The Final Days

Let’s break this down a bit.

I see three sets of voters:

1) Those who have made up their minds, and with whom there is virtually no chance of changing their decision. Many of these people have, in fact, already voted.

2) Those who aren’t going to vote. They may say they are not going to vote for any of several reasons (don’t care, too difficult, believe their vote doesn’t matter, believe the system is rigged, are just utterly apolitical, etc.) Or they may tell us that they are going to vote, but they’re really not. They may even tell themselves that they are going to vote, but looking into our crystal ball, we can see that they wont actually bother to vote for any of the aforementioned reasons.

3) Those who are undecided.

So, what are Joe Biden and dOnald tRump actually trying to achieve?

Group #1 is decided. There is nothing either candidate can (realistically) say or do that will change these people’s minds. With all the rallies, phone banking, advertisements, robocalls, etc., no more than 0.01% of them will change their minds or decide to stay home. These people are a done deal. Give it up guys.

Group #2 isn’t going to vote. They’re just not gonna. No amount of anything is going to get more than 0.01% of them to actually go to the polls, and if they do, they’re probably undecided, which means they are in group 3, so read on.

Group #3 is undecided. WTF? If you’ve been alive for the past 4 years and as of today you are still undecided, there is nothing anyone is going to say or do to get you to decide. Late night comics have covered this pretty thoroughly.

An undecided voter isn’t going to go to a Biden rally and say, “Oh, gee, tRump committed an impeachable offence and was found guilty? Really? I didn’t know that. Thank you, Mr. Biden. Now that you’ve made me aware of that, I’m voting for you.” No one sitting on the fence is going to watch an advertisement for tRump and say, “Oh, according to President tRump, Joe Biden is ‘sleepy’. Well, I don’t want a sleepy President, so I’ve decided. I’m voting for tRump!” That's not going to happen. They don’t need any more data – they just can’t decide.

If these people bother to vote at all, they’re gonna punch a hole, or push a button, or flip a lever, basically at random. I predict that no more than 0.01% of these people are going to learn something in the next 5 days that they didn't know before and is now going to make up their mind. For the undecided voter that goes to the polls, it is a coin toss, but I think the vast majority of them wont bother to vote at all. I mean really, on November 3rd, will they make it to their election place, or will they be immobilized by indecision over which pair of socks to wear when voting?

So seriously. Seriously. Who honestly thinks that these final days are, “vital” or “all important”, and that the candidates must cross and re-cross the “swing states” till the final moments on Tuesday? Even in the “swing states”, the voters already belong to one of my 3 groups. No amount of additional exposure is going to change the votes of more than 4 or 5 people in Michigan, or Pennsylvania, or Florida.

I’m sure we can all think of fantastical scenarios that would change minds. Perhaps one of the candidates will grow horns in the middle of a rally and leap into the crowd, ripping out people’s jugulars with their now saber-toothed jaws. Sure, that would change some votes. But realistically, the only thing that could possibly happen to tip the balance between Joe Biden and dOnald tRump is if one of them drops dead in the next 5 days, and even that probably wouldn’t change many votes.

If the election were held today versus Tuesday, maybe 10 or 20 people nationwide would vote differently. tRump and Biden should stop wasting their time, breath, and donors’ money, go home, and just wait. The election is already decided, we just don’t know who the winner is yet.