Democrats: ‘Our team on the ground is kicking ass’

A few hours ago I received an email from Jen O’Malley Dillon, Campaign Chair for Harris for President.

Unlike earlier emails—and these past few days there’ve been more than a few—this latest was upbeat and has shrugged off the underdog tag the Harris campaign has worn to date.

O’Malley Dillon’s note is part begging letter, part call-to-action for support and part exhortation to vote and do all possible to get others to vote.

As an Australian citizen I cannot vote in this election and am receiving these emails—from the candidate, President Obama, the Harris-Walz HQ, the Democratic Party, among others—because earlier in the week I signed up to receive some merch from the campaign.

I’ve been in the US since the middle of October, spending a week or so in mid-town New York, then rode the Carolinian Amtrak service down to Charlotte in North Carolina and then back up to Washington DC for a week.

From Washington I caught the Amtrak up to Philadelphia and then came across to the small town of Tyrone in central Pennsylvania, where I’ve been since Thursday last.

An electoral field guide

O’Malley Dillon provides a ‘quick field guide for the next few days’ that is, in the campaign’s recently adopted description, ‘nauseously optimistic’:

This race continues to be extremely close. I know that can cause some anxiety. But let me just say again: We are going to win.
It’s just going to take every single one of us to do it.
We continue to have a few paths to victory: By winning the Blue Wall (Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania), by winning the Sun Belt (Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina), or by winning a combination of the two.
We are seeing what we need to see to pull at least one of those paths off.

The importance of the ground game

The Democrats have run a far better “ground game” than the Republicans. Democrats have largely relied on hordes of (mainly) volunteers to knock on millions of doors every week, operating phone banks, handing out campaign material and most crucially—getting-out-the-vote—provide assistance to voters to cast their votes in person or by post.

It is fair to say that the Republican’s ground game—in large part funded and operated by the America PAC, founded by Elon Musk—has been far less efficient and effective and has reportedly been riddled with fraud and incompetence.

O’Malley Dillon notes the importance of the ground game for Democrat success.

Volunteers knocking on doors, making calls, and making sure voters have what they need to head to the polls are making a difference in this race. So much so that undecided voters in the last week are breaking for the Vice President by double-digit margins.
We know that, among the remaining pool of undecided voters, more are open to voting for the Vice President than for Trump.
Our team on the ground is kicking ass reaching those voters and we have to keep it up in the days to come.

What to expect on election night

The Democrats note that—surprisingly for anyone familiar with the conduct of Australian Federal elections— each state counts votes differently, with some waiting until the polls close, while others start counting as soon as voters cast their ballot, meaning that results for different states will be provided at different times. 

O’Malley Dillon provides the following rough estimates of returns.

When will the presidential election be called?

Again, the Democrats are nauseously cautious.

It will take a long time to count every single vote, and we can’t place too much stock in the early returns.
The tally in certain states is going to change a lot as additional ballots are counted.
For example, some states that count absentee ballots first may start off blue and shift to red as time goes on.
Those would be your Michigans and Pennsylvanias.
On the other hand, there are states like North Carolina, Arizona, and Nevada where we may see Republicans leading from the beginning and then those states may shift to blue as urban areas come in and more late early vote and vote-by-mail is counted.
We may not know the results of this election for several days. But we must stay calm and confident during that period of time. 
We all have a role to play to ensure that our friends, family, and neighbors trust our electoral process.

What About Donald Trump?

Democrats—and many in the media—fully expect former President Donald Trump to claim victory in advance of and regardless of the independently verified results, just as he did in 2020.

Democrats are brutally frank about what they expect from the former President.

We can count on him spinning a web of misinformation about the way this election was held and challenging the results when he loses again. It will have no impact whatsoever on the outcome of this race. Tune it out.
The truth is this: Our elections are among the most transparent government processes and our systems will hold.
The non-partisan decision desks at media outlets that are watching this race closely are not going to be swayed by what Donald Trump says.
And we should not be either.
Rest assured that if Trump and his friends try to claim they won this election and throw their bag of tricks at us, we are prepared.
We have some of the best lawyers on our team and they are ready to go to court to ensure that every vote is counted.

Who will win the election?

I don’t know and at this stage I reckon anyone who reckons otherwise is either a liar or having a lend of you … but that may well change soon.

Watch this space.