I still check on Infidel753's blog every Sunday - he does a weekly wrap-up of other online tidbits to read that are solid and cool - and I picked up on his article "Why I Anticipate a Blue Wave" from a few days ago. Inf makes some reasonable observations about what he calls "The Dobbs Effect":
My main reason for expecting a very substantial Democratic win is straightforward. Since the Dobbs decision, I have believed that this election will be dominated by the abortion-rights issue, and nothing that has happened since then has given me any reason to change that assessment. The need to restore and protect abortion rights will lead some Republicans (mostly women) to vote for Democrats, and will motivate many people to vote who would not otherwise have bothered. These effects will swamp and overwhelm all other factors and will determine the outcome.
My supporting evidence for this claim is the results of all the abortion referenda, and almost all the elections, held since the Dobbs decision. Every time abortion rights have been put to a public vote, they have won overwhelmingly, even in very red states. Moreover, turnout in these referenda has been high, suggesting both that many Republicans are voting for abortion rights, and that many new voters are being motivated to participate. As for the elections, in case after case since Dobbs, Democratic candidates have done ten or fifteen points better than the historic norm for the state or district involved. Sometimes that shift has been big enough to allow the Democrat to win in a "red" district, sometimes not, but the point is that the shift is almost always there. This recent election in Alaska continued the pattern. Voters are well aware that Democrats in office will uphold abortion rights, while Republicans will attack them.
Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. This axiom applies to voting as much as to anything else. I can't think of any reason why the abortion-rights factor would not dominate the federal election just as much as it has dominated other elections since Dobbs (if anything, it's increasing in importance). Moreover, most of those surprising election and referendum results since Dobbs were not anticipated by polling, which predicted much closer, more "normal" outcomes. This shows that the Dobbs effect is not being captured by polling. That may be because many Republicans are telling pollsters they expect to vote Republican again and only changing their minds at the last moment, in the voting booth; it could also be that the pollsters' turnout models are not capturing the effect of so many new voters participating. It's likely that the current polling we're seeing for the federal election is similarly missing the Dobbs effect, for the same reasons...
Infidel shared in his Sunday round-up link to a USA Today report that is tracking the Early Voting turnout - which has seen an increase in turnout compared to 2020 - showing that where overall turnout is balanced between Democratic and Republican voters, the percentage voting for Harris is at 63 percent(!). All things being equal, we can conclude that a significant percent - at least double-digits - of Republicans have crossed the aisle to support the Dems. Whether this translates to down-ballot seats isn't known, but if the Dobbs ruling is truly pushing moderate pro-choice Republicans to change sides those results should favor the whole Democratic ticket.
Again, this is not just speculation or wishful thinking. It requires only that the voters behave as they have done in every election since the Dobbs ruling, and that the polls fail to predict this effect just as they failed to predict it in all those earlier cases. Imagine if this November every state and district votes ten percent more Democratic than it historically has, or even just five percent. A swing of five percent would mean a landslide; ten percent would be an annihilating tsunami. I'm not saying something like that definitely will happen, but it would be consistent with the pattern of the last two years...
The polling, as Infidel noted, doesn't seem to pick up on the shifts happening with women voters - they seem to stick to the same 2020 models that White Women voters will stay with a Republican Party that devastated their health care rights two years afterward and are threatening even more harm to come - and as always the caveat is that voter turnout still matters. That 63 percent vote for Harris in early voting (with 34 to trump) is tempered by that same article noting the voters waiting for Election Day itself support trump at 52 percent over Harris' 35 percent with the same group... but that's nowhere near the numbers Harris is getting and promises to get by November 5th. Put those two sets together and the average you get - 63+35 for Harris, 34+52 to trump - splits to a 49 percent Harris vs. 43 percent trump result (the 7 percent different is going to third parties as usual).
Of course, results will vary from state to state - not every Red state will shift 10 percent to favor Democrats, some may not even shift 5 percent - but if enough states DO shift in favor for Harris and the Democratic Party, we should see an increase in states (and Electoral Votes) more than Biden's results in 2020.
Those hopes I have of securing battleground states like Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin grow stronger. The odds of keeping Georgia Blue as well grow greater. The possibility of flipping Texas, Ohio, Florida, even Kansas and Nebraska (maybe even Missouri) - any other states where the abortion rights referendum have happened or are happening now - are within reach of Democratic - and pro-choice - voters angered by the Culture War bullshit of the Far Right in their own communities.
Again. Voter turnout matters. Every vote in favor of Harris - and Democratic Senators, and Democratic Congresscritters, and State Legislators - needs to get into the ballot boxes now while Early Voting is still happening or on Election Day itself on Tuesday November 5th. Every blue vote matters, everybody. Stopping trump and stopping the Republican War on Women (and minorities, and immigrants, and schools, and Social Security, and...) is the mission.
Let's fucking GOOOOOO, America. Vote for Harris and every Democratic candidate you've got on the ballot. Vote like your life and your liberty and your families and friends are on the line. Because it all is on the line this 2024.
Update: thinking again about how close certain states were in 2020, if we consider a five percent shift minimum in favor of Harris for the Electoral count, the website 270towin has a map where states within five percent popular vote were left blank:
Now consider ALL of those blank states flipped Blue for Harris. Some already went for Biden - Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, and especially Georgia - but now add in North Carolina and Florida(!). Even without the huge gain of flipping Texas - or my personal desire to see Kansas and Nebraska flip because THAT would break the "Heartland of America is Conservative" narrative in the Beltway media - that's still a massive 349 EV count and a good chance the popular vote for Harris goes over 90 million(!).
The only thing to worry at this point is if DeSantis goes full MAGA and declares secession in order to stop the Electoral certification. If Texas flips Democrat, I'll guarantee you the state GOP led by that jerkass Abbott will.
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