Why I Think Kamala Will Win

I wrote nearly 2,000 words yesterday on why I think Kamala Harris will not only win, but win big. I sat on it, because I felt a little “ooh, it’s a bit bold, no?”

But then more stuff happened. She opened Saturday Night Live (and slayed). One of the most accurate, revered pollsters in the country said she’s winning in Iowa, which portends something bigger.

So, now I’m ignoring much of what I wrote yesterday and breaking this down.

Deep Background? Me?

First, what qualifications do I have? Oh, zero. None. Zilch. Nada. I’ve always loved watching the American Presidential election ever since I devoured Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail in ‘72 by Hunter S. Thompson. I only ever have a gut instinct, but I haven’t been wrong since Bill Clinton.

I had hoped Hillary would win in 2016 but lost faith at the end when the FBI’s Comey put his fingers on the scale. My last act leaving Canada on October 30^th that year, to resume my travels in Europe, was to buy a CANADA hat at the airport, so I wouldn’t be mistaken as an American when I expected Trump to win the following week.

I wasn’t sure about George W. Bush winning, but I worried about Gore and Kerry losing their elections.

So, it’s always just been a gut instinct after following the news and reading polls and paying attention to the culture and mood of people. That’s all I got. No credentials, nothing beyond a PoliSci 101 course and a background in journalism that makes me a news nerd, okay?

In short, don’t argue with me, just go write your own post. It’s an opinion. Take it for what it is, don’t hang your hat on it.

And VOTE — because MAGA needs to lose by a huge margin if Republicans are ever going to revert back to a less extreme party.

Here’s why Trump loses, IMHO.

1. Polling is baffled and flummoxed, because there’s never been a scenario like this before.

It ain’t about parties. It’s about democracy, decency, and vaginas, in short. Polling can’t account for how many Republicans are breaking left to vote for Kamala Harris. There’s probably also an underestimation of how the abortion situation plays out state-to-state, but elections in 2022 suggests the GOP have a hell of a lot of ground to lose, even if pollsters aren’t banking on that this time.

In 2016, people didn’t admit they were voting for Trump. In 2020, they overcorrected for that. This time, they’re possibly overcorrecting again in Trump’s favour, as they’re excessively weighting or flattening results that are suggesting Kamala has a larger lead, because her lead would go against historical averages. Let’s be real: An estimated 6% of people answer the call from polling firms.

Polling’s in a tizzy, because they can’t correctly anticipate what youth voters are doing. Nor can they account for people who’ve never voted before, but are voting this time. Some states now automatically register voters, who show up as unaffiliated, and they can’t be quantified by polling either.

Then there’s the “secret woman” vote, the women who are in registered as Republican, or in Republican relationships, and flat-out lying to pollsters because their husband is beside them.

2. The math ain’t mathing.

I don’t buy that it’s a “close race” when Trump has got half-empty rallies with people leaving early. Even his own cameramen are mocking him now by showing the empty stands as he talks about attendance.

Look at Kamala’s rallies — massive events that look like America, with people of all backgrounds. They’re buzzing with energy, people are proud they’re in attendance, they’re motivated. She’s got every celebrity you can imagine on her side — from Han Solo to Taylor Swift and Beyonce and more. Even Oprah and Lady Gaga are coming out to some of the final rallies today and tomorrow.

That diverse, widespread support is reflected in donations, too.

Kamala’s run the first-ever billion-dollar campaign, and it’s mostly small-time donations by everyday people. A whopping $400 million, more than 2/3 of Trump’s campaign funds, came from three billionaires, if I recall correctly. Small-time donors reflect voter energy — billionaires do not.

Kamala’s volunteers are working so hard, they’ve created a postcard shortage in many areas of New York, because they’re writing on them to sway voters to go to polling stations.

And hundreds of thousands of people have volunteered to door-knock for Harris, but the same isn’t happening for Trump, who’s boffing the ground game.

3. Misogyny doesn’t make for good political strategizing, it turns out.

Women KNOW what it feels like to be disrespected, mocked, belittled, underestimated. We have all experienced it. We have all had men abuse us, take us for granted, dismiss our qualifications. Some women might keep putting up with misogyny, but Kamala’s campaign has been the push-come-to-shove moment for most women.

Increasingly, the Kamala campaign has tapped into women’s anger more than ever — both because of how people are treating her, with her education and accomplishments and career, but also because of the Republican mentality women should be beholden to their husband’s decreed vote, that women should trust men to govern their bodies, and other systemic sexisms so many of us are over.

But that’s only part of how misogyny makes political operatives stupid.

Trump outsourced his ground game to Elon Musk and Charlie Kirk, white dudes with zero understanding about how to organize a ground game, AKA how to get out the vote — and a good ground game wins elections. Most people are checked out, so when you door-knock to tell them when and where to vote, you’re saving them work and they’re usually happy to hear what you have to say — briefly.

But Elon and Co. have intimidated voters, lied to their door-knockers, not paying their canvassers, and are generally blowing it in ways election observers have never seen done before.

It is a potentially historic political fumble, and I don’t think pollsters are even conceiving how much it may affect turnout in places like Michigan.

4. Just because they like Trump doesn’t mean they vote.

Trump and Vance going on Joe Rogan might seem like it’s a surefire path to victory with young guy voters, but the reality is that college males are the least likely to turn up on voting day, historically. In fact, fewer than 30% of 18-24-year-old dudes bother.

There’s a perspective that Trump is winning the bros over, but I think they’re going to find that those they do win over are less inclined to bother showing up — instead, they’ll be loud and obnoxious about it, but not necessarily take that to the ballot.

I loathe body-shaming, but when it’s something Trump does to others so much, this takedown by Dave Bautista for Jimmy Kimmel’s show is one that challenges the image Trump’s team keeps trying to create, of an authoritative ‘strongman.’

Also, banking on young males may be a mistake from another point of view: This is a generation that grew up with active-shooter drills. They’ve grown up with gun violence and ignorant government.

Kamala and Tim Walz have talked about shootings in nearly every speech. They’ve talked about housing, first-time homeowner help, and price gouging. Those all hit home with that generation, and I think the slow burn is working.

Plus, Kamala has done something I don’t think any other presidential campaign has ever done — it released a platform aimed directly at Black men, and they’re a group that has historically felt overlooked, so that’s a significant action not being taken lightly. Her “barbershop” conversation this week is a fantastic one that might educate people on why Black men have unique, deeply valid concerns.

5. No one has run a better campaign in the last 50 years. No one.

Kamala Harris is a Black woman who has ALWAYS had to be twice as good to be thought half as qualified for the job.

Every time she’s run for office, she’s won, except the time she lost in 2019 and was so well-respected by her opponent that he selected her as his VP. So, did she really lose then? This moment from the Presidential Primaries debate in 2019 is when I think Biden really clued into Kamala Harris, and when he decided she’d be a good running mate.

Last night, she had what’s being called the best political guest appearance ever on Saturday Night Live. It’s already a meme, just 12 hours in.

She killed the debate. She’s filled every arena. When she spoke at the Ellipse last Tuesday night, they hoped 25,000 people would turn out, and 75,000 did.

She’s had zero gaffes, really.

Some answers could be better, some policies could be stronger, she could speak out against Israel’s unrelenting bombardment of Gaza — but she has not made mistakes. And on Gaza, it must be noted that Benjamin Netanyahu loathes her. He’s doing everything he can to get Trump elected, because he knows Trump is a Zionist who thinks Gaza should be rubble.

Tim Walz, of course… man, they coulda plugged a Midwest-vote-winning wish list into a Star Trek replicator and it woulda spit out Tim Walz as the wet-dream candidate. The man is perfect.

He’s honest, relatable, an everyday guy who says everyday things and is the poorest candidate to ever be considered on the Presidential ticket! His net worth is around $300,000, which is unheard of at that level of politics, but really speaks to his being a true “working man.”

But Trump losing is really down to my gut.

Men don’t understand how angry we are.

Men don’t understand how scared we are.

Men don’t understand how done we are.

Men don’t understand.

But they will.

I believe in women. I believe they see this moment for what it is, when women either take us to a female-empowered future, or we continue taking a backseat to all the men who’ve fucked shit up for the last 46 presidencies… the men who destroyed our environment, allowed racism to thrive, and created the greatest wealth disparity in history.

Not anymore.

Women are voting in record numbers.*

In Iowa, senior WHITE women are voting for Kamala Harris at a 2-to-1 clip. No one saw that coming. Even senior white men are voting for her. Or saying they are.

The Latino vote has shifted, because apparently saying Puerto Ricans live on an island of garbage was a bad political message.

Heck, there are even Evangelicals against Trump now.

The youth vote doesn’t want abortion denied to them, or to face guns in schools. They want a future. They want hope, not fear and retribution and hate. Kids understand other people better, other cultures, they get that gender is fluid, and they have a better understanding of things the Trump campaign is trying to stoke fears over. They’ve spent half their life in the toxic miasma of Donald Trump, and they’re over it.

So… aftermath?

Ultimately, I think there are dangerous, even bad Americans.

There are people with guns, who sow hatred and spew racist views, who are too dumb to understand nuances, and too prejudiced to change now.

I believe an active campaign of manipulation created a cult for Donald Trump, and it may take years to end that manipulation.

And those folks, they will vote for Trump. They may even do violence in the days and weeks after the election if he loses. They’ve bought his program, they believe his lies, they think he’s the second coming, and they’ve been manipulated into that through Russian interference, which is ongoing. This was just this week!

It sounds conspiracy theory-ish, but it’s really not. It’s new warfare. Turn a country against itself and see what happens. It’s going pretty good for Putin so far, isn’t it? He’s doing it in other countries too, because it works.

The trouble is, Trump the Russian Asset got older, slower, stupider, angrier, and less disciplined. Trump was winning in June and has since had the most spectacular campaign collapse since Michael Dukakis.

The guy has never come to terms with a woman being competition, let alone a Black one. When she wins this week, it will be a seismic shift on a number of levels.

But that’s only true if everyone votes.

So, do I think there’ll be post-election violence? Sure do.

Widespread? No.

But we’ll hear about events, especially murder-suicides.

Do I think that’ll end in the next couple weeks? Nope. Gonna be pretty tense right up to the Inauguration, folks, but especially on January 5/6. I think Trump’s spectacular decompensation in the last month will lessen some of this aftermath, because in order to believe the election’s been stolen, it needs to look like he’s winning — and, increasingly, it doesn’t.

Aftermath is not something we need to freak out too much about, because you have to remember that Jack Smith and Merrick Garland have quietly been laying a legal framework to prevent a “stolen election” or lies thereof.

Presuming Kamala wins, Trump gets sentenced at the end of the month and EVERYTHING in his campaign will be admissible in determining guilt and the length/severity of his sentence.

Should he receive jail time, that could also drive retaliatory acts by his wackadoo culties. But we also haven’t seen evidence of that legal retaliation outside his trial dates yet, so fingers are crossed that remains the case.

But all the protective agencies are on alert now and they’ll remain that way until after certification. I mean, they even have fentanyl kits in place at election stations, apparently, in case of chemical attacks.

THIS time, Trump isn’t in the White House. Biden is. Biden’s been in office for over 50 years, and he’s had a VP who was an attorney general in a state with more people in it than all of Canada, and a lifelong prosecutor who knows the law inside and out.

They have a plan — a plan to protect democracy that we don’t know about, because smart people don’t give the game away in advance.

Trump does not have the fervor behind him that he once had. He’s already tipped his hand that he has a “secret” scheme with Mike Johnson, who’s up for re-election in Florida but has a HEFTY disapproval rating.

But Trump’s election-stealing sycophants are still getting sentenced for crimes over 2020’s attempts. Just last month, an election official in Colorado was sentenced to nine years for her role in trying to steal the election. You can’t tell me nine years in jail isn’t a deterrent.

It’s gonna be okay, folks, but it’ll be a tense few days. Counting the vote should be less challenging than last time, because it’s less reliant on mailed ballots. Congress may take the whole month to resolve, though.

Deep breaths!

Make sure your American friends are voting.

Keep the faith. Don’t believe any panic on election night, don’t listen to Trump proclaiming victory. Stay the course.

Thanks for reading Nomad No More! This post is public so feel free to share it.

*Not for nothing, but our recent election here in British Columbia turned out the first ever majority-female government in BC history. Women are not sitting in the backseat anymore, men. Better shape your damn game up, because we’ve come to play.

And I’m sorry it’s been a while since I posted — I injured my leg, began suffering nerve issues, and had to prioritize rehab, while still working full-time. I also got new hearing aids, which I’ll have to tell you about soon.