(wipes some sweat off brow) Thanks, Jay, I needed that this morning.
I talked a "bro" yesterday into voting for Kamala. He's a gamer type. He was undecided. When he told me that, I initially wanted to sedate him for the next week, but when he displayed a remarkable lack of knowledge about everything, I explained to him how tariffs would impact his next monitor purchase (he goes through monitors like some of us go through Keurig coffee pods).
He was like, "No way, dude." Followed by a few expletives. Then he said he's voting for Kamala.
Not only that, but Project 2025 would have an enormous negative effect on the gaming industry since it wants to allow no violence or romance (what they term “porn”). To my Narrative Designer daughter, that was just one extra reason to vote for Kamala!
For people like us who are plugged into politics, undecided voters are baffling. But in reality there are a large contingent of voters in this country who are not paying attention. Sometimes to make a difference, we've got to meet people where they are (despite wanting to grab them by the shoulders and scream "wake up")
Yeah, it's strange. A sixteen-year-old born and raised in this blue state (MA) was saying she "would vote for trvmmp because she doesn't know enough about Kamala". I sent along trvmp's plans to deport her entire family for being non-white immigrants, including her after canceling birthright citizenship.
I hope it got through to her. I talked to another person who questioned Kamala's qualifications. I had to simmer down. I listed the offices she's held. When I got to VP, he said, but she hasn't done much there. I said, "She shut up and did what she was told. That's the job." Another undecided voter. I think I swayed him, too. I'll be checking in on him during his dog walk this evening.
EDIT: Most people who bother walking their dogs are nice people. I will snare this guy, too.
Maybe throw in that Kamala was sent by Biden to meet with high-level officers and political leaders in numerous countries including twice with President Zelenskiiy, thus building her experience and relationships with many of our allies. In Africa, for instance, sending the vice-president of the U.S. as the president's emissary to meet with leaders of African countries is important to counter the growing influence of China in many African countries. I know you can think of other examples.
You’re right about all that, of course, but if I try talking about that stuff to the poor lad, his eyes will glaze over and he’ll start mumbling incoherently about Minecraft cheat codes or something.
That's why my eyes keep rolling SO HARD when they talk about "under Kamala" - ain't been anything *under Kamala yet except prosecutor's offices and Senate staff!
Yet clearly we all know EXACTLY who trump is because he's been in our lives on the daily for almost a decade and well known for years by New Yorkers, for the scab on humanity that he truly is. Oh, and he was prezzie for 4 years so there's that. VP Harris has shown us who she is over 3 months and she's more qualified than any republican currently in congress, the former guy, and his VP pick.
My daughter tells me that her boyfriend, who lives in Texas, has to drive 2 hours to vote. He clearly has not been organized enough to get a ballot. He falls into the Millennial group, of which most men I know in that category do not vote. It seems clear to me that they are too comfortable ,and as White men feel that whoever gets elected their lives are not going to change too much. My daughter who is a Gen Zer has voted from Abroad. So, an even greater distance, but she managed to get her vote in.
I can say that-- but what has got so many people, young and otherwise to feel so apathetic? There's a lot going on that leads to that. Media exposure and changes in how people get to socialize are only a dip from the bucket as far as the backstory to this.
Gotta point to the things that will make them take notice. Taking away women's rights, to a kid or someone not paying any attention, doesn't mean anything to them. Hit em where it hurts and they'll pay attention. Making it personal is the best way!
Sheesh, I know, right? I was surprised when he told me. I asked him casually if he voted yet and he said he wasn't sure who to vote for. This is a guy who works at Amazon, has told me how it feels to be profiled in some rural Georgia areas, rails against Bezos and his sweatshop, on and on. I assumed he was a sure Kamala voter. But I think he's a huge consumer of the Twitterverse, where he's bombarded with bullshit.
well sometimes, I think especially with young voters, it's a "how does this affect me personally". If you can sway them with monitors and porn then it's still a win.
The worst part about Project 2025's porn proposed porn ban, is according h to lawyers and various legal scholars- if you read between the lines, it's not really about banning porn so much as it's about censoring LGBTQ presence literature.
Another example of GOP projection: saying Democrats want to impose Sharia Law, when in their ideal society women cover their hair (and lots of other parts). Do you think Amazon will sell Burkas?
I think that Amazon will look very different because Trump will go after Bezos, because he always shits on the people who kowtow to him. Bezos better be looking at homes he has elsewhere in the world. From what I could find his homes are all over the US, but he still has money to buy one elsewhere. Too bad for him he did not colonize another planet yet, because Musk is much wealthier and it is doubtful he will let Bezos stay in the game in the same way. Plus Americans are not going to have so much money anymore to spend on Amazon, and the rest of the world may not want to buy his products after he is considered to be part of the tanking of the US and the planet. Perhaps he can set up shop in Russia.
It's kinda what they have in mind. They aren't too fond of Islam, but the way THEY run things when they get their theocracy on appeals to the MAGAts mightily.
And that porn will be more expansively defined. Read what Andra Watkins has to say about what Christian Nationalists like Mike Johnson mean when they say porn.
I attended the Harris/Obama/Tyler Perry/Springsteen et al rally in Clarkston Ga last week. I'm a white 74 year old female with a PHD. I'd say the crowd of 24,000 was relatively evenly split along race and gender lines. And I'll tell you what struck me.... no matter what speaker mentioned it, and every one of them did, when reproductive freedom was brought up? The crowd went nuts. It matters in this race.
As a woman, I don’t think a lot of men get that we feel abandoned by the Dobbs decision. I’m 84, but I have granddaughters and great granddaughters who will suffer from an abortion ban. I fought for abortion rights in the 70s, I can’t believe I have to do it again.
Women are extremely angry, and whenever we hear of women going through terrible pain, both physical and emotional, we get more angry. This won’t go away until women are full citizens again.
and as an older male, I also have a granddaughter, a daughter in law, and potentially other grandchildren in the future. Of course, a husband is also affected by the restrictions imposed on his wife.
I don’t have any children. And I am 66. But I too, fought for abortion rights in the 80s. In fact, I wrote a paper on why abortion should be safe and legal when I was 13 years old. To say the Dobbs decision, and these fascists on the Supreme Court, make me white hot with rage is an understatement.
Always been at the top of my list. Because we know, and have always known, it’s about control. Which also makes it square with capital punishment. Ultimate control.
Thank you for fighting for my healthcare rights Sharon. I'm paying it forward by fighting hard for all of the younger women now and future generations of women. We are in it to win it!
Came here to speculate on that also, and I don't think the converse would be true that would neutralize that effect. We need to gird ourselves against Bannon and Miller-esque shenanigans over which faux pious creeper Johnson is positioning his sticky fingers....
I’m 72, childless (without cats). I rage against Dobbs because I care about women - whether or not I have a genetic link to them. I was asked to speak about life pre-legalization of abortion. The audience was very young women who had been recruited by Planned Parenthood to become abortion influencers. At the end of my speech we broke into small groups. The women in my group asked, tremulously, how they can know what to believe on social media. We talked about that but I did not sense any urgency about my warning that Roe v Wade could be overturned. They didn’t believe me. This was around 2017. I hope they feel differently now.
The abortion issue is about women being held to the principle that the state can take control of a female body to preserve life (pregnancy and childbirth) while the state could, but never does, exert control over a male body to preserve life (not even freaking blood donation, not even organ donation AFTER DEATH)!
It means we are less than men under the law, and it's infuriating!
Many of those Republican votes can be for Harris correct? I think there are far more Republicans voting for Harris this year or voting for someone other than Trump, so they may have an impact on the numbers as well.
I would guess at least 10%. Look at how the various voter initiatives on abortion fared even in very red states such as Oklahoma. People are pissed off on both sides of the aisle.
Isn’t the dip in early voting by Democrats concerning at all? They usually have a higher turnout, and Republicans have shown up in bigger numbers on Election Day?
I switched parties to vote in the GOP primary and haven't yet switched back. So technically, I am a registered republican who will vote blue down ballot.
Same here. I’ve been registered Reslug so I get all their propaganda which helps me know who to vote against in the down-ballot “non partisan” races (judges, school board, etc). Every Dem gets my vote.
I was a _real_ Republican until around 2000. However I had been voting mostly Democratic for years (minus some local and state legislative races, where I was trying to prop up the last few true moderates in my then-party) before I had had enough and changed registration.
There was a time when Republicans were a big tent party like the Democrats, with liberal Republicans as well as moderates and conservatives (with a right tilt overall, but leadership did much to keep the extreme right at bay). Unfortunately that time was a long time ago. I was around to watch it die, and the last straw for me was the Brooks Brothers riot.
I see the political axis now as something other than left and right, D and R. Now I see it as fantasy versus fact, autocracy versus democracy, fascism versus representative government. It'll be hard to get out of the tradition lines of thinking, but that's what it's going to take to preserve our form of government.
The last straw for me was the whisper campaign against John McCain in South Carolina when it looked like he's snatch the nomination from W. After that cheating become SOP for the GOP, and then during a full moon their faces got hairy and they became the magas.
Yes I suspect there's a lot of that in NC, or any state with closed primaries. The other data point to remember is Trump under performed the polls in 19 of 20 primaries where there was competition, and even after she formally withdrew from the race Haley was getting 10% or more of the vote.
and if you were switching parties, are you more likely to vote early and not have to fret about it? I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that a reasonable proportion of the early voting registered Republican women are voting for Harris.
I voted early, but that has not eased my anxiety. My stomach has been a stress ball for months, and now that election day is around the corner I feel like a jumpy cat.
Yes but like any other election you have to think R for R, D for D until proven otherwise. I am looking at it as "we have a bigger percentage of them than they have of us". How much remains to be seen
About early voting: I dropped off my Oregon ballot 2-3 days later than usual because my ballot arrived 2-3 days later because the USPS moved mail sorting in Portland, 2 hours from here. . Most everyone I know is mailing/dropping off their ballot as soon as they receive it.
Another USPS screw-up reported in today's news is that people in another Oregon county haven't received their ballots, 2 weeks after they were mailed. My official Voter's Pamphlet was a week late this year. My order of postcard stamps took a week to arrive here from Kansas City, in a package marked by the USPS 'Priority Mail.' It's starting to look like Louis DeJoy's priority is interfering with elections and screwing the public.
When will Louis DeJoy be replaced by someone who actually likes the US Postal Service and democracy and wants them to thrive?
Given the level of security around internet sites like my checking account and other banking services, I can't wait for the day when I can vote on-line. I'm pretty sure if I get close enough, my laptop camera could do a pretty good retinal scan to confirm my identity. If I can follow my vote to it's destination for counting, I can stop worrying about mail box arson, other forms of voting suppression.
I recently has to sign up for a UK government login to get access to my benefits (accrued before I came to the States in 2000). It was awesome. You scan your passport which has encoded biometric data, then take a selfie. The AI compares your selfie to the biometric data from your passport and hey presto - identity validated in 5 minutes. It would need the same info to be encoded in drivers licenses, but the technology is already mature.
Said it before, and I'll say it again: The women's vote will save democracy! And however the men's vote break will determine the magnitude of the win, bank it.
I am trying so hard to remain calm and believe that the voters will materialize in sufficient numbers to keep Harris ahead in the electoral college. I don’t trust the poorly informed American voters enough to feel any sense of safety right now. I think I’m too anxious to even understand your essay today! I’m literally barely sleeping right now as I can’t fall asleep for the longest time then I wake up ridiculously early!
Are these R women actually voting for Harris? How can any woman, or any human with a beating heart, for that matter, vote for that horrendous orange felon?
This ⬆️ is the scary part for me. I want to be and am in solidarity with other women. It’s also true that there are plenty of whack a doodle evangelical women and who knows what they’ll do. An otherwise smart 18 year old woman, daughter of divorced parents (dad an evangelical, mom who is transgender but whose kids still call them “mom”) is a trumper. It tears me up.
KC, I’m with you. Stress does reduce executive function like attention, memory, inability to control emotion. In my last job I taught human service staff how stress overload was causing the behaviors many of their homeless clients demonstrated. It was not mental illness! Believe me, stress can have scary symptoms, although they are generally short-term - unless the stressor continues (ie if CFDJT wins). Know that this is normal and put some time into stress management. ❤️
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz will be our next President and Vice-President!
- more women vote than men
- the percentage of women who vote for Harris will be considerably higher than the percentage of men who vote for Trump
In other words, women will rule the day; Harris/Walz will be elected because of women.
In my opinion, women, who did not even have the right to vote until 1918, should be in charge of running the U.S. The time has come for women to take charge! For common sense to prevail!
So many things are done better by women than men! If it were up to men, we'd be long since extinct. Men have their place in human society, but it's not in any arena where getting along, cooperating and compromise are a prerequisite to success. We're pretty good about breaking rocks, though.
I have little doubt that we are looking at a Harris win. I was once upon a time trained as a political operative by the Republicans, I have worked a few campaigns, and I smell a women-propelled victory.
The Trump team does too -- they have access to much better polling information than you see in the news, and you can see their increasing desperation. Desperate campaigns (poorly run, at that) make big mistakes that often make things worse for them (like the rally at MSG).
That does not mean that the election can't still be lost -- vote vote vote! If you don't get your ballot, go in person, if your mailed vote is never received, go in person, if there is funny business with your registration, straighten it out while you can or vote a provisional ballot. Walk over hot coals and broken glass to vote if necessary. But I am expecting a decent sized victory for Harris, possibly even a landslide.
I hope you're right. I also have a question, if you don't mind. I have heard from Jay and other sources about Republicans flooding the zone with deliberately right-skewed polling to discourage Democrats, give them "proof" of election fraud if Trump loses, and maybe to keep the ketchup on the wall to a minimum.
Have you seen this done? Do you know which pollsters in 270 to Win are like this?
Not a pollster or even great at math, but lots of talk about under estimating Trump votes, I think it’s very possible many women registered Republican will vote for VP Harris for May obvious reasons. Perhaps women for Harris is being under estimated
"Underestimating the tRump vote" is now a stock-in-trade tool used by pollsters and political boffins to hedge their bets when assessing "who's actually winning" in any race where tRump is on the ballot. This election cycle, all the former are bending over backwards to accommodate the so-called "low-propensity voter", who they say is heavily pro-tRump but rarely vote. So far, not a lot of indication that the "bro" vote is turning out, and even if a fraction do, they will be overwhelmed by women already voting and committed to vote on Election Day...numbers don't lie, people.
I call BS on the pollsters. They under called the Trump vote a lot in 2016 and less in 2020. They over estimated R popularity in 2022 and missed how much Dobbs would affect turn out; also in 22 Trump-endorsed candidates did particularly badly. Now they try to tell us there are these "hidden Trump voters" who are going to come out in droves that they "can't reach" with their polling. I suspect there are a lot more pissed off women they are not reaching. Who has time to answer polls between work, kids, fixing dinner, etc.?
you left out the distinct possibility that Republican women are now voting for Harris. and as such they are part of the early Red surge- only it is a red to Harris surge!!!
I always thought this election would be won by women, and that the bro-type politicos of this world had no idea how fired up women were. They are blind to that fury.
Please keep in mind that betting markets are not "expert predictions" - they are the ongoing attempt to get equal money down and equal payouts on both sides of the bet. Those fading The Convict are likely betting bigger $$ than the other side. That article even mentions it - a "whale" bet can shift the odds really hard really fast. Bookies don't care who wins if they've done their jobs right - because then THEY always will.
We can all analyze the turnout, and drive ourselves crazy in the process. I'm doing my best to just ignore the polls, and will try to wait patiently for the *actual* vote count to be revealed after the voting polls close on November 5th. In the meantime, my advice is to simply breathe, and be sure that you vote.
Thank you for speaking out! All these people are spending a great deal of time conjecturing and writing about polls. It's a waste of time! Polls don't vote. We vote. Like many of us, I mailed in my ballot. I know it's been received but it won't be counted until Election Day. People need to stop stressing out about this. I'm not even going to read these articles anymore. Here is an article I read about surviving election season without losing your mind!
I voted early a couple of weeks ago. Here in California, we have Ballot Trax, so I know that my vote has been received, and counted. Now...we must wait for the final count. Fingers crossed, and hopeful that we will prevail.
Ballot Trax and our county Registrar of Voters are outstanding. I put my ballot in my outgoing mail on a Tuesday (picked up same day), rec'd email early on the following Thursday morning that it had been received and counted.
But in the states where they are, and the gender gap is still pronounced, there must be a reason: what's motivating R women to turn out to vote early at greater numbers than they did in the past? As jaded as I am about this kind of thing, I can't imagine Trump is inspiring women to turn out and vote early for him. Dobbs is the most plausible explanation.
I have been saying it ever since the Dobbs decision but most pundits except for Joy Reid just don't get it. There are 168 million women in this country who have been made second class citizens. This is the first election where we can stick it directly to the creep who made that happen and brags about it. The "Dobbs effect" wasn't about to wear off until we've all had our say on that subject. There's where your enthusiasm among early women voters comes from and it applies to women regardless of party and the men who love and support them. As usual, the women will win this for all of us.
Even if your state is deep red, it's important to get as many Dem votes as possible EVERYWHERE. This makes it much harder to claim that the vote is rigged in just 1 or 2 swing states.
(wipes some sweat off brow) Thanks, Jay, I needed that this morning.
I talked a "bro" yesterday into voting for Kamala. He's a gamer type. He was undecided. When he told me that, I initially wanted to sedate him for the next week, but when he displayed a remarkable lack of knowledge about everything, I explained to him how tariffs would impact his next monitor purchase (he goes through monitors like some of us go through Keurig coffee pods).
He was like, "No way, dude." Followed by a few expletives. Then he said he's voting for Kamala.
Not only that, but Project 2025 would have an enormous negative effect on the gaming industry since it wants to allow no violence or romance (what they term “porn”). To my Narrative Designer daughter, that was just one extra reason to vote for Kamala!
Ooooh, thanks! I’ll need to remind him of that.
Well done!
Ha, thanks. He’s a neighbor, so I am definitely following up, but his reaction seemed genuine, not a, “gotta shut this guy up” type of response.
Brilliant Charles! Keep talking w your bros!
And all the other folks on your oath! You may have a very special ’touch’ with ‘undecideds’…. Guide them! Please🎶🤗
Me too Charles!! Thank you Jay.
For people like us who are plugged into politics, undecided voters are baffling. But in reality there are a large contingent of voters in this country who are not paying attention. Sometimes to make a difference, we've got to meet people where they are (despite wanting to grab them by the shoulders and scream "wake up")
Yeah, it's strange. A sixteen-year-old born and raised in this blue state (MA) was saying she "would vote for trvmmp because she doesn't know enough about Kamala". I sent along trvmp's plans to deport her entire family for being non-white immigrants, including her after canceling birthright citizenship.
I hope it got through to her. I talked to another person who questioned Kamala's qualifications. I had to simmer down. I listed the offices she's held. When I got to VP, he said, but she hasn't done much there. I said, "She shut up and did what she was told. That's the job." Another undecided voter. I think I swayed him, too. I'll be checking in on him during his dog walk this evening.
EDIT: Most people who bother walking their dogs are nice people. I will snare this guy, too.
Maybe throw in that Kamala was sent by Biden to meet with high-level officers and political leaders in numerous countries including twice with President Zelenskiiy, thus building her experience and relationships with many of our allies. In Africa, for instance, sending the vice-president of the U.S. as the president's emissary to meet with leaders of African countries is important to counter the growing influence of China in many African countries. I know you can think of other examples.
You’re right about all that, of course, but if I try talking about that stuff to the poor lad, his eyes will glaze over and he’ll start mumbling incoherently about Minecraft cheat codes or something.
That's why my eyes keep rolling SO HARD when they talk about "under Kamala" - ain't been anything *under Kamala yet except prosecutor's offices and Senate staff!
Yet clearly we all know EXACTLY who trump is because he's been in our lives on the daily for almost a decade and well known for years by New Yorkers, for the scab on humanity that he truly is. Oh, and he was prezzie for 4 years so there's that. VP Harris has shown us who she is over 3 months and she's more qualified than any republican currently in congress, the former guy, and his VP pick.
Sadly, sometimes the facts, even publicly shared videos Trump made himself don't seem to be enough.
As I said, my instinct was to invite him into the house so I could sedate him. With one of those big black iron frying pans. :-)
LMAO!
like my grandma woulda done.... lol
🤣
My daughter tells me that her boyfriend, who lives in Texas, has to drive 2 hours to vote. He clearly has not been organized enough to get a ballot. He falls into the Millennial group, of which most men I know in that category do not vote. It seems clear to me that they are too comfortable ,and as White men feel that whoever gets elected their lives are not going to change too much. My daughter who is a Gen Zer has voted from Abroad. So, an even greater distance, but she managed to get her vote in.
Tell your daughter to threaten him with the Lysistrata strategy if he doesn't get off his butt and vote.
I can say that-- but what has got so many people, young and otherwise to feel so apathetic? There's a lot going on that leads to that. Media exposure and changes in how people get to socialize are only a dip from the bucket as far as the backstory to this.
Gotta point to the things that will make them take notice. Taking away women's rights, to a kid or someone not paying any attention, doesn't mean anything to them. Hit em where it hurts and they'll pay attention. Making it personal is the best way!
Sheesh, I know, right? I was surprised when he told me. I asked him casually if he voted yet and he said he wasn't sure who to vote for. This is a guy who works at Amazon, has told me how it feels to be profiled in some rural Georgia areas, rails against Bezos and his sweatshop, on and on. I assumed he was a sure Kamala voter. But I think he's a huge consumer of the Twitterverse, where he's bombarded with bullshit.
Send him links to your favorite Substack authors’ articles. (I am addicted to Substack.)
Requires a slightly longer attention span than tweets. Which is 90% of the problem.
well sometimes, I think especially with young voters, it's a "how does this affect me personally". If you can sway them with monitors and porn then it's still a win.
The worst part about Project 2025's porn proposed porn ban, is according h to lawyers and various legal scholars- if you read between the lines, it's not really about banning porn so much as it's about censoring LGBTQ presence literature.
Not only will porn be banned but redefined. Read what Andra Watkins, Christian Nationalist expert has to say about it.
https://project2025istheocracy.substack.com/p/recap-how-republicans-plan-to-control
If you are a female your body is considered pornographic so it has to be covered, or if you are gay you are considered pornographic.
Another example of GOP projection: saying Democrats want to impose Sharia Law, when in their ideal society women cover their hair (and lots of other parts). Do you think Amazon will sell Burkas?
I think that Amazon will look very different because Trump will go after Bezos, because he always shits on the people who kowtow to him. Bezos better be looking at homes he has elsewhere in the world. From what I could find his homes are all over the US, but he still has money to buy one elsewhere. Too bad for him he did not colonize another planet yet, because Musk is much wealthier and it is doubtful he will let Bezos stay in the game in the same way. Plus Americans are not going to have so much money anymore to spend on Amazon, and the rest of the world may not want to buy his products after he is considered to be part of the tanking of the US and the planet. Perhaps he can set up shop in Russia.
It's kinda what they have in mind. They aren't too fond of Islam, but the way THEY run things when they get their theocracy on appeals to the MAGAts mightily.
And that porn will be more expansively defined. Read what Andra Watkins has to say about what Christian Nationalists like Mike Johnson mean when they say porn.
https://project2025istheocracy.substack.com/p/how-project-2025-authors-define-pornography
https://project2025istheocracy.substack.com/p/project-2025-how-christian-nationalists-7b8
https://project2025istheocracy.substack.com/p/how-leonard-leo-already-controls
I attended the Harris/Obama/Tyler Perry/Springsteen et al rally in Clarkston Ga last week. I'm a white 74 year old female with a PHD. I'd say the crowd of 24,000 was relatively evenly split along race and gender lines. And I'll tell you what struck me.... no matter what speaker mentioned it, and every one of them did, when reproductive freedom was brought up? The crowd went nuts. It matters in this race.
As a woman, I don’t think a lot of men get that we feel abandoned by the Dobbs decision. I’m 84, but I have granddaughters and great granddaughters who will suffer from an abortion ban. I fought for abortion rights in the 70s, I can’t believe I have to do it again.
Women are extremely angry, and whenever we hear of women going through terrible pain, both physical and emotional, we get more angry. This won’t go away until women are full citizens again.
and as an older male, I also have a granddaughter, a daughter in law, and potentially other grandchildren in the future. Of course, a husband is also affected by the restrictions imposed on his wife.
Especially if she has a serious pregnancy complication and dies.
I don’t have any children. And I am 66. But I too, fought for abortion rights in the 80s. In fact, I wrote a paper on why abortion should be safe and legal when I was 13 years old. To say the Dobbs decision, and these fascists on the Supreme Court, make me white hot with rage is an understatement.
And why is it illegal to abort a fetus, but capital punishment is legal?
Always been at the top of my list. Because we know, and have always known, it’s about control. Which also makes it square with capital punishment. Ultimate control.
The Dobbs decision also affects men. When a woman has to carry a pregnancy to term, the father may have to pay child support for 18 years.
Thank you for fighting for my healthcare rights Sharon. I'm paying it forward by fighting hard for all of the younger women now and future generations of women. We are in it to win it!
Thank you
Agree, my husband still doesn’t get it. I am 70 and can’t believe we are back fighting again for our existence.
Came here to speculate on that also, and I don't think the converse would be true that would neutralize that effect. We need to gird ourselves against Bannon and Miller-esque shenanigans over which faux pious creeper Johnson is positioning his sticky fingers....
I’m 72, childless (without cats). I rage against Dobbs because I care about women - whether or not I have a genetic link to them. I was asked to speak about life pre-legalization of abortion. The audience was very young women who had been recruited by Planned Parenthood to become abortion influencers. At the end of my speech we broke into small groups. The women in my group asked, tremulously, how they can know what to believe on social media. We talked about that but I did not sense any urgency about my warning that Roe v Wade could be overturned. They didn’t believe me. This was around 2017. I hope they feel differently now.
The abortion issue is about women being held to the principle that the state can take control of a female body to preserve life (pregnancy and childbirth) while the state could, but never does, exert control over a male body to preserve life (not even freaking blood donation, not even organ donation AFTER DEATH)!
It means we are less than men under the law, and it's infuriating!
Many of those Republican votes can be for Harris correct? I think there are far more Republicans voting for Harris this year or voting for someone other than Trump, so they may have an impact on the numbers as well.
It’s somewhere between 5-10 of voters in the GOP by most estimates
I would guess at least 10%. Look at how the various voter initiatives on abortion fared even in very red states such as Oklahoma. People are pissed off on both sides of the aisle.
Isn’t the dip in early voting by Democrats concerning at all? They usually have a higher turnout, and Republicans have shown up in bigger numbers on Election Day?
I switched parties to vote in the GOP primary and haven't yet switched back. So technically, I am a registered republican who will vote blue down ballot.
Same here. I’ve been registered Reslug so I get all their propaganda which helps me know who to vote against in the down-ballot “non partisan” races (judges, school board, etc). Every Dem gets my vote.
I was a _real_ Republican until around 2000. However I had been voting mostly Democratic for years (minus some local and state legislative races, where I was trying to prop up the last few true moderates in my then-party) before I had had enough and changed registration.
There was a time when Republicans were a big tent party like the Democrats, with liberal Republicans as well as moderates and conservatives (with a right tilt overall, but leadership did much to keep the extreme right at bay). Unfortunately that time was a long time ago. I was around to watch it die, and the last straw for me was the Brooks Brothers riot.
I see the political axis now as something other than left and right, D and R. Now I see it as fantasy versus fact, autocracy versus democracy, fascism versus representative government. It'll be hard to get out of the tradition lines of thinking, but that's what it's going to take to preserve our form of government.
The last straw for me was the whisper campaign against John McCain in South Carolina when it looked like he's snatch the nomination from W. After that cheating become SOP for the GOP, and then during a full moon their faces got hairy and they became the magas.
Heidi, thank you for your Blue down ballot vote. I wish you also voted for Harris/Walz. We need you.
I did, there is no way I wouldn't
Yes I suspect there's a lot of that in NC, or any state with closed primaries. The other data point to remember is Trump under performed the polls in 19 of 20 primaries where there was competition, and even after she formally withdrew from the race Haley was getting 10% or more of the vote.
Same here. I wonder what that does to the statistics.
and if you were switching parties, are you more likely to vote early and not have to fret about it? I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that a reasonable proportion of the early voting registered Republican women are voting for Harris.
I voted early, but that has not eased my anxiety. My stomach has been a stress ball for months, and now that election day is around the corner I feel like a jumpy cat.
Yes but like any other election you have to think R for R, D for D until proven otherwise. I am looking at it as "we have a bigger percentage of them than they have of us". How much remains to be seen
About early voting: I dropped off my Oregon ballot 2-3 days later than usual because my ballot arrived 2-3 days later because the USPS moved mail sorting in Portland, 2 hours from here. . Most everyone I know is mailing/dropping off their ballot as soon as they receive it.
Another USPS screw-up reported in today's news is that people in another Oregon county haven't received their ballots, 2 weeks after they were mailed. My official Voter's Pamphlet was a week late this year. My order of postcard stamps took a week to arrive here from Kansas City, in a package marked by the USPS 'Priority Mail.' It's starting to look like Louis DeJoy's priority is interfering with elections and screwing the public.
When will Louis DeJoy be replaced by someone who actually likes the US Postal Service and democracy and wants them to thrive?
It’s not just elections - he’s been sucking DeJoy out of all mailing services for years!
Until the Senate approves a new member or two to the USPS Board of Governors, we’re stuck with him. That’s why we need to abolish the filibuster.
Given the level of security around internet sites like my checking account and other banking services, I can't wait for the day when I can vote on-line. I'm pretty sure if I get close enough, my laptop camera could do a pretty good retinal scan to confirm my identity. If I can follow my vote to it's destination for counting, I can stop worrying about mail box arson, other forms of voting suppression.
I recently has to sign up for a UK government login to get access to my benefits (accrued before I came to the States in 2000). It was awesome. You scan your passport which has encoded biometric data, then take a selfie. The AI compares your selfie to the biometric data from your passport and hey presto - identity validated in 5 minutes. It would need the same info to be encoded in drivers licenses, but the technology is already mature.
Said it before, and I'll say it again: The women's vote will save democracy! And however the men's vote break will determine the magnitude of the win, bank it.
I am trying so hard to remain calm and believe that the voters will materialize in sufficient numbers to keep Harris ahead in the electoral college. I don’t trust the poorly informed American voters enough to feel any sense of safety right now. I think I’m too anxious to even understand your essay today! I’m literally barely sleeping right now as I can’t fall asleep for the longest time then I wake up ridiculously early!
Are these R women actually voting for Harris? How can any woman, or any human with a beating heart, for that matter, vote for that horrendous orange felon?
This ⬆️ is the scary part for me. I want to be and am in solidarity with other women. It’s also true that there are plenty of whack a doodle evangelical women and who knows what they’ll do. An otherwise smart 18 year old woman, daughter of divorced parents (dad an evangelical, mom who is transgender but whose kids still call them “mom”) is a trumper. It tears me up.
KC, I’m with you. Stress does reduce executive function like attention, memory, inability to control emotion. In my last job I taught human service staff how stress overload was causing the behaviors many of their homeless clients demonstrated. It was not mental illness! Believe me, stress can have scary symptoms, although they are generally short-term - unless the stressor continues (ie if CFDJT wins). Know that this is normal and put some time into stress management. ❤️
Well, I’m not worried, at all.
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz will be our next President and Vice-President!
- more women vote than men
- the percentage of women who vote for Harris will be considerably higher than the percentage of men who vote for Trump
In other words, women will rule the day; Harris/Walz will be elected because of women.
In my opinion, women, who did not even have the right to vote until 1918, should be in charge of running the U.S. The time has come for women to take charge! For common sense to prevail!
(note that I am a man)
Agreed that women will save this country from another 4 years of Trump.
But that's no reason to get complacent. Everyone should make sure they actually vote!
So many things are done better by women than men! If it were up to men, we'd be long since extinct. Men have their place in human society, but it's not in any arena where getting along, cooperating and compromise are a prerequisite to success. We're pretty good about breaking rocks, though.
One thing men are definitely not good at: writing laws on reproductive health. The guy who thought you could re-implant an ectopic pregnancy? WTF!
And shooting/killing stuff...
I have little doubt that we are looking at a Harris win. I was once upon a time trained as a political operative by the Republicans, I have worked a few campaigns, and I smell a women-propelled victory.
The Trump team does too -- they have access to much better polling information than you see in the news, and you can see their increasing desperation. Desperate campaigns (poorly run, at that) make big mistakes that often make things worse for them (like the rally at MSG).
That does not mean that the election can't still be lost -- vote vote vote! If you don't get your ballot, go in person, if your mailed vote is never received, go in person, if there is funny business with your registration, straighten it out while you can or vote a provisional ballot. Walk over hot coals and broken glass to vote if necessary. But I am expecting a decent sized victory for Harris, possibly even a landslide.
I hope you're right. I also have a question, if you don't mind. I have heard from Jay and other sources about Republicans flooding the zone with deliberately right-skewed polling to discourage Democrats, give them "proof" of election fraud if Trump loses, and maybe to keep the ketchup on the wall to a minimum.
Have you seen this done? Do you know which pollsters in 270 to Win are like this?
Not a pollster or even great at math, but lots of talk about under estimating Trump votes, I think it’s very possible many women registered Republican will vote for VP Harris for May obvious reasons. Perhaps women for Harris is being under estimated
"Underestimating the tRump vote" is now a stock-in-trade tool used by pollsters and political boffins to hedge their bets when assessing "who's actually winning" in any race where tRump is on the ballot. This election cycle, all the former are bending over backwards to accommodate the so-called "low-propensity voter", who they say is heavily pro-tRump but rarely vote. So far, not a lot of indication that the "bro" vote is turning out, and even if a fraction do, they will be overwhelmed by women already voting and committed to vote on Election Day...numbers don't lie, people.
I call BS on the pollsters. They under called the Trump vote a lot in 2016 and less in 2020. They over estimated R popularity in 2022 and missed how much Dobbs would affect turn out; also in 22 Trump-endorsed candidates did particularly badly. Now they try to tell us there are these "hidden Trump voters" who are going to come out in droves that they "can't reach" with their polling. I suspect there are a lot more pissed off women they are not reaching. Who has time to answer polls between work, kids, fixing dinner, etc.?
you left out the distinct possibility that Republican women are now voting for Harris. and as such they are part of the early Red surge- only it is a red to Harris surge!!!
I don’t want to speculate about how many voters like that there are…
It seems in an earlier post, you estimated that number to be 5-10%, unless you were referring to some other voter group.
I always thought this election would be won by women, and that the bro-type politicos of this world had no idea how fired up women were. They are blind to that fury.
Thank you Jay—so very much appreciate you and all this info! I also want to share this regarding the betting market nonsense we are seeing: https://www.yahoo.com/news/polymarkets-pro-trump-election-predictions-133157723.html
Please keep in mind that betting markets are not "expert predictions" - they are the ongoing attempt to get equal money down and equal payouts on both sides of the bet. Those fading The Convict are likely betting bigger $$ than the other side. That article even mentions it - a "whale" bet can shift the odds really hard really fast. Bookies don't care who wins if they've done their jobs right - because then THEY always will.
Yes, I shared it to help assuage fears!
We can all analyze the turnout, and drive ourselves crazy in the process. I'm doing my best to just ignore the polls, and will try to wait patiently for the *actual* vote count to be revealed after the voting polls close on November 5th. In the meantime, my advice is to simply breathe, and be sure that you vote.
Thank you for speaking out! All these people are spending a great deal of time conjecturing and writing about polls. It's a waste of time! Polls don't vote. We vote. Like many of us, I mailed in my ballot. I know it's been received but it won't be counted until Election Day. People need to stop stressing out about this. I'm not even going to read these articles anymore. Here is an article I read about surviving election season without losing your mind!
https://time.com/7024710/election-season-stress-anxiety-coping-tips/
I voted early a couple of weeks ago. Here in California, we have Ballot Trax, so I know that my vote has been received, and counted. Now...we must wait for the final count. Fingers crossed, and hopeful that we will prevail.
Ballot Trax and our county Registrar of Voters are outstanding. I put my ballot in my outgoing mail on a Tuesday (picked up same day), rec'd email early on the following Thursday morning that it had been received and counted.
If more republicans than Dems voting early, but the gender gap hasn't moved, that means republican women are voting for Harris? Can you say, "Dobbs"?
It doesn't necessarily mean that. I mean it would seem but you can't count on it. Still see way too many woment for TFG, baffles me to this day
I don't understand how any decent woman could vote for Trump. But, perhaps, therein lies the answer.
Or any decent man.
YES!
It's not the case that more republicans than dems are voting early, except for a few states (and those states have pretty good explanations as to why that's the case). Overall though, There are more D early votes than R in the battleground states (se: https://targetearly.targetsmart.com/g2024?demo_filters=%5B%7B%22key%22%3A%22modeledParty%22%2C%22value%22%3A%22All%22%7D%5D&view_type=PresBS) and natioally (see: https://targetearly.targetsmart.com/g2024?demo_filters=%5B%7B%22key%22%3A%22modeledParty%22%2C%22value%22%3A%22All%22%7D%5D&view_type=National)
But in the states where they are, and the gender gap is still pronounced, there must be a reason: what's motivating R women to turn out to vote early at greater numbers than they did in the past? As jaded as I am about this kind of thing, I can't imagine Trump is inspiring women to turn out and vote early for him. Dobbs is the most plausible explanation.
I think the gender gap is real, and it spells serious trouble for Trump and the MAGA party.
I have been saying it ever since the Dobbs decision but most pundits except for Joy Reid just don't get it. There are 168 million women in this country who have been made second class citizens. This is the first election where we can stick it directly to the creep who made that happen and brags about it. The "Dobbs effect" wasn't about to wear off until we've all had our say on that subject. There's where your enthusiasm among early women voters comes from and it applies to women regardless of party and the men who love and support them. As usual, the women will win this for all of us.
Preach! Love it!
I read in the local county news today that over 50% of absentee ballots that were sent out in our county have been returned.
Usually the return rate on absentee ballots is below 40% for any given election in my county.
True, I live in a not important state, my state is generally red, my county is blue.
I am just amazed at the return rates of the absentee ballots at this point.
I have statistically no idea what this means.
You and your county and your state are important. I know what you mean though. 💙
Even if your state is deep red, it's important to get as many Dem votes as possible EVERYWHERE. This makes it much harder to claim that the vote is rigged in just 1 or 2 swing states.
I'd like to interpret that as eagerness to vote for Harris/Walz.