Pennsylvania Is Biden Country This Year

Adam Schultz/Biden for President/ZUMA

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Joe Biden is ahead in the national polls by about ten points or so. But we’re sophisticated people around here and we know that doesn’t matter. Only the Electoral College matters. And because we’re really sophisticated political consumers, we also know that the Electoral College all boils down to Pennsylvania. As the Keystone State goes, so goes the nation. So how are things going there? Here are the final poll averages before Election Day:

  • Economist: Biden +6
  • 538: Biden +5.1
  • New York Times: Biden +6

This is what the Washington Post calls a “slight” lead, but only because they don’t really understand how margin of error works. For the rest of us, this is a pretty substantial lead indeed. It’s not literally impossible for the Pennsylvania polls to be off by five or six points, but it’s pretty damn unlikely considering the amount of effort that’s gone into correcting some of the shortcomings of the 2016 polling.

Of course, all of this depends on Democrats getting out and voting. And I think they will. If they haven’t been motivated by the past four years, I can only assume they’re all in comas.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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