Princeton Election Commission gave him a less than 1% chance of winning in 2016 too, the day before the election. Their lead guy was the one who said he would eat his hat if Trump won, then actually did it.

538 on the other hand had Trump a 35% chance. They are who I will have some mild confidence in. But I would be shocked if we ever drop below a 20% Trump chance, which is still a solid 1/5, and the asshole is lucky a lot.

The Princeton Election Consortium gives him basically a zero percent chance of winning, based on current polling.

I worry what he will do if he figures out he isn't going to win. We have more than 3 months before the election for him to cause damage, then we have to deal with him until January no matter what. I've stopped thinking things can't get any worse, because I keep being proven wrong.

It would be great if he fled the country to somewhere without an extradition treaty. I'd be sorry not to see his ass marched to jail, but if it meant that he was gone and we never had to hear about him again, I'd take it.

I still think Trump has a very good chance of winning. There's still a lot of time before the election and if the COVID numbers start to get better, and the economic numbers sound like they are improving, then things could look very different by then.

Trump is going to have a ton of dark money on his side, Biden will pick a VP that can be targeted in ways Biden can't. Factor is voter suppression effects and I think he could easily get a slim margin in the handful of states that will actually factor in.

I keep thinking that, should there be a blue wave in November, it might be worth having all but a couple of the Dem senators, like, relocate to Honolulu to deny a quorum in the senate, so that they can deny a quorum, so that they can't do a big push of confirming 25 year old judges and bullshit like that.

But that's, like, 5 "what if"s down the road.

And RBG is back in the hospital. I do not like this at all.

I recall Nate Silver taking a lot of heat for saying Hillary's win wasn't a foregone conclusion on the eve of the election, but look who turned out to be right.

It did! And in more happy news, four members of the Horde are moving to Washington, and my sister has left Texas for Denver.

Yay! I miss Denver. It's weird to think I won't be there at ALL this year.

I just saw Ken and got to hug him! We all wore masks, but after six months I hugged him!

Yay! Hugs! We went 7 months without seeing Emmett until Monday.

and the economic numbers sound like they are improving

There is no way the economy will improve before November. This is a big ship that turns very slowly. It took a couple years to come back from 911 and this is way more massive. Lots of businesses have gone under. And there's no clear path to reopening either businesses or schools. There will be another surge in the Fall when some schools open.

The biggest indicators I'm following are: (1) Trump has lost the independents that voted for him in 2016; (2) he's getting even worse in the suburbs than he was in 2018 midterm elections. He's whittled it down to his crazy base and that's not enough to win.

waves

Hey, everyone! I skipped and skimmed (mostly skimmed) from, like, November, and it was weird to see people reporting on the Before Times.

Anyway, I live in Texas (Austin) now and despair the handling of things, even in Austin. It's better here than Dallas and Houston, but it's still Texas. Tom and I have been home almost non-stop since March 12 with the following exceptions: Two outdoor beer garden visits, one indoor beer garden visit (I wish we hadn't done that), one trip to IKEA (just me), one trip to a garden center, and curbside pickups for takeout, and groceries, and paint.

My Covid anxiety is constant, but throwing myself into painting the grey interior walls of our house has been helping. I feel like I have a purpose, which I did not have for the first 3 months of lockdown.

The last professional thing of note I've accomplished is writing a book - a travel guide, so not great timing, but it is what it is. [link]

Anyway, I'm hoping to keep up with the board more - since moving and lockdown, I'm just really really lonely.