D. Earl Stephens
November 4, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a moderated conversation with former Trump administration national security official Olivia Troye and former Republican voter Amanda Stratton on July 17, 2024 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Harris is the new Democratic presidential nominee, according to FEC filings. (Photo by Chris duMond/Getty Images)
It was just about two years ago to the day ...
I had finished up a last-second voter canvas before the polls closed and started revealing how the 2022 midterm elections would fall.
It was a sporty, three-layer November evening in Madison, Wisconsin, featuring a nagging north wind that whipped at the fingers and toes, and turned the ears red, as Mother Nature boldly previewed what was sure to follow in the months ahead.
Ardent Democrats had done about all they could on the frontlines of this political battleground to stave off the nasty forecast of a terrible Red Wave that was going to rip through the countryside and tilt the balance of power of the world’s most flawed and formidable nation.
The pollsters assured us the outlook was plenty bleak for the blue army. These hucksters, who graciously allow themselves margins of error while conducting their diabolical work, were also informing anybody stupid enough to listen that they had done all they could to rejigger their numbers to account for all kinds of mysterious and unsavory statistical oddities that led ‘em to get things so damn wrong, so damn often.
This time it was going to be plenty bad for Democrats, they breathlessly warned us. Besides, the party in power always got slaughtered in the midterms, don’t you know.
Good thing we didn’t listen to them, and nevertheless persisted ...
As we collected at our Team Gold West Madison headquarters, downloaded our info, and told war stories about our forays through the neighborhoods, I was glad to see the incomparable Ben Wikler had stopped by to thank us, and just generally add some positivity and heft to the place.
Wikler is the chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, and has ascended as the preeminent figure of the 50 other people who hold this position in the United States. Wikler is a mountain of a man, and a modern-day Johnny Appleseed, who patrols the Badger State top to bottom, planting the seeds of hope and change.
Shortly after the terrible blast in 2016, Wikler returned from Washington, D.C., to his home in Madison to help resuscitate our fortunes, and lead us out of the darkness that had descended on his beloved state.
Long story short, he got busy, we got busy, and all of a sudden we started winning up here again.
Before leaving the select gathering that evening — I’m not much for watch-parties and prefer taking my medicine in the privacy of my own home — I sauntered over to Ben to small talk (that’s a picture I found of the two of us at that very moment) to thank him for his leadership and get his professional take on just one pressing question:
Of all the races on the board that night, which ones did he reckon were the most important?
It took him no time at all to answer.
“I’d say the governors races here in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania,” he said.
“The Blue Wall,” I said.
“Exactly,” he said.
Well, that made all the sense in the world.
Armed with the best political take I was going to get anywhere, I thanked him again, and headed home to brave what was coming at us as the polls closed East to West across America.
Turns out that Red Wave never happened, and all those pollsters proved yet again that getting it right isn’t in their job description. Just being in the vicinity of some mysterious plus-minus alibi would be enough to keep them employed, so they could screw things up next time, and give all these newspapers enough endless copy to completely scare the shit out of us in the months leading up to the next election.
Good work if you can get it.
Those governors races Wikler tipped me to all stayed Blue, and did so with surprising ease. None of them were even close.
Tony Evers won in Wisconsin. Gretchen Whitmer won in Michigan. And Josh Shapiro won in Pennsylvania.
The Blue Wall held again, just as it did in 2020 to help propel Joe Biden to victory, and it was months away from being fortified.
When a key Wisconsin Supreme Court election went blue later that spring the final brick in the wall fell neatly into place, and all three states proudly sported Democratic governors, attorneys generals, and liberal State Supreme Courts.
The miraculous rebuilding effort was complete, and ready for whatever anti-American Republican shenanigans were coming at us in 2024.
As I type this, voting is underway in these battleground states, and I don’t need any damn polls to tell you what is happening here in the present, and what has already happened in the past.
Early voting has been off the hook in these three states and we know a majority of the voters are women.
In the meantime, the dirty old man, Donald Trump, is leaking oil all over the campaign trail as he stumbles into garbage trucks and plays his tired, perverted lounge act to the same old, broken white people who were already voting for him no matter what.
He’s subtracting, not adding. He’s diminishing, not rising.
The majority of America is sick and tired of the foul-mouthed racist, and late-breakers are backing the woman, who is closing like a damn freight train.
Kamala Harris’s miraculous 100-day sprint to the finish line is now in its final kick, and the only one gasping for air is her pathetic opponent.
She is positively burying him.
Democrats are wary of saying these things out loud, because they have seen how bad it can get when they run on reputation instead of heart. The Year 2016 hangs over us like a dark cloud.
But I’m here to tell you that when the sun sets on Tuesday, it will be another winning night for Democrats, and another loser for Republicans and the pollsters. It’s been going in that direction for seven years now, and to think it will all of a sudden stop at the biggest election of our lives, is just plain dumb and illogical.
Bouncing around some of the likely spots, I’m incredibly bullish on Georgia, where the early numbers and Democratic energy have been inspiring. Sources I trust on the ground there, believe Democrats are doing more than enough to win. Women are a whopping +12 with the early vote in the Peach State.
Look, Jimmy Carter didn’t hold on this long, just to lose ...
North Carolina is 50/50 right now, and no matter what happens there, the fact Republicans are spending their time and resources defending the place are sure signs they are fighting on their heels and not from their toes.
Of Trump’s nine limping campaign stops before the polls close, four of them are in the Tar Heel State. If Republicans lose there, it is going to be a complete wipeout.
Arizona’s been stubborn, if we are to believe those polls (cough, cough …), but since I don’t, I put it right there with North Carolina. Democrat Ruben Gallego will win that key senate race over his ghastly opponent, Kari Lake Inferior, and I believe this helps Harris win the day there.
Florida, and its senate race got closer thanks to Trump’s bombardment of Puerto Rico last weekend, and Republicans are sweating a key senate race in Texas, where one of the most despicable men in politics, Ted Cruz, is oozing his characteristic slime.
I am telling you right now, it is going to be a very, very good night for down-ballot Democrats all across the country on Tuesday. I expect Democrats to take back the House, and win some surprising races at the local level.
I also expect a state or two we are not even talking about will be far closer than anybody thinks it will. Kansas, Iowa and Ohio come to mind. Nebraska’s senate race is terrifying Republicans right now.
Mark my words: Harris is going to throw a mighty scare at Trump in a state or two she has no right being being competitive in, and you can thank her stellar candidacy and Roe for that.
My distrust of white men, is the only thing keeping me from calling this a complete wipeout for Democrats. Too many will defend the indefensible, because they are weak, and long for a past they never lived in, instead of living in the present and longing for a better world for everybody.
We won’t be able to save everybody this election, but our defense of our Democracy will prevail.
No matter what happens anywhere else, though … when the Blue Wall holds again, Kamala Harris will be our nation’s 47th president.
We built that.
Now let’s finish strong, patriots.
ALSO READ: Not even ‘Fox and Friends’ can hide Trump’s dementia
D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.
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