Sometimes lately it seems like every 3rd or 4th story here is about we can’t trust the polls, we shouldn’t be worried (or excited) about the polls, let’s stop obsessing over polls. It’s good advice (and advice I don’t follow as often as I should, though Jean will not let talk about polls any more).
So I found this Daily Beast clip interesting: Trump Losing Sleep Over Polling Numbers Days Before Election
Donald Trump is reportedly losing sleep, battling anxiety, and obsessing over his polling numbers as the GOP nominee hopes to hang his hat on any sign that he will return to the White House.
A campaign official told Axios that Trump is asking more questions and pushing his staff to work even more to ensure that he will come out ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris come Election Day.
“Trump’s anxiety is evident in his late-night and early morning calls to aides in which he peppers them with questions on how things are going—and whether they think he’ll win,” Axios reported.
Now, we Democrats are professional panickers; I think it’s a party requirement born out of a fear that if we look at all confident, the gods will punish us for optimism. (They did it in 2016.) Republicans, on the other hand, have been conditioned to insist that the polls are going their way. This is in part because they are paying the pollsters to make the polls go their way, in part because they believe they are divinely mandated to win, in part because it’s part of their overall strategy to “prove” fraud if the actual votes don’t match the polls. Certainly Trump has been crowing (and making other animal noises) that all the polls show him winning.
But 3 AM may be the only time in the day when he is honest with himself, and that 3 AM wakeup is freaking him out. So he loses what’s left of his mind and jerks off a microphone stand at a rally. (It’s really a pity the Harris campaign can’t make an ad out of that, but maybe Lincoln Project could?) Or thinks that riding around in a garbage truck will get him votes.
Harris and Walz look to have found the weapon that works best against Trump: ridicule. The worst thing that can happen to a narcissist like him is to be laughed at. It throws him even more off balance, and leads him to make more mistakes that make him look even more ridiculous.
Keep it up. Three days to go.
OK. I said I wouldn’t pay attention to polls, but just as I was about to close and publish this diary, I saw this: Iowa Poll: Kamala Harris leapfrogs Donald Trump to take lead near Election Day. Here's how:
Kamala Harris now leads Donald Trump in Iowa — a startling reversal for Democrats and Republicans who have all but written off the state’s presidential contest as a certain Trump victory.
A new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows Vice President Harris leading former President Trump 47% to 44% among likely voters just days before a high-stakes election that appears deadlocked in key battleground states.
That’s IOWA!!! Has anyone from the Democratic side even campaigned there? IOWA!!!!
Extra thought: As Chris Hayes would say, why is this happening? Basically, it looks to be due to the women. According to the Daily Beast, this is just what the Trump team was afraid of:
If men don’t show up to vote, “Kamala is president,” tweeted Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk. “It’s that simple.”
“Men need to swamp the polls on Election Day and prior” to help Trump win,” added Gavin Wax, president of the New York Young Republican Club, in a text to Axios.
And according the Des Moines Register,
The poll shows that women — particularly those who are older or who are politically independent — are driving the late shift toward Harris.
“Age and gender are the two most dynamic factors that are explaining these numbers,” Selzer said.
Gee, you think maybe Trump’s promise to protect them whether they want it or not wasn’t quite the selling point he thought it would be?
