TPM "8 Tips To Stay Sane In The Final 15 Days Of The Campaign"

[NRaleighLiberal]

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/8-tips-to-stay-sane-in-the-final-15-days-of-the-campaign/

We’re in the final stretch of the campaign, with just 15 days to go until the election. Indeed, “the election” is something of a misnomer, since early or mail voting is already underway in most states and around 30 million people have already cast ballots.

This is a period of high anxiety for almost everybody. So here are a few tips for how to process news and polls over the final two weeks. I’m going to keep these fairly short and sweet; we’ll save the more philosophical stuff about election forecasting, etc. for elsewhere.

1. Keep the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in mind.
The most important story in the country is that 210,000 Americans and counting have died from the coronavirus, plus virtually everybody’s lives have been disrupted in some way by the pandemic. And far from the U.S. having turned the corner, cases and hospitalizations are growing again in most parts of the country. President Trump’s approval ratings on COVID-19 are poor, too, considerably worse than his overall approval numbers. The pandemic isn’t a new story, but it’s liable to be more important to voters than, say, whatever is in Hunter Biden’s emails

2. Don’t assume the race is in the bag for Biden.
Although COVID-19 and other issues make Trump’s road to reelection difficult, he still has a 12 percent chance of winning the Electoral College, according to the FiveThirtyEight model as of Sunday afternoon. And if Joe Biden maintains his current lead in the polls, Trump’s chances will fall further — although the forecast thinks it’s more likely that the race will tighten.

snip - read it all at the above link - well worth the time...seemed sane and reasonable.

[uppityperson]

1. I voted and felt some relief.

Am planning on taking election week off, but not sure what I'm doing. Maybe go camping out on the ocean?

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. we're going to vote tomorrow (while our new deck gets waterproof stained)

we plan just to continue to hike on the beautiful days!

Camping sounds fun!

[NRaleighLiberal]

3. kick

[panader0]

4. Sane and reasonable indeed. But it's too late---I'm already crazy.

The tension I feel is palpable. I am able to erase it momentarily, but it's always there,
lurking and casting a circus atmosphere over this election. My better instincts tell me that
it's going to be fine, and that a Biden administration will lead us positively but slowly out of
this mess.