COVID-19 has reawakened America’s spirit of misdirected anxiety, inspiring businesses and families to obsess over risk-reduction rituals that make us feel safer but don’t actually do much to reduce risk—even as more dangerous activities are still allowed. This is hygiene theater.
To borrow from Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman, “I’ve seen enough.”
No, I don’t know who’s going to win the election. According to our forecast, President Trump still has a chance at a second term: a 10 percent chance, to be more specific.
But — even though we’ll still get a ton of polls on Sunday and Monday — I’ve seen enough based on the polls we got earlier this week to know that things aren’t likely to change all that much in our forecast between now and just after midnight on Tuesday, when we’ll freeze it.
That cynicism doesn’t seem to be motivating them to sit on the sidelines during elections. Instead, younger people are much more likely than older people to report that they or members of their household have experienced barriers to voting, which suggests that they may genuinely find it more difficult to cast a ballot. And that problem could be compounded this year given the extraordinary challenges of voting during a pandemic.
The next time the sun will set later then today is in 125 days on Friday, March 5, 2021.
Looking towards Tully.
Taken on Saturday October 2, 2010 at Labrador Hollow Unique Area.