I am a political wonk and an unabashed patriot. When everyone I know has had it with campaigns and politics, I am still digging in. I can’t help myself. National election day is Christmas and Opening Day and perfect tacos all rolled into one.

In 2016, I wasn’t following Trump; I was getting way into the weeds of the Clinton campaign and saw it for the hubristic disaster it was. I knew she was going to lose. This time? In the middle of last week, I relaxed. I saw that what the Harris/Walz team was doing was working. And on Saturday, with the drop of the Selzer Iowa poll I was done. Harris has this.

I think the endless polling is missing 3 critical things. Women are fucking pissed off about Dobbs and body autonomy. Harris is genuine on this issue and has given a home to the rage that so many women feel. (Yes, and many of us men.) She gave them something they can do, and by god, they are doing it at the polls. Trump doubling down and taking credit for Dobbs was bear putting its face in the trap. National polling is using 2020 models as a base. Nonsense. Those models grossly underestimate the women’s vote. The gender gap is stunning. Trump’s ‘bro’ strategy is a loser. Bros Boast. Women Vote. Simple as that.

If you are not looking at the right sources, it hard to see the killer instinct of the Harris ground game in swing states. I look at Threads to see the stories from actual canvassers across the nation. In 2008, because I the policy guy on the Nick Fish campaign, I was mostly at my laptop all day at our way too big campaign headquarters. We got a call that the Obama field warriors were parachuting in and they needed a place to crash as they were ahead of the getting homes lined up. All that day, they kept arriving from states that had already voted. Mostly young people, but few elders, I helped lay out sleeping bags and showed them where they could get a cheap burrito. They were exhausted, unkempt, unshaven but full of conviction that they were on the right mission. When the room settled, they mostly fell asleep. Back at my laptop, I fought back tears seeing our democracy kept alive by those kids crumpled up in sleeping bags around me. The numbers of calls and door knocks for Harris is beyond even Obama 2008. People come from all over the country, burn their vacations to door knock. Hell, I saw a crew that came from London to Pennsylvania because they felt they were needed. If there is a vote to be had, the Harris foot weary team will find it.

My third solace? Republicans. What? I am an independent who for years has lived in the land of the never Trumpers. What they say most clearly is that the Republican party is dead and not coming back. MAGA is the party now. But this is an enormous opportunity for Harris/Walz. About 15% of old school Republicans will not vote for Trump. Once, not twice. They were Haley protest voters in Republican primaries. By the lights at the Bulwark and other anti-Trump Republicans, Harris has played their outreach almost perfectly. Canvasers who have gotten the wink and the nod at doors and neighbors who report that Trump signs and flags have suddenly disappeared from their neighbor’s yards corroborate the Harris commercials about secret Trump voters. I think that when the story is written about this campaign we will all owe a debt to Republicans who voted their values and not their cult.

What were you doing at 4 PM on Saturday? I was refreshing my phone waiting for the Ann Selzer’s poll to drop from Iowa. So were all the other political wonks. I had to read the topline numbers several times. She has Harris up 3 in Iowa. Trump won Iowa by 9 in previous races. Selzer called that too. Her method that is the gold standard as she does not use the past to study the future. She looks at what is. Her poll in 2016 was the death knell of the Clinton campaign. Believe Selzer. What was driving her numbers? Women, especially white women over 65. Every male advantage in the poll was blown away by angry conservative women. Sometimes 2 to 1. All older women know the world before Roe, and guess what, they are telling those stories to their daughters and granddaughters.

Anger is the white hot emotion. It has fueled Trump and MAGA, and don’t get me wrong, with isolated information bubbles, it still works. But Trump is fading. His closing argument is all anger. It is an emotion that burns itself out. His rallies are a death march of half full arenas and bored cult members. The show is played, and he knows it. Stories inside his campaign smell of panic as they turn on each other. Fire up the schadenfreude.

So, there it is. So I have been sleeping easy. Oh, there will be endless fuckery by MAGA to reject the results. But Congress changed the electoral college act to block the paths of 2020. And, the Harris campaign is insanely lawyered up with go teams in every critical state. Trump has no new tricks and even the early attempts to mess with our elections have already been rejected by courts. Keep Calm and Carry on.

This is my very educated guess. I also think Democrats will take the House and lose the Senate. And… if I am correct, trends will tell us by midnight tomorrow if I am right. If Trump is underperforming in red states, watch out kids….

Vote. Take care of your friends and family and most importantly… Know hope.

JHB