My State Doesn't Swing

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

The Republican Party will hold its first presidential debate on August 23rd in Milwaukee, and with that event, less than three weeks into the future, the 2024 presidential race will officially be underway.  Actually candidates have been already been attending party events in early-voting states for some time now, trying to get their names out before the public and grabbing donations wherever they can, but with the upcoming debates the entire show will be moving into the national arena.

The pollsters are also crawling out of the woodwork, asking their questions to sample groups and "random" individuals in the hope of being able to accurately understand how Americans feel about certain candidates and issues - and to predict how they will cast their ballots on Election Day.   They usually seem to do their polling in "swing" states, those half-dozen or so that they believe will ultimately decide who gets to sit in the White House for the next four years.

(The University of Virginia's Center for Politics is currently predicting, in fact, that only four states will be "toss-ups" in 2024.  Those election "deciders" which will undoubtedly be polled senseless in the coming months include Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada - and the rest of us can just go pound sand.)

(Wouldn't it be nice if the electoral college was gone and everybody's vote was important!)

The other states, the ones that don't swing, have established voting patterns which have become ingrained to the point that pollsters simply take their results for granted.

That's where I live - out in the woods in a state that does not swing - and consequently no one gives a rip about what I think about the candidates or the issues.  People in rural Missouri will vote for the absolute worst that the Republican Party can cough up.  They will give the GOP seventy percent of their votes, give or take two points, and there is absolutely no point in sending out a squad of pollsters out to come up with a number that is already predictable.  There is also no point in candidates spending their time and cash to campaign in places where the results are known well before the election.

No body cares about poor me and what I think of the candidates and the issues.  But I do what I can to get my views out there anyway.  First, there is this blog which a dozen loyal friends read religiously whenever they feel like it, and sooner or later I will have a bumper sticker on the back of my little Kia that will piss off a few truckers and may eventually get me run off the road.    And, if I get really, really fired-up about something or someone, I will even put up a yard sign.  (Yard signs are helpful in that they alert certain party operatives and politicians to keep on moving down the road and not bother the occupant.)

A year or so ago I signed up to participate in an on-line poll called "Civiqs" which sends out very short polls (five questions each) every few weeks or so.   They seem to ask different questions depending on the respondent's personal demographics, voting history and regularity, and location.  I'm sure that people in early-voting states and "swing" states are getting some great questions from Civiqs - but not ol' Pa Rock in the Missouri woods.  This week Civiqs asked me if I had seen "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" - and which one I liked best!

I am seventy-five and completely irrelevant.  I should have stayed in Arizona!