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NOVEMBER 12, 2020 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home
The Art of the Steal BY NATE DAVIS
I
t took three-and-a-half years, a special prosecutor and a team of twelve deputies, twenty-eight million dollars, and thousands of hours of hearings to conclude that Trump did not steal the 2016 election. Actually, I said that wrong. As the Democrats said after the Mueller probe, “There was not enough evidence that [Trump] stole the 2016 election; that does not mean that he, in fact, did not steal it.” So with that timeframe in mind – three-anda-half years – we still have some time to reach a conclusion about whether or not the Democrats stole the 2020 election. If it’s your job to figure it out, here’s the answer: They stole it. Now go enjoy a beach vacation for the next three years, five months and 23 days. (Wasn’t that easier than the whole Mueller thing?) In all seriousness, I always wondered how I would see things if the shoe was on the other foot –if I was a Hillary supporter. Would I have believed the Russia hoax? Would I have believed that Trump stole the election in 2016? Would I have ran around screaming, “Not my pwwweetthhhiiidddeennnnt!!” Well, I’m not on psychotropics, so I wouldn’t have done that, but you get the point. Well, now the shoe is on the other foot. And I’m actually enjoying the experience of looking through the other side of the looking glass. I start with the premise that what happened last Tuesday was really strange. Obviously, the pollsters got it all wrong heading into Election Day. They had Biden up by double
digits throughout most of the race and all but declared that there was going to be a “blue wave.” They were obviously dead wrong – even if Biden did win legitimately, he won by a razor thin margin. The Electoral College map swung to Biden by a total of less than 100,000 votes. But what is even more puzzling is these little data nuggets from Election Day, any of which would have caused an honest pollster to forecast a Trump victory: Trump crushed it with Latino voters… He won the white vote overwhelmingly… He actually did well with women… He even got 30% of the Jewish vote (slow clap)… He brought out the most voters in history from rural areas… He even outperformed 2016 with black voters… He got the highest percentage of the New York vote since 1988 for a Republican candidate… He won Florida by a very healthy 3+% even though Democrats poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the Sunshine State, believing that the entire race would come down to who won there… He won Ohio by more than 8% (even though the pre-election polls had him down there), and as the saying goes, “As goes Ohio, so goes the nation!” Strangely the massive Trump sentiment in Ohio didn’t rub off on its Midwest neighbors (MI, WI, MN)… He carried the down-ballot races leading to Republican gains in state races throughout the country… Republicans had to defend ten Senate seats and
succeeded at defending almost every one (the ones that they didn’t win are questionable) … Going into Election Day, the Democrats had an early ballot lead, but everyone was saying that if there is a big Election Day turnout, Trump will easily overcome that lead. There was a huge Election Day turnout…. Biggest ever… Then there is the cute anecdotal stuff. I’m not talking about a cookie poll in Pennsylvania which had Trump leading 6-1. I’m talking about the bellwether counties, meaning counties that historically vote for the candidate that ends up winning the presidential election. Valencia County, New Mexico, is the crème de la crème of bellwether counties. Since 1952, whoever got the majority of the vote in this county won the presidential election every time. Well, their streak is now broken. Trump got 56.2% of Valencia County’s vote, Biden got 41.4%. Ottawa County, Ohio, has a pretty good track-record too. Since 1948, they were wrong once (in 1960). How did they vote this year? Trump – 60.8%, Biden – 37.7%. Now let’s look at what actually happened on election night, because that is where things get really whacky. Trump got the first big win of the night with a decisive victory in Florida. Then he got the Mother of All Bomb wins when he crushed it in Ohio. You may recall that the betting odds flipped in Trump’s favor at around 10 p.m., and the Chinese yen crashed (because it looked like China’s
