Why Democrats are freaking out

How to stay sane between now and Nov 5th

We’re in the final weeks of the election campaign, and a lot of people are not doing a great job of staying sane. Although there’s been virtually no movement in the polls, the last week has seen a wave of angst-soaked media coverage about how the Harris campaign is blowing it by failing to reach African-American and Hispanic voters, by spending too much on TV ads versus digital, and by getting its messaging wrong. Meanwhile, Substack and social media are full of people confidently asserting that Harris is definitely going to win, the polls are all massively skewed against her, and nobody needs to worry about anything.

Amid all of this, it’s not easy to be someone who insists on looking reality in the face and admitting that this is still a 50/50 election. But I think that the best way to keep your eye on the ball and avoid going off a cliff of either anxiety or ludicrous optimism is to understand the dynamics of these two rival camps.

First, let’s admit that the polls have tightened slightly in the last week. They’ve got a little bit better for Trump. But it’s important to remember exactly what this means. Because the margin of error on polls is usually around 3%, there is actually no difference between a poll that shows your candidate ahead by 1% or the other candidate ahead by 1%. And there’s especially very little difference between a polling average moving from Harris +0.7 to Harris +0.4. It’s basically statistical noise.

And this is not what the Democratic freak-out that we’re witnessing in traditional media is actually about. What’s it about is the fact that with the race remaining 50/50, a lot of political professionals are staring down a 50% chance of imminently having egg on their faces. And so they are pre-emptively blabbing to reporters about how, if the unthinkable happens, it will be the fault of some other guy, not them.

The Democratic Party’s big tent coalition is particularly prone to this sort of dynamic. For a start, it contains many different groups who are competing for prestige and resources within the coalition. They both want to deliver their particular slice of the electorate for Harris - be that young African-American men or suburban women - and to make the case for the the importance of that slice into the future. At the same time, the fact that the Democratic coalition is so diverse means that campaigns are always making trade-offs within it, leading to criticism from those who think the campaign made the wrong call. The Harris campaign has made abortion rights a big part of its message in order to capture the energy of suburban women, but this means alienating non-white voters who hold pro-life views. That might be the right call, or it might not. Until we know, the critics are going to make sure their voices get heard.

It’s important to understand that this sort of blabbing and kvetching is what actually leads to the sort of media pile-on we’ve seen in the last week. It’s not that Politico suddenly unearthed some shock new data showing that Harris’ performance with young Hispanic men is about to doom her chances. It’s that we’re getting close to the big day, and the people who have always thought the campaign’s strategic choices were a bad idea are getting nervous enough to complain - loudly.

And they might be right! You can definitely interpret their alarm as a sign that they, at least, think something is wrong. But it’s not really hard data about whether they’re right or not. You’ve still got to wait until election day for that. And so, if you’re of a nervous disposition, it might be best to avoid this sort of media altogether.

The other people who are struggling to keep it real are the irrational boosters. Browsing Substack and social media, I can read all about how the number of yard signs in Cliché County, PA or the historic inaccuracy of the polls mean that Harris is definitely on course to win, and anyone who disagrees is a moron. I understand the incentive to produce this sort of content. It gets you a big audience right now, because people want to be reassured. Many of the people who broadcast it are probably genuinely high on their own supply. But the rest are grifters.

You can relax into their mental universe if you want, and you might even end up happier than the rest of us if Harris actually does win. But if she doesn’t - and there is absolutely no reason to think that these boosters have any real insight into the chances of that - then you’re setting yourself up for a massive and painful shock.

So what can you actually do to feel better? I’m afraid the cold hard truth is that there’s not much you can do. Absent some enormous turnaround in the race - unlikely - there is nothing that you could conceivably read or learn between now and November 5th that will give you genuine grounds for feeling better or worse about what is going to happen in the wake of that day. The best thing to do might be just to tune out the noise until it’s all over.