I specifically waited to write this post until the election was over. As we now know, and many predicted (including this writer), this one may not be over this week! For the sanity of the voting public, we need a better system.
As it is, there is at least one uncontested result of this election: the pollsters (with some exceptions) got it wrong again. After all the assurances that their mistakes of 2016 had been identified and corrected, we find that that was not the case. It seems obvious that, in both campaigns, they “missed” millions of voters – mostly on the Trump side.
There have been allegations of purposeful manipulations of survey data to make the Biden campaign look stronger than it was. But, whether intentional or not, the errors are too blatant to merit any confidence in their “data”. Here is an industry which must reform itself or it will not survive.
What else has Election Day taught us? In some ways, the campaign was a story of the “The tortoise and the hare”, although the hare may have actually won this race. Certainly, this race was like nothing else in my lifetime. That applies to both candidates: Biden campaigned less than any candidate in my memory; while Trump’s choice of a campaign activity – the political rally – almost exclusively was unlike any I can remember. Then the way he used it toward the end of the campaign was quite astonishing.
Another distinguishing characteristic was the major premise of the Dems’ strategy to run their entire appeal as a protest against the President. More than anything else, theirs was a “Dump Trump” message. It allowed them to transcend a confusing message on so many other policy issues, often because different spokespersons were presenting different answers. In the end, none of this seems to have mattered.
It seems there’s not a lot more to say about the election at this stage. We don’t know a lot more about the people’s choices on a score of simmering issues. Nor do we know what kind of a future awaits us. This is one day I’m glad I am not required to buy and sell stocks for the future!