As of today the national average price of gasoline continues to drop, reported today at $3.764, down about 8 cents per gallon the past week.
The polls are all over the place so that Republican outliers (nicer word than crazies) like Kari Lake and Blake Masters are tied or in the lead in Arizona for governor and senate; the Senate races in Florida and North Carolina are slipping away from Democrats, but Democrat Mandela Barnes is back to a tie in Wisconsin with Sen. Ron Johnson, and in Michigan Gov. Whitmer clings to a lead against Republian outlier (that word again) Tudor Dixon.
And no one knows what it going on in Pennsylvania (where there is lots of early voting but, if you recall 2020, they don’t start opening mail ballots until Election Day, delaying that final result by several days). The governor’s race looks solid for the Democrat, Josh Shapiro in his contest with the outlier of all outliers, Doug Mastriano, but Fetterman/Oz or Oz/Fetterman is a total jumble in a contest that is a shambles.
Even today, two weeks out, two polls count the national congressional preference at +4 and +5 for Democrats whereas a day ago two other polls found the exact reverse.
So as to the polls? Believe the ones you want and you’ll feel better and, when all is said and done, there’ll be lots to read about what went wrong and right for them.
Early voting though is moving along at a brisk pace as more and more of the 35 states that use it come on line, with early voting time periods ranging from 4 days to 45 days before Election Day.
In Georgia, as of this morning, record early voting is over 1 million ballots cast by mail or at an early polling station, well ahead of 2018.
Nationwide more than 12 million had voted as of Oct. 25, two weeks before Election Day, with all reports projecting turnout equal to or higher than the 2018 midterms when the percentage of eligible voters who voted was 49.5% and the highest since the 1914 midterms when only men could vote.
So much as it can be or is reported, more Democrats are voting early but the spead against early Republican vote shares in 2018 and 2020 is trending lower.
What does it all mean? Anyone who tells you they know is making it up.
Did it all move back in favor of Republicans? Yes, definitely. Is it still? Seems that drift has slowed.
Is there a sleeper in all the Senate races? Yes. Where? Iowa. But there has not been a new poll reported there for 10 days so it is a sleeper on which we have one eye open and one shut.
The truth is no one knows though the pundits will all tell you it is this or that, with a Republican tilt and everyone in agreement the House is going to be Republian.
But they, those pesky pundits, are at least four days behind on gas prices, favor their own polls if they have them (CNN for example just reported a spate of better polling news for Democrats and so that is what it is talking about) and there is only beginning to be mention of early voting.
So? So as always we’ll see what we’ll see when the vote is counted and watch with increasing trepidation until we know.
Peeling the Onion 