Dispatches From the Fortress – Day 231

The other day here, I noted that The Economist, which is one of the three Poll Aggregator/Analysis sites I follow, had Trump's chances of winning the Electoral College down to 4%. I said I didn't believe they were that low. Nate Silver's 538 had him down to 12%. Today, The Economist has him at 3% and 538 has him at 11%.

These drops are probably because this morning's ABC News/The Washington Post gives Biden a 17 point lead in Wisconsin. There are always outlier polls that report numbers way outta line with the others but this one's more credible than some because it's a well-respected poll and the other polls all show Biden ahead, though not that far ahead. It also gets a bit of credibility because Trump was just in Milwaukee giving his current "We defeated the Pandemic" speeches in a state where record numbers of new coronavirus cases are now being reported.

More amazing, the third Poll Aggregating Site I consult — The Cook Political Report — has now reclassified Texas from Leans Republican to Toss-Up. That one's neck-and-neck and it won't surprise me if Trump wins it by a comfy margin but…still. For Texas to even be in play as a swing state is amazing.

Trump's Closing Argument keeps shifting. Today, it still seems to be something like "Pay no attention to those rising COVID reports. My administration has handled it brilliantly and it's all but defeated!" I don't get why they think that's a winner. The polls say that 58% of the country thinks Trump and his crew have done a poor job of handling COVID-19 while 40% approves. And that 40% is probably the 40% incapable of disapproving of anything he does. He's got their votes and desperately needs some of that 58%.

History may show that Trump's marathon rallies these days are doing a great job of exciting the kind of people who would risk disease to turn out for a Trump Rally…but very few who wouldn't.


Facebook puts a limit of 5000 on how many "Friends" you can have and I'm currently at 4950. Once I passed around 4800, it would sometimes tell me I couldn't accept a new friend until I deleted an old one. I think a few of the new ones it did let me accept were because old "Friends" had left Facebook and therefore my list. Oh — and I un"friended" one "friend" because he kept sending me messages that there was solid proof Joe Biden was the head of that Pedophilia Ring that the Democratic party operates.

Anyway, I now have around 780 unanswered Friend Requests so obviously, most of those folks aren't getting onto my "Friends" list. I apologize to everyone who's on that list but I don't know what else to do.