The older daughter, on the cusp of teenager-hood, might be near done with speech acts that make me smile, but today she reported a conversation she'd had with a friend.
Her friend: No one despises Trump more than my mom and dad.
My daughter: Um, you might want to reconsider . . . .
The other day, trying to have some snarky fun with Packer and Badger fans, I think I gave a false impression about this year's presidential balloting in the suburbs of Milwaukee. It's true that Milwaukee's suburbs are a lot more Republican-friendly than Twin Cities suburbs. It's also true that Trump carried them by wide margins in both 2016 and 2020. But, after running down the numbers of Trump's steep decline in the suburban counties adjoining Hennepin (Minneapolis) and Ramsey (St. Paul) Counties, I said that from 2016 to 2020 Trump's numbers "barely budged" in the WOW counties (Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington) encircling Milwaukee. Here's the actual percentage numbers for Trump's victories in WOW, first 2016, then 2020:
Waukesha 60-33; 60-39
Ozaukee 56-37; 55-43
Washington 67-27; 68-30
I think my sin was looking only at Trump's number, which doesn't budge. The margin does, however. I won't tax your attention with the arithmetic details, but, in raw votes, Trump in 2016 carried the WOW counties by 104,501. This year, in the votes tabulated so far, essentially all of them, his margin in the WOW counties fell to 96,751. On further review, that's a budge. The statewide swing toward the Democrat was only about 40,000. Almost a fifth of the total was in these three suburban counties.
I watch mainly MSNBC. Their election numbers cruncher, Steve Kornacki, is an ace: energetic but sober, knowledgeable but no pedant. His ability to do arithmetic in his head, on-air at a moment's notice, is preternatural. He also gets points with me for not being a TV dandy. Assuming he changes and launders clothes at a normal rate, I'd gauge he owns six pairs of khaki trousers and eight long-sleeved white shirts, which he always rolls to the elbow for his sessions before The Big Board. One blue blazer that may or may not be his—he rarely wears it. I'm not his only fan. I saw a lady on social media wishing aloud that he'd spend a long night treating her body as if it were a map of Pennsylvania. Touch me in the Lehigh Valley! Erie County! Philadelphia! Philadelphia! Philadelphia!
It's super crazy and weird that we have to obsess over 71 new votes posted out of the state of Georgia while, from sea to shining sea, Biden's lead chugs past 4 million.
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