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I’m writing this after traveling back from the future, specifically Nov. 12th.
It’s a long story, but I know a lady who knows a lady who has a friend with a DeLorean souped up with an off-market flux capacitor and the trip got made.
Anyway, we don’t have much time, so I’ll cut to the chase.
I got some good news and some bad news and some more good news.
Here’s the first good bit: Election Night went mostly okay, though not without a lot of stress.
By 1am on the East Coast, it was basically clear that Vice President Harris and Governor Walz were going to win the bulk of the swing states, all of them by pretty small margins.
Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nevada wound up in Harris-Walz column by fewer than 140,000 votes combined, about two-thirds of their total margin in 2020.
Arizona was called for Harris-Walz by the following evening with a razor thin 0.53 percent lead, just outside the threshold for an automatic recount. It’s generally accepted this will hold after absentee/mail-in ballots. Trump-Vance are challenging the results, of course.
Trump-Vance won Georgia by 0.61 percent, just outside the state’s recount request threshold. As in 2020, there are widespread reports of voting inaccessibility and voters standing in line for many hours, some of them turned away, some of them given inaccurate polling place information.
North Carolina was one of the biggest heartbreakers of the night. Harris-Walz wound up losing by just 8,000 votes, relatively small compared to Biden-Harris losing by 74,000 votes in 2020. This will probably hold, too.
But the biggest surprise for everyone from the past week in my timeline—and arguably the biggest heartbreak for Democrats—was Florida, where Harriz-Walz are currently on track to lose by a tantalizing 19,000 votes after the initial recount. Maybe the recount will flip it but most likely not.
Biden-Harris lost Florida by 371,686 votes in 2020. Even in losing, the 2024 margin is a remarkable achievement for Florida Democrats.
As it stands, Harris-Walz are currently at 268 electoral votes (including a surprisingly strong margin in NE-02) compared to Trump-Vance’s likely total of 251.
All that’s left now is Pennsylvania, far too close for comfort, where the margin is shockingly close: just 0.04 percent in favor of Harris-Walz, compared to 1.16 percent for Biden-Harris in 2020.
This, of course, triggered an automatic recount. PA Secretary of State Al Schmidt ordered it to begin today in accordance with state law. He’s a Republican who was appointed by Gov. Josh Shapiro last year, partly due to his refusal to cooperate with efforts by Trump to overturn the valid results of the 2020 election.
The political world is in a full state of rage and anxiety. Pundits are combing through the bizarre nature of Pennsylvania being this ridiculously close, far closer than anyone expected. Trump and Vance have vowed to fight it all the way to the Supreme Court, where, if accepted, they may prevail.
Many observers say the smart money is on Harris-Walz, that the lead of just a few thousand votes should hold, even with a recount, but at this margin, with the furor of Trump World screaming sabotage and this extremist Supreme Court, who the hell really knows?
So, that’s the bad news. The automatic recount could very well flip it to Trump-Vance, and even if it doesn’t, political violence, to some degree, is almost certainly guaranteed.
That’s why I’m here. I’ve traveled back in time with the second bit of good news: we now know this election is very winnable, and with two weeks until Election Day, there’s absolutely no reason why every adult who cares about this country shouldn’t be doing all they can to expand these margins.
Even if you take a few hours this weekend to call voters or knock on doors in these swing states—especially your family, friends, and neighbors—that could prove the difference in the states we lost in my timeline and cement our victories in the states we won.
Two more weeks. Just two more weeks to prevent the cruel anxiety and depression and despair we’ve all been feeling over the past seven days in my timeline, the gnawing regret in knowing that each of us could have probably done a little more and some of us could have done a lot more.
I traveled back in time to get y’all do a little more, so that you can rest easy on the morning of Nov. 6th, knowing you saved democracy from the brink.
Don’t know where or how to volunteer? I got you.
Go here: https://go.kamalaharris.com/
There are so many ways to get involved, and for some of them you don’t even have to leave the comfort of your own home. Take a few hours this week and help us out.
Alright, I promised to get this DeLorean back in one piece. It’s a pretty sweet ride but scary as hell.
Don’t let us down. Don’t let the future down.
Get involved. Your future self will thank you for doing so.
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