I apologize for being MIA in the past two weeks. I moved and was unrealistic about how much time and energy that was going to take from the rest of my schedule.
Starting this week and on through the November election, I will be posting at least twice a week: on Tuesdays and Fridays. I will usually, but not always, have a short Monday post - like this one - to introduce the week’s posts and note any other useful information (see below for this week’s version of “other useful information”). Except for a week in July when I will be on vacation, this will be a regular weekly schedule.
Once we get to Labor Day, I will begin posting even more frequently as I am embarking on campaign work; reporting on what I see going on in the field and tracking the polling as it becomes more frequent. I have enabled paid subscriptions. If you want to support my traveling campaign work in the fall, please subscribe. The two posts per week will remain available without a paid subscription, but additional pieces may be for subscribers only. We’ll see how it goes.
While the newsletter will remain targeted at folks who want to volunteer time or resources to help out progressive campaigns, I will be expanding its mission to nonprofits that work on getting people out to vote. This means I will be posting on changes in state laws that impact the ability of nonprofits to assist voters in the upcoming election, discussing best and innovative practices, and highlighting the work of nonprofits doing electoral work. When we are in the thick of the campaign in the fall, I will try to highlight a different nonprofit each week - and let you know how you can support them.
I am not going to do the trifecta posts I have done in the past. Instead, I am going to write on a handful of states that are important for winning the presidential election. Many of these states would qualify as trifecta states anyway. Tomorrow’s post will discuss the importance of Arizona and Wisconsin as potential tipping states for November. Friday’s post will consider the ongoing debate about why the polling is not matching up with actual election results.
If you do not already do so, start following me on Notes. I often post shorter observations of the political and legal scene there.
There was some bizarre polling results this weekend. If you were watching CNN, you’d think Biden was in real trouble. If you were watching CBS, you’d see some dead heats in key battleground states. What does all of this mean? Larry and Adam are right: the polls really won’t mean much until September. But why are they so all over the place? It’s not clear there is one answer to that question, but I have a suspicion that pollsters are not doing a good job modeling the electorate, a not-insignificant number of respondents in these polls are not likely to vote, and there may be a non-response bias that is favoring Republicans. I’ll have more to say on that in Friday’s post.