North Carolina—and Iowa?

I did not see this coming

N.B.—Please join me for the last “Ask Mary Anything within Reason” before the election. It’s going to be a good one!

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Thanks to Donald and the fact that we’ve been subjected to the Big Lie for almost four years, we don’t just have to worry about the election results on Tuesday. If he loses, we’re also going to have to worry about the likelihood that he and his co-conspirators will incite political violence in an attempt to carry out a coup—again.

In advance of the results, especially if Donald sees the numbers trending against him, he’ll likely go on television and declare victory just as he did in 2020. This time around, he will almost certainly have the support of almost 100% of elected Republicans. Fox, which was the first major network to call Arizona for Biden four years ago, may pull its punches in order to ramp up uncertainty—which is exactly what Donald wants.

For all of these reasons, we need to make sure we run up the margin as much as possible—in both the popular and electoral college votes.

That’s why it was good to hear the news coming out of Iowa and North Carolina.

Let’s start with Iowa where, on Saturday night, Ann Selzer, a pollster with a stellar reputation who specializes in the state, released a poll that has Kamal Harris up by 3 points.

Here is the history of Selzer’s polls since 2012. The actual election results are in parentheses:

• 2022 Senate: R+12 (R+12)

• 2020 President: R+7 (R+8)

• 2020 Senate: R+4 (R+7)

• 2018 Governor: D+2 (R+3)

• 2016 President: R+7 (R+9)

• 2014 Senate: R+7 (R+8)

• 2012 President: D+5 (D+6)

The result shocked the political world. It also reminded us that the Supreme Court’s Dobb’s decision continues to have serious electoral consequences for the party that is determined to turn women into second-class citizens.

Iowa has one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country. Beyond that, the state has been losing OB-GYNs since before Roe v Wade was overturned. And, in the wake of the decision, it’s been losing medical providers of all specialties.

Who knows if Iowa’s final result will fall in line with Selzer’s poll. It is, however, at least potentially, a sign that Harris’ electoral power has been underestimated. There’s also a possibility that the poll bodes well for Harris’ strength in other midwestern swing states like Michigan and Wisconsin.

In response to Selzer’s poll, Nate Silver, another pollster, that it was “incredibly gutsy to release this poll.” Cohn recently admitted that “it is much safer, whether in terms of literal self-interest or purely psychologically, to find a close race than to gamble on a clear Harris victory.”

“When their results come in very blue, they don’t believe it,” Cohn wrote. “And frankly, I share that feeling: If our final Pennsylvania poll comes in at Harris +7, why would I believe it? As a result, pollsters are more willing to take steps to produce more Republican-leaning results.”

These comments are staggering: Cohn and Silver see a close race because they want to see a close race.

This morning, The New York Times ceded the most valuable real estate on its front page to Nate Cohn, and ran his piece with this headline:

“Some Surprises in Last Battleground Polls, but Still a Deadlock”

And so it goes.

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Which brings us to North Carolina.

Based on information from a recent Democratic briefing call, Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo reports that, “the Democrats in a solid position across the Blue Wall states while the southern tier states are all in real contention, with North Carolina the best shot followed by Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, in that order.”

Democrats have only won North Carolina once since 1980, but two days out from the election, it’s officially a toss-up. Winning here would send an powerful message relatively early on Tuesday night.

In the closing days of an election, the best ways to portray weakness and insecurity are 1) to attack bad polls (and the pollsters); and 2) to inundate a swing state with the campaign’s most valuable resource—a candidate’s time.

By Sunday morning, Donald was referring to Selzer as one of his “enemies.” And his campaign is sending him to North Carolina today and tomorrow—even though he won the state in both 2016 and 2020. These are not power moves.

“The repeat appearances may signal Trump’s campaign is in trouble,” Democratic state Rep. Marcia Morey of Durham told the Associated Press. “If Trump continues with his dangerous, violent rhetoric these last few days, it may backfire. A campaign of personal retribution does not win votes from people.”

None of this is to say we can let up for even one minute. According to the AP, “roughly half of North Carolina’s 7.8 million registered voters had already voted as of Friday, buoyed by early in-person voting” which ended Saturday afternoon. But Republicans have been encouraged by the turnout they’re seeing, so we still have work to do.

But it feels good to be motivate by optimism rather than fear.  Let’s take that energy and knock on more doors and get more people to the polls. We have two days to leave it all on the table in trying to win North Carolina and every other battleground state we can.

But let’s win by such margins that we finally repudiate the message Donald and his party have been peddling for eight years—and stop their coup in its tracks.