Election News

I'll save you the trouble of watching all the various polls and fretting over what will happen November 5 in terms of the House and/or Senate swinging to one party or the other: It's too close to tell.  Too many races are too close for anyone to predict, with any validity, whether the Democrats will take back the House, lose the Senate, whatever.  It looks like a Democratic pick-up of a few governorships but, on a national basis, that's close to meaningless.

Still, as Jack Germond once said of his profession (reporting), "We aren't paid to say, 'I don't know,' even when we don't know."  So we're now getting a lot of stories that say the polls indicate a slight lead for this party or a hint of momentum for the other.  It's all just space-filler, often accomplished by ignoring the polls' margin of error or the fact that, in many races, various polls are yielding close but conflicting results.  In about 75% of the competitions, you can find a poll showing your guy leading by 3% with a margin of error of 3%.

One exception is the governor's race in California.  Latest polls show the slimy guy who mismanaged the energy crisis leading the inept, untrustworthy rich guy by 45% to 35%.  If "None of the Above" were on the ballot, we'd see a landslide.