In the polls.
I think I’ve mentioned previously that I don’t pick up on individual polls, either to get overexcited or deeply gloomy. And I don’t waste my time on Real Clear Politics. Their poll averages are just dumb. If you average in a rotten pollster with a good one, all you get is a tainted average.
Besides, RCP’s aggregatory shtick — re-publishing one rational news piece by credible journalists followed by a fake news piece or opinion from political propagandists posing as journalists — irritates me beyond measure. What do they think this is, the Fair and Balanced Dance? There are no “fair and balanced” facts; there are just facts. Anything else is a distortion, a lie or a warped opinion.
So I rely on 538.com for my polling peeks into reality. And right now what it’s giving me along with reality is sanity: watching polling graph lines, as they move across the months and days since March 2020.
There is a simple chart, a rectangular box really. The first chart immediately on the web site home shows how each candidate is doing nationally. There are two lines running left to right across the chart. One line, in blue, represents Biden. Another line, in red, represents Trump. The lines go up a bit or down a bit; today’s margin is at the right.
What I’ve been watching is the movement of the far end of the line — the current day’s line indication. I’ve watched Biden’s blue line rise a bit, go down a bit and rise a bit again.
As of right now, 538 has Biden’s margin at plus 8.9 over Trump. That’s nice to see, especially when you plunk your cursor onto the end and move it slightly left, so you see how that margin has changed over the past few days.
On October 3, Biden’s plus margin was 7.4. It’s jumped 1.5 in a couple of days.
But the best sanity pill to swallow is doing the states individually. I’ve been looking less at the number and much more at the lines. And what is happening is that blue line squiggles sharply up, while Trump’s red line flops sharply down.
There’s your sanity.
Finally, finally our fellow Americans have seen what’s going on in the White House, listened to Trump during the debate and now, in his heavily made-up TV takes, watched him gasping for air. And finally, finally, when the pollsters call, they say they’re hiking up the blue line.
It’s so much fun, watching that line rise so sharply. So much fun, so sane.