The U.S. election is nearly upon us and Sarah Lang has been doing a deep dive for months. Here’s Part 1 of her guide to how it all works, which podcasts to check out, where to look at polls, and how to stay calm(ish) while we wait to see who will win the US election.
For many weeks now, I’ve been thinking about writing something on the U.S. election. I’ve watched dozens of TV clips on the YouTube channels of MSNBC and CNN, and even Fox ‘News’ very briefly.
I’ve read articles in the New York Times, the Guardian, the Economist and the Atlantic et al., listened to dozens of podcast episodes, watched Harris at her packed rallies, watched her interviews, watched the debate twice (she kicked arse), watched illuminating interviews with groups of undecided voters, and checked polling aggregator 538 maybe three times a day. It’s ‘work-related’, I told myself vaguely – but I also knew that wasn’t true.
Because are we in a fever dream or is this reality? A 78-year-old conman, criminal, fraudster, rapist, racist, misogynist, insurrectionist and fascist – someone considered by more than 230 psychiatrists and mental-health professionals to be a malignant narcissist showing signs of cognitive decline – may get the nuclear codes and undoubtedly get played by Putin and other dictators through flattery and favours. Even though his opponent is an accomplished, caring, hard-working, intelligent former prosecutor and senator who has solid policies, and plans to restore the reproductive rights that the Trump-stacked Supreme Court stripped away? Hell yeah, I’m invested.
Those of us who care a great deal about this election don’t need to justify feeling that way just because we don’t live there. I care that Trump’s potential presidency would have destructive economic and political ripple effects around the world. I also care about the Americans who would again be subjected to Trump, the dangerous Project 2025 agenda, and J.D. Vance, the misogynist with authoritarian views (and billionaire backers) who could be one Trump cheeseburger away from the presidency.
Fascist rule is a real possibility. Because the Supreme Court has granted presidents immunity from prosecution for official acts, Trump (or potentially Vance) would be operating with no guardrails, surrounded by yes men, replacing civil servants with political loyalists. Hell, Trump has threatened to turn the military on Americans who oppose him, jail his enemies, and his rallies and rhetoric about immigrants “poisoning the blood” of America are veering into Nazi territory.
On the day I read that Trump said he wished he had Hitler’s generals, and essentially told a rally that he was anointed by God, I started crying. I spent the day staring at my screen, unable to write – something that almost never happens to me.
So when I talked to my Capsule boss, Emma, about an election story, I told her I’d made lists of all the reasons why Harris might win and all the reasons why Trump might win. Would that work?
Or did she want a breakdown of polling reliability? Should I write about why some people not in the MAGA cult are voting for Trump, largely due to concerns about illegal immigration and inflation, plus a splash of sexism and racism? How about something on Trump being a fascist in Putin’s pocket? About how the media has been ‘sane-washing’ Trump? About how he can get away with anything, anywhere while Harris has to pedal a unicycle backwards while balancing a tea set on a tray?
Emma looked at me carefully and said ‘Sarah, I think you should write a story about an anxious person’s guide to election week’.
Good call.
Polarised Polls
Please excuse me if you know this already, but the election is decided not by the popular vote (who wins the most votes nationally) but by the Electoral College. Each of the 50 states has a certain number of electoral votes (for instance, Pennsylvania has 19) and it’s ‘winner take all’. So, even if a candidate wins a state only by, say, 10,000 votes, that candidate gets all of that state’s electoral votes. The candidate whose electoral votes add up to 270 or more wins.
Currently, 43 states are either ‘blue’ (voters predominantly vote for Democrats) or ‘red’ (voters predominantly vote for Republicans). However, Republicans get an advantage in the Electoral College because less populous, usually more rural ‘red’ states have disproportionate weighting compared to more populous ‘blue’ states.
So the election comes down to who wins enough of the seven ‘swing states’ – Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada. Each has a fairly even number of Republicans and Democrats, and some ‘independents’ (though some will vote against party lines).
It’s crazy that voters in these seven states – which represent just 18 percent of the country’s population – effectively decide the election, while the other 43 states look on. It’s crazy that a candidate may win the popular vote but lose the Electoral College; that’s what delivered Donald Trump rather than Hillary Clinton. But that’s the system.
In this current polarised, largely static race, it could come down to tens of thousands of votes in these swing states. Polls in each show a more or less statistical tie; if you’re worried that Trump has an edge, here’s an interview with a straight-talking statistician who thinks they’re even.
Meanwhile, the Economist’s prediction model has the race as a “dead heat” (This is also what political reporter Jack Tame told Capsule last week, as well) but as of Sunday night it had Harris with a 52% chance of winning.
Although the polls might make it look like someone is ‘winning’, the margin of error is far greater than the tiny gap between the candidates. Plus poll respondents may lie about who they’re voting for, change their minds, or not get off the couch.
Pollsters have tried hard to correct for errors that undercounted Trump’s support in 2016 and 2020. Have they corrected enough? Have they over-corrected? If polls are off just a little, either candidate could win some or all of the seven states more handily than expected. It’s more likely that someone wins all seven than it is for, say, a four/three split.
If you want to keep an eye on polling, check out the site 538, which aggregates polling while giving more weight to polls that are higher-quality and bi-partisan. 538 also builds in economic and demographic data. It doesn’t give a prediction, exactly; instead, it runs simulations of the election. As of Sunday afternoon, Trump was winning in 50 out of every 100 simulations and Harris was winning in 49 out of every 100 simulations and these numbers are now changing multiple times a day.
There’s less than a 1 in 100 chance of an Electoral College tie, but should it happen, it might advantage Trump.
538 (that number is the total of all electoral votes) also shows you simulations by state and has good explainers and infographics.
Who Will Win The US Election?
I could give you 10 reasons why Harris could win; Political-history professor Allan Lichtman is one believer – his predictions are based on his ‘The Keys to The White House’ historical index system (not based on polls), and he has a near perfect record. And veteran former Democratic strategist James Carville, and filmmaker Michael Moore say this just doesn’t feel like an election that she’ll lose.
I could also give you 10 reasons why Trump could win. In fact, leading polling interpreter and statistician Nate Silver gives 24 reasons why Trump could win, though he’s not saying Trump will win (Silver is voting for Harris). As Silver himself pointed out, trying to read into the polling and early-vote numbers is equivalent to astrology (no offence to any astrologists out there).
That said, let me dabble in astrology briefly: on one hand considerably more women (including those angry about abortion bans) than men are turning out to early vote. On the other hand, more Republicans are voting early. These things may even come out Election Day
However, here’s some late-breaking news: J. Ann Selzer, from Iowa, is one of America’s most accurate pollsters, and not afraid of being an ‘outlier’. She has just released a poll that has Harris in the lead by three points in Iowa, in a ruby red state. The poll shows that women – particularly those who are older and/or politically independent – are turning toward Harris. My favourite podcasters at The Bulwark were so shocked by this news that they jumped online to talk about it, one from a stairwell. It’s not that they think Harris will win Iowa, but that they think Harris may be doing way better than we think in the adjacent Blue Wall states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. There may be ‘herding’ going on: the tendency for polls to produce very similar results to other polls, which is something that pollster Nate Silver has just raised concerns about. Is Harris in fact further in front?
But there’s no way to know what will happen until the day.
Where To Follow The US Election
I highly recommend The Bulwark, a podcast platform where the hosts keep it real and unfiltered as they cover recent developments and analysis of all things election, and do guest interviews. Former Republican political strategist Tim Miller is sometimes enraged because he knows the people who let Trump take over, but he’s also an excellent communicator and interviewer.
Another former Republican political strategist Sarah Longwell – who founded the group Republican Voters Against Trump – has been running focus groups with undecided voters, and has great insights. It’s telling when even those right of centre are desperate for Harris to win.
If you want to hear from someone more neutral, Russian-American computer scientist/AI researcher Lex Fridman has done some podcasts interviewing political figures. Meanwhile, the NPR Politics podcast keeps things pretty neutral and upbeat if that helps.
Keeping Calm-ish This Week
What things tend to make you feel calmer, and can you do these in the days before the election? Meditation? Getting out in nature? Puzzles? Getting some exercise? Watching reruns of Friends? Early nights? Chats with friends or family? Don’t neglect these things in the upcoming days. Can you manage your workload so you’re minimising the most stressful tasks this week? You may want to engage with the media enough to stay informed, but to step away if you feel overwhelmed.
There’s also some tailored help. Neuroscientist Dr Richard Davidson, founder and director of the nonprofit Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (in a swing state!) is the founder of Healthy Minds Innovations, a nonprofit wellness organisation that provides meditation and wellness guides on a free app. You can register to attend Healthy Minds’ live, interactive ‘dialogue and meditation’ session on Election Eve their time (1.30 -2.30pm on November 5 our time), or you can access the recording after that.
The Center says it’s not just for Americans. “We’ve curated this event thinking of everyone who may feel impacted by US election stress.” Because, no, our stress levels won’t be as high as people who live in the U.S., but we certainly can feel hella nervous.
I’m not sure that this piece will make you feel less anxious, but hopefully you’ll feel more prepared.
Look out for Part 2 on Wednesday morning about how to deal with events on, and beyond, Election Day
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