Days away from the election

Five days from now, the polls will be closed everywhere

It's early Friday morning – 12:50 am – on November 1. I'm worn out by this election; I can't imagine how the campaigns feel. The Harris campaign has three stops in Michigan on Sunday, including one in East Lansing. I'd love to see her speak, but I sometimes wonder if I'd be taking up a spot that an actual voter deserves.

There's a rising sense of apprehension, a fear that this will once again be like 2016. But it won't be like 2016 for many reasons, and high on that list is the fact that Trump's campaign has been much darker in its message, much more authoritarian. A win will be much worse for us than it was in 2016.

There's also a sense of hope. The idea of electing Trump again seems unthinkable. People keep reading the tea leaves and coming up with one indicator or another why things look hopeful. How much of that is self-delusion and people speaking from inside the echo chamber?

In 2016 Trump drew low-propensity voters that the polling had missed. While he lost the popular vote to Clinton 62,984,828 to 65,853,514, no one expected him to win as many votes in as many critical places as he did. In 2020 he drew even more – 74,223,975 votes. He still lost the popular vote (and this time, the election) to Biden who drew 81,283,501 votes. It was a staggeringly large amount of votes.

The polls underestimated Trump's support both in 2016 and in 2020. So how are they doing this time? Obviously polling organisations have updated their voter models, but how well have they done? Do they still lag when it comes to Trump support? Or have the overcorrected – maybe basing their models off the 2020 electorate, perhaps missing the fact that the world has changed again.

Polls can't really tell us anything we don't know. They say election is within the margin of error. That's the best we have.