Day 1.

We made it America, again.

And for the 6th straight national contest, America enters Election Day in the race for the White House immediately after a loss by the Jacksonville Jaguars.

For the record, in Presidential elections immediately after a Jaguars loss, the Democrats have won 3, and the Republicans have won 2, telling us only that the Jaguars are a miserable franchise to be a fan of.

Like being a Jaguars fan, I am not sure why I keep writing these things, other than it is clear now that I have passed the latest significant age marker in life, misery is something I enjoy.  

This piece is going to cover a decent amount of ground.   I am going to talk a bit about Florida, and where things are.  I am also going to hit a bit on the race outside of Florida.  And lastly, I am going to ask something of each of you -- a thing I am also going to be asking of myself.

So let's get going.

FLORIDA.

This is the fifth Presidential election cycle that I have been a part of.  Two with President Obama (08/12) -- one when then Vice President Biden considered running for President (16)  -- one with then VIce President Biden, and then standing up his primary SuperPAC (20), and this one with the same SuperPAC supporting first him, and now Vice President Harris (24).  By the way, this is a career path that is not recommended by medical professionals, or golf teachers.  

Truly, no human should work that many of these things.

But it is the first of my now 8th Presidential elections as a hack that my state hasn't been front and center.

And honestly, I hate it - not because of the partisan shifts in my state -- no, I hate it because I am a competitive hack, and this is my state, and it is weird to not be on the field on my home turf. 

So with that, where do things stand?

In total, about 8.1 million Floridians  have voted.  This breaks down as:

Vote by Mail:  2,834,299

Early In Person:  5,353,093

Republicans have a total vote advantage of:   845,099

And in total, the electorate as of Monday morning looks like:

Republican:  3,538,877 (43.2%)

Democratic: 2,693,778 (32.9%)

NPA/Minor: 1,954,737 (23.9%)

By the way, it s was always going to look like this.  Republicans have a 1.1 voter advantage in registration. If my side had focused on registering voters for the last decade it might not look like this - but alas, here is where we are.  If you are curious about this, feel free to read this blog post I wrote in 2015 (if you think you are picking up a tone in my voice, yolu are).

Who is left to vote?  Republicans have about 170,000 more voters who have voted in 3 of the last 3 elections left to vote than Democrats - Democrats have about 190,000 more voters who have either no voting history or have voted in 1 or 2 of the last 3 generals.  In other words, regardless of whether tomorrow is "Republican" or just kind of a wash (as so many more republicans have moved from EDay to Early voters this cycle), Republicans will enter, and will finish Election Day with a sizable lead.  

The electorate is about 55% female, and in terms of ethnic make-up, is less diverse than the voter respiration numbers.  Right now, the electorate is about 11.2% African American (12.8% of registration), 16.5% Hispanic (18.5% of registration), and about 65% white (61% of registration).  As is typical in Florida, the African American and Hispanic vote has picked up as we get closer to Election Day. I wouldn't be surprised to see both of these groups pick up more on Election Day. 

If you are a Democrat, there are some bright spots - turnout overall is pretty decent, especially considering this is a cycle without the kind of ground operation seen in recent Presidentials.  Dems in Orlando, Tampa, and West Palm are running ahead of Democrats statewide in terms of turnout, and for down ballot races.

But in general, if you are looking for signs of a shocking outcome on Tuesday, these are not the hallmarks of such an outcome.

To give sense of what kinds of math would be needed to see a Dem lead at this moment:

Dems would need to be winning Dems about 95-5, losing Republicans about 88-12, and winning NPA voters by 57-43 to have a lead in actual votes going into tomorrow.  It is just a math question. 

Is this doable?

Well, lets say this, my professional golf friend Mark Baldwin once hit driver -> 2-iron to 3 feet and made eagle on a 657 yard par 5...in competition.  Odds of me doing that?

Now, I do think the electorate will grow tomorrow - maybe by as much as 3.5-4 million voters, and as such, while the GOP raw vote will grow, the GOP lead in share of the vote will decrease some - so the actual margins of GOP and NPA voters needed to win if you are Harris will come down.  But, optimistically, it will still need to be in the range of winning 5-6 points more Republicans than Trump wins among Democrats -- and winning NPA's by a dozen or more. 

But as I said in an earlier piece, as a Democrat, I've always had a realistic approach to this cycle and seen it more about organizing.  The Harris path to the WH was never going to run through Florida.  I do think it is likely the Dems will have some down ballot successes, which is a building block for the future.  And as I said in another earlier piece, win or lose, my side has to look to broaden its coalition, as our map shrinks a bit going into the next census.   If we can succeed at broadening the coalition (and I do think Harris took some important steps), states like Florida will look more competitive in the future.

And honestly, both sides should want Florida on the map.  It is just good for the state -- and good for issues important to the state. 

One of the interesting things to watch in this election will be NPA voters.  If we go back over the last fifteen years, there has been a distinct trend, particularly among younger voters, to register without a party affiliation (much as their is a cultural trend away from traditional means of association among younger people).  For example, the largest political party in Florida with voters under 50 is NPA.  The reality - the entire Republican edge in Florida is built on voters over 50  -- which is both daunting as a Democrat, since older voters vote -- and an opportunity.

To flag the daunting side:  today, 44% of all registered voters in Florida are under 50, but as of people who have already voted, only 34% of the votes come from voters under 50.   To drive this home further, Republicans have about a 70K voter advantage among voters under 50 -- and a nearly 750,000 vote advantage among voters over 50.

But I do think there are real opportunities for Democrats.  For example, when it is all said and done, the share of NPA votes that will come from voters under 50 will approach 50%.  This is also where my frustration about the decisions to move from partisan voter registration efforts, as we saw during the Obama and Clinton campaigns - to non-partisan voter registration efforts run through C4 groups really is seen.  I have written volumes on this if anyone cares. 

Before I move on, one last note of personal privilege.  Want to say thanks to my friend Mitch Emerson for all he does.  Mitch was an organizer on our campaign in 2008, and by the time he had gotten to Florida, had helped in many states.  After the election, he stayed involved, and Mitch was a big reason (in reasons both known to many -- and known only to a few...) the votes needed to pass the Affordable Care Act came out of Florida (for which he got to go to the White House and meet President Obama). He's moved to Orlando to raise his kids, become an important part of that community, and this year, came out of Presidential campaign retirement to run the organizing effort for Harris in Florida, and with no where near the resources he had in the olden days, really built some remarkable volunteer numbers.  

Organizers in both parties are the lifeblood of campaigns.  Guys like me who talk to reporters, or analyze things, have the easy jobs.  The hard jobs out there are those kids in run down old offices, with refrigerators full of 2 week old food, functioning on some bad mix of caffeine, tobacco, and alcohol, working 16 hours a day while having volunteers yelling because they are out of yard signs.  These elections - meaning the very exercise of democracy - runs on their backs.  They are the special teams specialists on football teams that rarely are known, but who make the plays to win games.   To this day, I still get emotional when I think about the kids who had my back in Florida in 08 - kids who are now 40 living ordinary American lives, but in that moment, did something extraordinary.   If this is the last one of these I write, I wanted to take a second to thank Mitch -- and to thank the thousands of people like Mitch around the country who are doing the work.  

So all you glorious FOs out there, you all will always have my respect. 

Enough on that.

Tuesday and Beyond. 

I do think Harris will win.  it does feel, both in "vibes" and in data, the race is breaking her way.  The enthusiasm among women is real, and while yes, GOP has a real edge among men - as long as women continue to turn out in the numbers they currently are, the gender gap could well be the defining chapter of this race.

She's also closing as you would want - and I do believe has a vastly superior turnout operation in most of the states where it matters - and I don't think any even halfway biased hack can argue that Trump, at least in his in-person pleas, is closing as they would want.  In July or August, I would have definitely said I would rather be Trump - today, I would rather be Harris.  

But this remains an electorate that has seen 2 consecutive - and now maybe 3 - decided by 100,000 voters in 3 states.  

As Nate Cohn at the New York Times has shown in a few pieces he's written, if the polls are off a little way -- either off as they were in 2020, or off as they were in 2022, this thing could be an electoral college landslide - either way.  And there is a chance the polling is off both ways - both missing Trump voters and missing women who are showing up for Harris.  Honestly, I have seen evidence of both in polling projects I have been a part of.   Increasingly, there are real questions about just how much you can trust the battleground numbers in public polling - particularly with the increasing numbers of low-cost, internet-only polls that have flooded the public marketplace  (and we all know how much I love public polls).

While admittedly I probably wasn't the best student of history, I do have a degree in it, and the unique thing about Trump is he has hardened the American electorate in ways I am not sure we have ever seen in Presidential politics.  Take PA for example - in my other side of work, I have been a part of at least a dozen PA research projects in the last 5 years.  With the exception of immediately following the June debate, I don't think the margin in the state has moved more than 6 points (+3 either way), regardless of whether it was Biden or Harris -- or 2020 or 2024.

Or take WI, a state as a Democrat I do feel decent about - only 2,000 total votes separate all the votes cast in the 2016 and 2020 Presidential elections.   That's right:  2,000.    Talk about locked in coalitions.

As a Democrat working in a Republican town, it is fascinating to see how this plays out within my own circle.

The race isn't exactly a coin flip, but it isn't far from it.  Most of my Republican friends think it is inconceivable that Harris could win, and same when I go hang out with members of the home team when it comes to Trump.  It is why some don't want to accept an outcome they don't like - because it is an outcome that is unimaginable, as everything in their own life is telling them one thing.  Since the first votes cast in our young nation, the entire enterprise has depended on the loser validating it, and when people only accept an outcome they believe to be true, well, I don't have to tell anyone how dangerous this is.   

So this is where we get to the point where I make my ask.  

Like most people who do this, I got into this game because I believed with all of my heart I could change the world, and nearly 30 years later, I genuinely still believe this.  I stay in the game, even as my hair gets more gray and my body more tired, because I have enjoyed, to paraphrase the words of Teddy Roosevelt, the pressure of the arena, the devotion to worthy causes, and both the triumph of high achievements -- and those daring failures.   As my good friend and fellow hack Rich Davis once said, you don’t get that working in a bank. 

One of my better friends in this business – and in this life, is an old George W. Bush hack (hack of course is an honorific) named Kirk Pepper.   I was born in the Chicago area, Kirk in rural Mississippi.   Kirk likes to shoot things – I like to play golf (and neither of us do this as much as we wish we could!).  He grew up in Republican politics, me in Democratic circles.  But none of that matters as he is, and will always be my brother.  

I remember one night, probably after a few glasses of wine or whiskey (or both), Kirk says, “you know all of us hacks do the same thing, and we have a responsibility to each other, even as our principals fight.”  To this day, he is oft to remind me that among us hacks, there has to be honor that exists among thieves.  

I do believe, as President Eisenhower said, that the profession of politics, while complicated, is a noble one. But man, I hate what it has become – and hate might not be a strong enough word.  If we – and by we, I mean those of us who work in the public space, aren’t leading by example, then why would we expect anyone else to be better?   If we call each other names, demean each other in unfair ways, turn each other into straw men, and shit on or diminish the institutions that we work in, then why would John Q Activist do anything different? 

And I am not meaning we don’t fight over stuff we believe in or to get mad about injustice – we absolutely should.  We’d be dishonoring the men and women who died for this place if we didn’t vigorously stand up for what we believe in.  But at the same time, did those men and women die so we can call each other shit bags, or suggest that even the most minor of disagreements are rooted in something more sinister or evil?  I sure as hell don’t think that kid who signed up to storm the beaches at Normandy thought the guy next to him on that landing craft was out to destroy America, simply because they might have had different political beliefs or a different voter history.

We all have agency over our own voices.   We must expect more of ourselves, and of each other.  And we must expect more out of our public officials – and those in the public space generally.   No, this doesn’t mean the competition of ideas can’t be rough and heated – of course it will be and should be.  And no, it doesn’t mean campaigns shouldn’t be spirited, and emotional, or that we have to adhere to some arbitrary Marquess de Queensberry Rules of Engagement.  But it does mean there is a line – a line we all must be mindful of.  We can all do something to lower the temperature.  We can and should still believe that basic honor can exist among thieves. 

Whether to choose to listen more than we talk… to seek out people whose shoes are different than ours or to hide in our own ideological safe spaces…to strive for common ground instead of purity…to attack actual problems instead of erecting straw men…to question policy judgements first before immediately ascribing personal malice…to accept the better angels in our midst instead of being suspicious of each other…to rise above our worst fears or give platform to them--- these are all choices - choices we individually control in our own lives. I have no more ability to control Donald Trump or anyone else any more than I do to force the Jaguars to fire Doug Pederson, or Gabe Davis to catch a ball that hits him squarly in the hands in the endzone at a critical moment in a football game.  but I do have control over my own voice.  

None of us alone have the power to change national head-winds. None of us can change the words that come out of national figures.  None of us can control what anyone else says and does.  But that doesn't mean we are powerless.

I have traveled enough around the developing world to see America through the eyes of those who see us, in the words of President Reagan as that shining city on a hill, or in the words of President Biden, as an idea more than a place – an idea where opportunity lives.  If you are of means, it is a perspective every American -- especially those of us in the arena, should get.

I remember standing on a porch, drinking a beer with a politician in Namibia as the sun was setting over the African sky, when he says, "you know how lucky you are?  You Americans get to argue about ideological stuff. In my country, we argue about who gets water."  And it is true.  We are privileged to have the debates that we have. 

The thing I love about America is just an aspiration, a work in progress, a canvas that succeeding generations add to, and a place whose story is never fully written.  It is a place where in the battle between optimism and anger -- maybe not on every day, but over the course of time, optimism has always won. If we lose that, we lose that thing that makes us great.

I believe in my heart that America's best days are ahead.  It is the promise of each generation to the next. And that promise isn't a political one - it is far deeper than politics - it is at its core, the very cloth that holds the whole enterprise together. Whether this generation continues the promise - well, that is on each of us.  

Go vote. 

Thanks as always for reading along.  

PS - If you see Shad Khan, please tell him to fire Trent and Doug.  Today.