I Told You So - 5 November 2020 [update]

Very early on, I puzzled and mused on the most important factor at issue in this election: what's going to happen with the Johnson voters from '16? So far as I could tell when I first mentioned it in these missives, and ever since, not one of the many pundits who weighed in mentioned this in any way. (Turns out, long before the campaign started, there was this missive.)

My take was that these 4,489,341 voters were going to go to ex-President AuH₂O 2020. One could raise a similar question about Stein's 1,457,218 as well. (numbers from the wiki.) I concluded that Johnson voters were in Trump's pocket and Stein's would stay home smoking weed ("drinking Merlot" earlier). In other words, the Democrat would start out with at least a 4 million vote deficit.

Well, lo and behold, we get this reporting today from the NYT (Baker and Haberman)

He received at least 68 million votes, or five million more than he did in 2016, and commanded about 48 percent of the popular vote, meaning he retained the support of nearly half of the public despite four years of scandal, setbacks, impeachment and the brutal coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 233,000 Americans. [one need only (re-)read Fromm's "Escape From Freedom" to know why.]

Note: that's, sort of, on the front page of my dead trees version. Sort of, because my copy of the paper (printed hours and hours ago) says, "at least four million".

I told you so.