The virus?
We should have reopened 110% back during the summer when we still had the chance. Now we’re in the state’s first wave; the nation’s second. The longer we leave that Band-Aid on, the more it’ll stick and the more it’ll hurt to remove. Eventually we’ll have to let the chips fall where they may. Everyone knows it.
The economy?
We’re seeing the ultra-rich soak every last penny out of the market that they can right now. When the election’s over, the economy will be shown for the husk that it is, with a coastal commercial and real estate collapse that’ll bring down everything else, ushering in years of misery and stagflation.
And then of course we have the have’s and the have-nots. The two biggest stories in Missoula focused on those crowds yesterday.
The first was the Washington Post story that talked about all the transplants moving here and driving up housing prices and how locals resent this. The story was so popular that the Missoulian copied large portions of it to try and prop up their own dying rag.
The other was the complete sucker-punch of a story that came from the Missoulian, telling us that a new, 150-person homeless shelter would be opened up in the middle of town, near the mall and two elementary schools. This is an area of town that has had problems for years with needles showing up in parks. The new shelter will be located right next to the new, $1.25 million Rail Link Park. I suspect the park will become unusable for most area residents.
Trump?
Heading for a landslide victory, and we’ll likely know this on election night because Florida is counting early ballots early, so will have most results that night. He wins Florida, he wins it all.
And if he doesn’t win Florida, he loses it all. I really do think it’s that simple, and I suspect we’ll know the winner by 5:01 PM here in Montana on election night (Florida polls close at 7 PM their time).
Here’s how CNN put it in July:
“Still, Florida is probably the bellwether state that most meets the definition of "must win" for Trump if he wants to be elected to a second term, and he is losing there.
No Republican has won the presidency without Florida since Calvin Coolidge in 1924.”
Coolidge lost Flordia by nearly 29% that year.
And that’s the last thing the Trump campaign wants to see in two weeks.
The campaign has known that Florida is critically important for some time. Back in May, it was reported that they had already laid the groundwork for a wide support network:
“This month alone, he reversed course and agreed to fully fund a $200 million budget request for Everglades restoration projects and announced a 90 percent federal cost-share for disaster recovery efforts in the hurricane-ravaged Panhandle. He’s made further inroads in South Florida’s diverse Hispanic community by increasing financial pressures against leftist regimes in Venezuela and Cuba. And according to the L.A. Times, Trump now plans to roll out his 2020 campaign with an event located along the Interstate-4 corridor, which cuts across battleground Central Florida”
But maybe it wasn’t enough.
That phone call with Trump staffers earlier this week? Had to happen because so many are doubtful the president can win.
Here’s how the campaign was framing Florida last month:
“Trump’s advisers in the final weeks of the campaign, mapped out more dire possibilities showing ways their candidate could lose key states like Florida and still win reelection by conquering a series of Upper Midwest states.
One scenario has Trump losing Florida and Arizona but still receiving 270 electoral votes, the minimum needed to win. The other shows Trump losing North Carolina and Florida and receiving 272 electoral votes.
…
Without Florida’s 29 electoral college votes, Trump would be completely reliant on a trio of Upper-Midwest battleground states he narrowly won in 2016 — Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — and would need the electoral votes of at least one additional battleground state he previously lost, such as New Hampshire or Minnesota, in order to win a second term.”
I don’t know who’s going to win Florida, but I have a feeling it’ll be Trump.
I don’t trust the polls at all. I do trust my eyes, and my eyes tell me that tens of thousands want to see Trump speak, while just dozens or maybe a few hundred want to see Biden.
Biden had 60-75 at his Florida rally last week; Trump had 4,000+.
It ain’t rocket science. Open your eyes - the truth is staring you in the face.
Alas, so many in the country don’t want to face the reality that their eyes are showing them.
I think we’ll know fairly quickly on election night who won and who lost, just because so many states are starting the count between October 1 (MD) and October 30 (DE):
- Maryland
- Florida
- Colorado
- Nevada
- Arizona
- North Carolina
- Hawaii
- New Jersey
- Oregon
- Delaware
These states begin counting the vote the day before election day, November 2:
- Montana
- Vermont
- Nebraska
These states will begin counting as early as 7 AM on election day or as late as 9 AM:
- Alabama
- Georgia
- Pennsylvania
- Wisconsin
- Texas
- Arkansas
- South Carolina
Indiana starts counting at noon on election day, while many other states won’t start until their polls close around 7 PM. The following states can start counting pretty much whenever they want before election day:
- Ohio
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Oklahoma
Ohio there’s a big one, and there secretary of state is a Republican. I suspect he’ll want to start counting early and get the count done as soon as possible.
The state will be counting late ballots that have a postmark, so they’ll get results in for days afterwards.
But I think Ohio will be like most of the rest of the country - 90% or more of the ballots will have been received by election day.
The media desperately wants you to believe that we won’t know the results for weeks or even a month or more after the election day (results must be certified by December 15).
I think that’s a load of hooey.
18 states start counting before election day and another 7 start that morning and one at noon. 26 states - over half.
Yeah...chances are good that we’ll know who the next president is before most Montanans even get off of work on election day.
