With nine days to go until the voting deadline on November 3rd, it's time to make closing arguments and put up or shut up. Since 50 million Americans have already cast their votes, a week from this Tuesday is not so much election day as it is the deadline to get your vote in.
In these final days of the campaign, it's still anyone race but the warning signs for a bad Republican outcomes are growing and it's starts where it all began four years ago and that's with the top of the ticket. President Trump's inability to articulate a vision for his second term is crippling his campaign because simply attacking your opponent with unfounded accusations isn't going to win the day.
The president says that he's is tired of talking about "COVID, COVID, COVID...," but it is precisely because of COVID-19 that his campaign and reelection prospects are flagging. Frankly, if the administration put in the work eight months ago, the pandemic would still be with us, but maybe 100,000 Americans less would have perished and the president could say, honestly, that every we could do has been done. Then he could have truly made a sound argument for a post-pandemic America.
Alas...
This is not what happened and this coup-de-gras failure has exacerbated all the other outrageousness behavior and negligence throughout the president's first term.
With all that said, it's time...
Many people have asked this column, straight up, who is going to win the presidential election. In our answer, we have been taking a breath before answering because you must consider where it may head before knowing who ultimately wins.
Because early voting, especially mail-in ballots heavily favors Democrats, not all the vote totals will in on election night while same-day voting is thought to favor Republicans and at the end of election night it will show Mr. Trump leading. This seems to be the common wisdom for many political pundits and the worry for many Joe Biden supporters, but this isn't what is going to happen.
By the morning of November 4th, Joe Biden will in fact be ahead and as more votes are counted, it will confirm or even enhance his lead. Yes, it is that bad for President. This week's debate didn't move the needle in either direction if only to affirm that VP Biden has a much better knowledge of the issues and the nuances surrounding them. (Let's face it, if we didn't grade Mr. Trump on such a curve where it says simply that if you don't shout, you still make sense and graded him on the same scale as we do Mr. Biden, then the former VP still cleaned his clock.)
We'll go on record to say that ultimately Joe Biden will be the next president.
With that existential dread over with, let's get to the fun stuff - the Senate races.
During the panel discussion, Mr. Todd asked each individual which state race he or she is watching, as follows:
Amy Walter: North Carolina where Democratic challenger Cal Cunningham is still ahead of incumbent Thom Tillis despite a late breaking sex scandal.
Mark Murray: Iowa where it's an even race at the presidential and senatorial levels. Seniors are playing a role switching support to Biden and incumbent Joni Ernst doesn't know the break even cost on a bushel of soybeans ($10 btw).
Yamiche Alcindor: South Carolina where Lindsey Graham is in the fight of his life against Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison who is pulling out all the stops with the incredible amount of campaign contributions he received.
Anna Palmer: Maine where Susan Collins tries to maintain her balancing act of being a bi-partisan moderate Republican but her lack of being just that and her gullibility when it comes to her judgement on President Trump.
We're watching this and a few more.
Starting with North Carolina and Maine, we think that Democrats will take both races. North Carolinians won't split their ticket and Joe Biden is up in the state. As for Maine, it just seems like the people there are simply fed up with Susan Collins rolling over at critical moments of Mr. Trump's presidency. Cal Cunningham (D) in North Carolina and Sara Gideon (D) in Maine.
For control of the Senate, Chuck Todd outlined the following state where the race is a toss up: Arizona, Montana, Colorado, Alabama, Georgia, Kansas, Michigan, in addition to the aforementioned Maine, North Carolina, South Carolina and Iowa.
Iowa is close and historically does swing back and forth and this time around, we think ultimately Iowa is going for a change, will not split the ticket and go for both Joe Biden and Theresa Greenfield in the Senate.
South Carolina, on the other hand, is going to disappoint Democrats and Jaime Harrison is going to come up just short in race that would have thought to have been closer in the end. Lindsey Graham loses his standing, his power, his influence but not his seat in the Senate.
For Republicans, Arizona is gone. Martha McSally, who was appointed to the seat after losing her previous bid for the senate against Kyrstan Sinema, has done nothing to convince people that she has earned the seat. Meanwhile, there is Mark Kelly, astronaut and American hero who is married to former Congresswoman Gabbie Giffords. Mark Kelly running away.
In Colorado, Corey Gardner doesn't even seem to be running for reelection because he knows the former governor John Hickenlooper is going to win in a wash.
As for Georgia, Amy Walter explained that it would be bad for Democrats if senate control came to two run-off elections in Georgia in January. However, we don't think it's going to come to that and Democrats will have control by the time the Georgia senate rates are decided. It's a tough one to decide so with permission, we'll say that Georgia is either going to be split with one Senator from each party or it stays in full Republican control, by a small margin.
So there it is, we've put up, so now we'll shut up.
Panel: Yamich Alcindor, PBS News Hour; Amy Walter, Cook Political Report; Anna Palmer, Politico; Mark Murray, NBC News
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