Senate Thoughts, And Letting Tomorrow Come Tomorrow

On Living In The Moment

“Can Mercedes come back and try and get a front row? Oh it’s better than that, George Russell takes provisional pole for the first time in his career in Formula 1!”

For those who don’t watch F1, George Russell – that fucking lad – got pole position, and will start tomorrow’s race from first place. Do I intellectually understand that, with two Ferraris behind him in a faster car, that he’s likely a sitting duck, and that he’s probably bound to finish outside the winner’s circle? Of course, but that doesn’t diminish the immense joy of this moment.

The rush of seeing George rounding the corner, seeing him a few tenths up on what Lando Norris had just had as they rounded the same corner, trying to piece together whether he could have gotten above one or both of the Ferraris was intense, and for a legit two minutes I just had my mouth agape as I struggled to comprehend what the everloving fuck had just happened. But hell, man, what a moment.

Whatever happens tomorrow, today was a rush – whether he wins, DNFs, or anything in between, today was a moment I will cherish. I know all the arguments about tomorrow, and I just frankly don’t give a fuck – because right now is good enough, and we’ll deal with tomorrow, tomorrow.

…

In the month since the Supreme Court overturned Roe, Democrats have had a very good month of polls.

That is an entirely factual statement, of which this week was (yet again) more proof. Whether it’s state polls or a tightening of the national generic ballot, Democrats look to be in good shape. Right now, they would pretty easily win 51 Senate seats, and the GOP are struggling with divisive primaries in Wisconsin and Arizona that will give Democrats chances to win two races they shouldn’t have much of a realistic chance to win.

Absolutely none of this tells us fuck all about the state of the race in November, but it is the case that the political fortunes of the GOP have taken a serious and substantial hit since they caught the car and actually repealed Roe. Throw in them voting down a bill to give health care to veterans and the risk of them voting down the gay marriage bill if Schumer puts it up now, and you have a situation where Republicans are having a very bad run.

I know all the arguments for why a Republican wave is coming this fall, and they might all be true. If they are, I’ll project a GOP House and Senate, as I did for most of this year until the Dobbs ruling came through. My argument is very explicitly not that “this means Democrats will win in the fall”, but it’s that if you had told Democrats the day Roe fell that 538’s polling average right now would have them up 8% in Pennsylvania, 2% in Ohio, 3% in Georgia, and down by 0.9% in North Carolina, and that their Generic Ballot tracker would be essentially a tie, every Democrat in the country would have taken it. And yet, there’s a caution.

In some ways, that caution is smart, but there’s caution for the sake of caution and there’s not wanting to say very obvious things for the sake of not getting ratioed on Twitter, but at some point, the weird refusal of Democrats to admit that they’ve had a very good month is bordering on delusional. There’s nothing to say it won’t reverse, but a month ago we were looking at a political environment that would be much, much worse for us, and yet, there’s no sense of optimism or forward momentum.

I’ll be honest – I could have written this exact same column last week, but the thing is, I didn’t for a reason – I don’t want to get yelled at by Republicans who will spend too much time posting screenshots of tweets I didn’t delete. I get that a 413er pointing out what good run of polls Democrats have had should be about as soothing to the soul as getting pissed on by your dog, but it’s true at this point.

I was asked by a friend last night how I can still believe in Democratic upside – or, even just Democrats meeting their polling – after having been a 413er and having gotten burned, and it’s a fascinating question. The answer really is just that I’ve seen this dead certainty about outcomes based on what happened in the past blow up in people’s faces before, and I’m not cocky enough to think it won’t happen again.

In Canada, Stephen Harper beat his polls in 2011 on route to winning the long sought Majority Government of his dreams, the first (and only) Conservative majority since the 1988 election. Four years later, the polls were wrong again – but this time, wrong in that they understated the Liberal vote. Most seat projections had the Liberals well short of a majority and the Tories in the mid 110-130s of seats, and the Liberals hit 184 and the Tories didn’t break 100.

In the UK months before Justin Trudeau was understated in the polls, David Cameron beat his polls in a stunning rebuke of Labour and of the pollsters on route to a majority government, and then 2 years later, all the whinging about Theresa May’s campaign was written off on the basis of two things – that the polls had missed in 2015, and that in every year where a General Election was on a different day than the locals, the government of the day always did better, and the opposition worse, on General Election day than Local Election day. Theresa May, of course, not only didn’t win 400 seats, she actually lost seats for the Tories.

In Australia, the 2018 Victorian election had seen a polling blowout for the Labor Party, and them winning a landslide much beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. That was used to argue that the polls in the federal election would be low on Labor compared to the final result, which ended up being a sack of shit, as the Coalition defied the odds and came back to win government with a swing to it when every poll showed one the other way. (Oh, and for the whole term the “#actually the polls are biased so Morrison can still win” people were alive and well on Twitter, and they were stupendously wrong this year.)

The only other case of a party consistently beating their polls I can think of would be Macron in France, but even then, that’s just in the Presidential second round against Le Pen – his party well and truly underperformed in the legislative elections this year, as the right gained far more than expected.

Yes, it is possible that the polls are as wrong now as always. Yes, it’s possible that the polls will move back rapidly to the GOP. It’s very well possible the GOP not only win the Senate but win it comfortably. But when the GOP are giving quotes about having paths to win the Senate without Pennsylvania, and when Democrats are having this run of form, it’s safe to say that right now, Democrats are on the march.

Will it matter in the fall? Fuck if I know, but just as I’m doing with George Russell’s stonking lap in quali today, I don’t care. We’ll deal with tomorrow, tomorrow. Today? Well, it’s about as good as I could have ever hoped for, and I’m going to celebrate accordingly.