My father used to have a large black glass tray which had the headline “Dewey Defeats Truman” and the story from the front page of the Chicago Tribune [1]from the day after the election in 1948. Dad said it was a reminder to always get the facts straight.
And, back then, newspapers still endorsed candidates, and didn’t stand to make a lot of money from political advertising. Midterm elections didn’t cost $16.7B of which 15.4% is funded by Billionaires and 38% comes from the top 1%. See the NYTimes article: Fueled by Billionaires, Political Spending Shatters Records Again [2]
An excerpt:
“Fueled by an expanding class of billionaires, political spending on the 2022 midterm elections will shatter records at the state and federal levels, with much of it from largely unregulated super PACs financed with enormous checks written mainly by Republican megadonors.
“We’ve broken records with our broken records,” said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the nonpartisan Open Secrets [3], which estimated on Thursday that total spending in 2021 and 2022 would reach $16.7 billion when tallied after Election Day, easily surpassing the previous midterm record of $14 billion set in 2018.
The total spent on federal races, currently $7.5 billion, has already passed the inflation-adjusted record of $7.1 billion in 2018 and is expected to reach $8.9 billion when all is tallied. Of that, 15.4 percent has come from billionaires, up from 11.9 percent in 2020 and 15.3 percent in 2018. Beyond billionaires, the top 1 percent of donors, measured by income, has given 38 percent of the total….
Fueled by Billionaires, Political Spending Shatters Records Again [2] NY Times , 3 Nov 2022
While both parties have their billionaires, Republicans have many more. Of the 25 top donors this cycle, 18 are Republican, according to Open Secrets, and they have outspent Democrats by $200 million. Billionaires make up 20 percent of total Republican donations compared with 14.5 percent of Democratic donations.”
We actually have an entire industry built around elections now, between media companies, consultants, lobbyists, 501(c)(4) dark money organizations and even t-shirt makers and printers. Elections aren’t just about democracy anymore- it’s an entire sector of the economy.
And calling elections “too close to call” is the best thing to keep those political dollars flowing into radio and tv ads, internet ads, billboards, yard signs and to put the country on edge.
Very few predicted Donald Trump’s win in 2016 [4], and considering he didn’t win the popular vote, what we have is political strategists manipulating outcomes- often funded by billionaires.
Anyone who claims to be able to predict elections this year is a fraud.
Kansas pre-election poll: “Poll shows Kansans closely divided on constitutional amendment on abortion” https://kansasreflector.com/…/poll-shows-kansans…/ [5]
And then the results: Voters in Kansas decide to keep abortion legal in the state, rejecting an amendment https://www.npr.org/…/kansas-voters-abortion-legal… [6]
The outcome:
- No: 543,855 +59.0% 59.0%
- Yes: 378,466 +41.0% 41.0
https://www.nytimes.com/…/results-kansas-abortion… [7]
That’s an 18 point drubbing. Not close. Not even remotely a chance in hell.
Why do pollsters, the media, candidates, keep telling us that all these elections are close?
So they can get more eyeballs, more donations, more money to the media giants and the Election Industrial Complex.
Make no mistake- you have to go vote if you believe in keeping abortion legal- straight D.
I believe women are smarter than the men who run our country, give them credit.
I don’t believe the pollsters. I don’t believe the doom sayers.
I don’t believe Donald Trump has enough crazy’s to push his candidates into office.
If frauds like JD Vance, Dr Mehmet Oz, Herschel Walker get elected to the senate, we have even bigger problems than the billions- we have a problem with the voters. George Carlin had it right long ago.
The biggest issue we have in politics right now is politics. Too much money, too many people behind the curtain, too much value in dividing us. I have a shirt that says “Defund Politicians” for sale on my campaign site [8]. The next shirt would say “Detoxify Politics” – except the campaign is almost over.
I still believe in Americans coming together to stand up for democracy. I don’t think the pollsters have it right. I think voters realize that the biggest enemy to their pursuit of happiness is a system that’s sold them out.
My opponent is whining about the cost of Thanksgiving dinner, immigration at the border, and the lack of baby formula- while he’s been in power for 20 years. I like to remind people of a quote incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain but was uttered by Robin Williams in the movie “Man of the Year” (2006): “Remember this ladies and gentleman: It’s an old phrase, basically anonymous, politicians are a lot like diapers, they should be changed frequently, and for the same reasons. Keep that in mind the next time you vote.”
And while that’s a lousy reason to vote for me instead of Mike Turner, he can’t hide from his real crowning achievement- the growth of the billionaires in this country over the last 20 years, where we’ve gone from 243 in 2002 [9] to 716 in 2022 [10] .
Failures to enforce price gouging laws, anti-trust laws, or do anything to protect the common worker, including voting against the American Rescue Plan (the bailout of our citizens from the economic destruction of Covid [11]) and against the Affordable Insulin Act, are good reasons that Mike Turner doesn’t and won’t work for you. But, if you are one of the 27 Billionaires who donated to his campaign- you’re in great shape.
For the record, I don’t even know a billionaire. And, while I may not be everyone’s idea of the perfect candidate, I do know how to ask the right questions, and communicate with voters (Turner’s never had a townhall, I’ve been holding interactive ones on Youtube for months on weekdays at 4 tiny.one/esrati [12])
This Tuesday, you get to write the headlines. Hopefully, the media gets it right after the fact (in my primary, the AP had the 3rd place finisher winning all the way until 2am- after I called a friend to tell them they had it wrong.).
My predictions are Dems do better than the polls predicted. I don’t think that voters are that stupid. Here’s a great ad by Eric Swalwell to drive home a message for this election:
Thank you for being a reader. Share this with a friend if you like it. Don’t forget to subscribe for email notifications from the blog for every new post [13].
First of all, pollsters are reaching the 5 percent of voters that do answer their landline phones, pollsters don’t regularly call cell phones which consists of the majority of phones in America. That is one reason for poll inaccuracies. The other reason is Republicans lie to pollsters. It started with Trump in 2016. It would be embarrassing for a Trumper to admit he/she was voting for Trump so they say they are voting for Democrats instead. In 2022 websites like Real Clear Politics are correcting the poll mistakes by adding several undercount percentage points to races across the USA. In Ohio the undercount is about 4-5 percent. Add up to 5 percent to any Republican candidates number in Ohio. If a democrat has a small 2 point lead in a poll, it has been corrected to say the Republican has a 3 point lead. That is on top of the plus minus 3 points, polls margin of error dictates. Ohio was trending slightly toward democrats in 2020 ( toss up state) but Trump won by 8 points.. A lot of sampled people lied to the pollsters and said they were voting for Biden when they actually voted for Trump. That’s why Real Clear Politics has Fetterman and Cortes- Masto losing their races, Republican undercount. Even though Fetterman has a small lead in most polls. Maybe pollsters aren’t sampling enough Republicans and that could be another reason. JD Vance has a 5 point lead in polls but Real Clear Politics has Vance with a 9 point lead. This is the correction to make polls more accurate.
Hi David, of course you meant to write “too close to call.” And yes, I have some friends in media that have said the $$$ from political ads saves their budget every 2 years or so. Of course, the media have been saying, “The polls have been tightening the past week or so…” just to get more eyeballs, more drama, more talking heads on TV. Midterms usually favor the opposition party, so Republicans should win big. Appreciate Herbert’s comments; he is correct on many things. Also, the MEDIA BIAS is rampant: they ALWAYS under-count conservatives votes, to make Ohio seem very close (it’s not), and make it seem as if Hillary was destined to win, Trump had no chance in hell, etc. Everyone has bias. The media’s bias is too obvious.
@joe- thanks. I miss my dad editing for me.
I predict you will not win the election :)
Because you are clown.