Thunderdome is finally here

Welcome to Thunderdome and Happy Halloween – where this spooky, chaotic and crazy election season finally comes to an end. You can hear my opinion on the current situation here. Election Day should be a moment of relief to finally find a solution. Instead, many voters' concerns about what comes next resemble nothing so much as Douglas Adams' infamous bowl of petunias rapidly falling from the sky: “Oh no, not again.”

Why do they feel this way? Well, because if you look around the scene, the biggest questions about potential voter fraud and counting errors happen to be in this cycle's most important state: Pennsylvania, where the Trump camp is already screaming about the appearance of problems and local officials (including the Republican secretary of state ) they deny. The whole thing is already reminiscent of Georgia last time, with local GOP figures defending a system riddled with questionable rules and clunky early voting standards, leading to long lines, legacy media layoffs and generally heightened paranoia.

Why should these latent developments worry us in the run-up to election day? Well, because of the level of doubt that is so easily fomented by bad actors and incompetent officials:

On October 27, ballot boxes were set on fire in Washington state and Oregon within hours of each other, damaging hundreds of voter ballots. Incendiary devices were set off at both ballot boxes, located just a few kilometers apart, in what one official described as a “direct attack on democracy.”

Officials said footage of the fire in Vancouver, Washington, showed hundreds of ballots burning to ash after a fire suppression system failed to activate. Three were destroyed in Portland after the safety mechanism was activated.

Police said they have identified a “suspicious vehicle” linked to both fires. The motive remains unclear, but a police official told NBC that the incendiary devices were marked “Free Gaza.”

Boxes containing hundreds of votes ended up on the street in Florida on Oct. 28 after falling off a moving truck, Election Department officials said. An employee in Florida's largest county, Miami-Dade, forgot to lock the bed of his truck, causing containers of ballots to fall out, the local elections agency said.

That's before we get to any of the technological issues, like this terrible-looking password disclosure botch by the Colorado Secretary of State's office, which probably should have focused more on security than trying to get a total loss in the Supreme Court , to keep Trump from the election (she cried about it on MSNBC afterward). Or the bizarre attempt, struck down by the same court, to prevent Virginia from removing from its voter rolls those who had already personally admitted that they were not citizens. And of course, if it wasn't Pennsylvania, we could track all these weird X-accounts focused on Maricopa County. The whole thing looks like everyone is already gathering their threads to check if and when things go wrong.

And what are we talking about in the final moments? Oh, all the things we expected back when we started: Why Donald Trump is sitting in a garbage truck and why half of American voters won't show President Biden “mercy” for calling them “garbage” – and that all because it's America's most prominent insult comic acted like one who opened a Trump rally by telling a joke that the cycle's main interviewer, a former moderator of Fear factoradvised him against it. We are talking about the betrayal of Jeff Bezos and all the other members of the media who have chosen to renege on their duty and support Kamala Harris with a vociferous defense of her dubious and completely unproven leadership qualities. And if you're Tim Walz, you talk about the importance of free access to porn like a regular vice presidential candidate does.

At least be grateful for this: As silly as this election season has been, as dangerous and chaotic as it has been, just as all elections (except for Stacey Abrams and Kari Lake) end at some point. Let us hope and pray that America, as uncertain as it is at times, can cope as best it can. And please, can we find out who the next president is by this time next week? I need a vacation.

Byron York in Pennsylvania.

In the RealClearPolitics Average of national polls, six of the nine most recent polls are undecided, or the candidates are within one percentage point of each other. The results in swing states are similar. In five of the seven swing states, including here in Pennsylvania, the two candidates are separated by just one point or less. The poll numbers from an equal race confirm your own observations and vice versa.

Many Republicans would not believe this argument. Last Friday's newsletter, “Republican Irrational Exuberance?” examined the fact that many Republicans believe Trump has the election in the bag and that it may not even come close. Yes, there are signs that the race shifted a bit in Trump's favor about three weeks ago. After a long deficit, Trump is only slightly ahead on Thursday with 0.4 points RealClearPolitics Average of polls. That's an insignificant advantage, but when Republicans look at where Trump was at this point, both in 2016, when he was 1.3 points behind Hillary Clinton, and in 2020, when he was 7.4 points behind Joe Biden was lying, they find reason for optimism.

Still, it's a draw. And if you just look around, you'll see an intensity on Harris' side that seems to match the intensity on Trump's side. The crowd she drew for her “graduation speech” in Washington, DC was huge. Although her campaign's estimates of 75,000 were exaggerated, it appears that she attracted at least 60,000 people. Yes, it was in the middle of one of the bluest areas in America. In 2020, Biden won the District of Columbia with 93 percent of the vote, close to North Korean standards. The surrounding suburbs of the city are also very blue. Nevertheless, it is a clear sign of intensity that 60,000 people come. It didn't have the level of boldness and showmanship as Trump's event at Madison Square Garden in super-blue Manhattan, but no one should ignore the fact that Harris drew such a large crowd.

Nate Silver.

The turnout predictions are pretty straightforward. They're based on long-running Gallup and Pew polls that ask voters how enthusiastic they are compared to previous elections, as well as some relatively detailed estimates of population growth in each state. The final factor is the proximity of each state: all other factors being equal, voters are more likely to turn out if they think their vote matters. Gallup actually released new enthusiasm numbers today, and they're high, particularly among Democrats.

Based on this, our formula predicts a total voter turnout of 155.3 million, with an 80 percent confidence interval between 148.2 million and 162.5 million. This average is only slightly lower than the 158.7 million voters in 2020, but is much higher than the 137.1 million voters who voted in 2016 or a previous election.

Politico to the numbers in North Carolina.

Early voting numbers in North Carolina show the electorate is older and whiter compared to the state's voter registration figures. This is a warning sign for Democrats, who need large numbers of black voters if Kamala Harris wants to flip this state.

As of Wednesday, Black voters make up 18 percent of the electorate in early voting, and some Democratic activists said they need to increase that share to about 20 percent for Harris to be competitive nationally. In 2020, Black voters made up 19 percent of the electorate when Donald Trump narrowly won the state. And Democrats acknowledge that without a swing in their favor in the final days of early voting or on Election Day, it may not be good enough.

At that point, about 36,000 more African Americans had voted in person in 2020 than in 2024, and “that gap among African Americans has to be closed for Democrats to win,” said Thomas Mills, a Democratic strategist in the state.

Former Rep. GK Butterfield, who resigned from his rural eastern North Carolina seat in 2022, while acknowledging that the Black vote is “lagging,” said he believes Democrats will close the gap and predicted that ” “This week will be impressive” for African-American turnout.

The spectator will accompany election night from several sides. I'll be appearing regularly on Fox News and radio throughout the evening, and we'll have regular updates on thespectator.com throughout the evening. For Great Britain. Looking ahead, you can find the YouTube channel from across the pond here, and we'll have after-action analysis and new podcasts throughout the week. It was a pleasure to accompany this cycle with you Thunderdomeand as we near the end, thank you for your readership and subscribe to the magazine today!