, and everyone else is along for the ride. The Christzis think that the New Order will be a theocracy with them in charge; the Nazis think the same; the dudebros assume that wealth = control and tolerate the other two because they deliver at the polls. They can’t all be right, because they want very different things. (I doubt very much that Xlon would care for the Christzi Paradise…)
@Kathy:
I recommend Stingray. The brit puppet version is charmingly awful.
After that you can find supercar, and any number of other shows he did over the years.
We are screwed.
@Kurtz: I really thought that Trump was so bad the last few weeks that there was going to be a real shift to Harris. It didn’t happen, if anything the polls underestimated Trump’s strength.
Saw a survey a bit ago on CNN where a majority of people said things were better four years ago. How?? We were basically having deathmatches for the few rolls of toilet paper and food items on the shelves. Knee deep in a pandemic and all that “fun”. Yet people are saying that was a better time. WTF is wrong with people in this country???
Oh and yeah I think we’re screwed as a country.
Seems like I need to readjust my understanding of people.
Here’s something useful. We should spread the narrative that Vance is the real president, with a poor doddering Trump kept out of the loop.
@Kurtz: Care to elucidate?
@Michael Reynolds: I think you’re a little late. If Trump/Vance wins, we’ll be seeing this in real time in less than 6 months.
Just texted a friend: Feel like the normal pessimism is the key to why Harris is going to lose. Trump voters would be talking about the fraud. I think Trump got the same people as 2020 plus a huge skew of of weird gambling-freak optimists who would be screaming at at this moment if Trump were down.
I mean, hats off to these idiotic assholes. They are our masters now lol
@Matt:
Because in their minds four years ago was 2019, before COVID, before recession.
@just nutha:
Harris pretty much needs to sweep the toss-ups. Not going to happen. Even if all those states were highly-correlated, it appears the margin is so thin that it’s like fumbling the football.
Of the types of fumbles, the one most likely to see the offense retain possession is an aborted snap–roughly 75% of the time. So, one isn’t a big deal.
But we are not talking about one aborted snap here. We are talking about 6, nd a single turnover loses the game. (0.75)^6 is approximately 0.178.
But Harris has nowhere near a 75% chance of recovering even one aborted snap. It’s more like the 50/50 proposition of the offense recovering a sack-fumble.
So it’s more like (0.5)^6, at best. I don’t think I need to finish that math. The center has the yips and the QB keeps getting hit–hearing footsteps and seeing ghosts.
Oh, and it’s a monsoon.
I really hope Biden or Harris planned for a coup.
WI is pretty much lost, there is no way Harris can make up 100k votes considering where the outstanding votes are. Also the general pattern is that Trump is slightly stronger than the polls indicate.
Biden won NY by 22 points, Harris won by 11. Biden won NJ by 16 points, Harris won by 5 points. I don’t get it, she ran a very good campaign and Trump was actually much wors, IMO, than he was in 16 or 20. Trump might even win the popular vote.
@Lucysfootball:
There is no sole reason. It is a buffet.
Unfortunately, what others choose to eat gives all of us the shits.
@Kurtz: Thanks for the answer. I didn’t check the returns until just a few minutes ago.
REALLY good time to be old. 🙁
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Thank you! I’ll check it out.
@Kathy:
Thanks, Kathy! I invested in a pressure cooker earlier this year (that I love) to quickly cook beans. it’s the only thing we use for beans and chili. My doctor advised eating less meat, so I’m mainly interested in baking tofu rather than the mess of frying. Also, we loved roasted vegetables. May just continue using the oven rather than taking up counter space with a small appliance.
@Skookum:
I’ve had mixed success with potatoes. It works well roasting whole potatoes for twice-baked potatoes, which you probably won’t care for (lots of fat), and less so for oven roasted potatoes.
I did once roast broccoli for pasta primavera, and it worked very well. With charred bits which I like. Same with roasted soybean sprouts, though that was more an experiment.
For dinner most nights I have a mix of browned cabbage (at least now it’s browned), added to cooked onions, carrots, and soybean sprouts. that’s the bilk of my vegetable intake.