[The Soup Nazi]

Tim Alberta’s Funny Feelings

Over the past month, Politico Magazine chronicler of US politics Tim Alberta has written of “funny feelings” he’s had about the election: hunches, accumulated in his travels through American political battlegrounds, of under-appreciated electoral dynamics.

On Oct. 6, he proffered four: that “Trump fatigue” was peaking at the wrong time for the president, “wash[ing] out” potential sympathy over his Covid-19 diagnosis; that the “silent majority” is one of opposition to Trump; that Democrats may come to regret pushing for more early and absentee voting, as those ballots are subject to disqualification when people don’t follow envelope rules to a “t,” fail to sign them, or when the ballots are delivered too late; and that “Trump might lose women voters by numbers we’ve never imagined.” On Oct. 13, he tendered three more: that yard signs point (very inexactly) to “multiplied” Trump support in MAGA-heavy areas, while Biden signs have cropped up in surprising places, like blue-collar pockets in the Midwest and in heavily GOP suburbs; that turnout will soar to historic heights, as the choice this year is an accessible one; and that a “Biden blowout” would prompt the GOP establishment to move on from Trump, “quickly.”

This week, Alberta’s antennae received two more signals: that the “suburban realignment isn’t just a female phenomenon,” as White, college-educated men seem to be turning against Trump and could be the election’s key demographic—and that broadly, “[w]e’re overthinking this campaign.” Of that last hunch, Alberta writes: “Generations of pollsters and journalists have fixated on the question of which candidate voters would rather have a beer with—a window into how personality translates into political success. Here’s the thing: Americans have been having a beer with Trump for the past four years—every morning, every afternoon, every evening. ... Like the drunk at the bar, he won’t shut up. ... Americans are tired of having beers with Trump. His own supporters are tired of having beers with Trump.”