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It's the same argument every time.  2016.  2016.  2016.

Pollsters messed up in 2016.  And they were CRUCIFIED for it.  Go to any post that even references Nate Silver, and he's *attacked* for how bad a job he did.  We can argue semantics about whether or not giving someone a 30% chance to win and then they win is that big of a mistake, but trust me, he paid for it.  And  the polls themselves paid for it.  This is their Super Bowl, and they'll all admit that they blew it.

And if the 2020 election was a week after the 2016 election, then yeah, I think there'd be real doubt about the process being broken.

But they had four years to fix their process.  Four years to rebuild polling from the ground up.  Four years to find their mistakes in sampling.  Find out who they missed.  Find out what went wrong and more importantly, how to fix it.  These are very smart people that are paid a ton of money to do one thing, and they had four full years to clean up their act.

Maybe they pissed away those four years.  Maybe they made the exact same mistakes.  Maybe Trump voters are tricking and gaming the system despite polls' efforts.

But to just completely write off 4 years of efforts because of mistakes made and acknowledged is just a little naive if you ask me.

The stats show that Democrats are overwhelmingly turning their ballots in early.  So while a lot more Democrats are voting by mail, so many of them are already getting returned.  There's a decent chance that a great majority of the Democratic vote will already be in before Election Day happens.  That's not just a good strategy for Covid, it's a great strategy in general.  If Republicans have to stand in line all day, how many of them will wait all day?  How many can afford to?  What if it's cold?  Or rainy?  What if they aren't feeling well because they went to an f-ing rally during a pandemic?  Worse yet, what if someone a few people ahead of them is coughing and they still have another hour to wait?

Trump is having big superspreader events in swing states a week or two before the election where Republicans are expected to mostly wait for Election Day.  I'm willing to bet most Trump fans would go to the polls if they didn't feel well.  But what if they *really* didn't feel well.  What if they're in the hospital?  Cases are piling up in the midwest - some of those people aren't going to be able to vote.  If you had to guess who would be more likely to catch covid right now...I'm willing to bet it's a vote for the guy who hates masks and science and not the guy encouraging masks and social distancing.  I know democrats get sick, but democrats have also voted early.

I don't know why more people weren't outraged by the obvious break in the separation of powers.  Especially ACB, who obviously doesn't care about the optics.  I'm willing to say that she will not take her job seriously.  The democratic message has been to get your votes in (mail in or otherwise) early.  The Democrats, for the most part, have done their part.

Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight says, because of this, it's not certain that the votes to be counted will necessarily be mostly Democrat.  If Democrats get their ballots in and Republicans don't, the Republican effort to throw out ballots might actually hurt them instead of helping them.

Rebels was good.  Not as great as Clone Wars but still good.

*************

One thing I was thinking about.  Rise of Skywalker went out of its way to undo a ton from The Last Jedi.  From erasing/backseatting certain characters to dropping plotlines, TROS seemed designed to appease the people who didn't like Episode VIII.

But what was one of the biggest criticisms of TLJ?  Its use of Luke.  And while Luke was definitely post-death retconned to be a little more "what people think Luke should be" than in Episode VIII, they actually missed out on something else:

Luke doesn't have his badass moment.  Luke is certainly heroic in the Last Jedi.  But a lot of people were hoping for a lot more.  Some Expanded-Universe-level badassery that would give a glimpse into the Jedi that Luke used to be.  And JJ doesn't go there.  I know it would've been a bit nuts to have Luke resurrected or something, but there are flashbacks to younger Master Luke in TROS anyway.  And specific flashbacks that are relevant to Kylo.

And now I'm completely stunned that they didn't have Luke and Ben Solo on some sort of Master/Padawan-type mission where something goes wrong and Luke has to use his mastery of the force to get out of it.  It seems like the kind of thing that a) would've appeased fans and b) the kind of fan service JJ would've wanted.

Crazy to think it didn't happen.

Very ready for this election to be over.  Both campaigns are spreading a decent amount of misinformation, and there's good and bad polls painting a very contradicting picture.

- Contradicting stories about voter enthusiasm in Pennsylvania. The New York Times reported that voting is way down for Biden in Pennsylvania.  District polling seems to say this is wrong, and it could either be campaign leaks a) by the Biden campaign to make sure voters show up or b) the Trump campaign to energize their efforts there.  Obama went there last week which, depending on your source tells us, a) that the campaign sent their biggest gun to salvage the situation or b) the Biden campaign knows its in the bag and Obama was more of a closer

- Strange polling in Michigan.  Trafalgar is a garbage poll for a lot of reasons, but they did do a good job of finding hidden Trump voters in 2016.  Major polls closed a lot of these gaps with their sampling, but Trafalgar claims that they haven't done enough.  Biden leads big in Michigan in every poll except right-leaning ones.  Is Trafalgar still finding hidden voters, or are they grasping at straws like they did in 2018?

- Voter registration issues in Wisconsin - are more Republicans registered and voting early in Wisconsin?  It'd be a strange statistical anomaly if that was happening (when the opposite is true almost everywhere else), but the midwest is trending red.

- Texas, North Carolina, Georgia - Biden is either tied or pulling away according to the polling, but all are very-much in the margin of error.  Biden is going to visit Georgia and Kamala Texas.  Are these real possibilities that point to a Biden landslide?  Or are they wasting time and effort in places they don't need to be wasting either?

All the science and common sense show that Biden has this in the bag.  Polls look good on both a national and a state level.  The Biden campaign is acting more aggressively than defensively (implying they're going after battleground states they think they can win and not salvaging states they don't think they can win).  Trump's campaign is no help in figuring it out because it's impossible to tell what he's doing.  But Trump could have a weird effect on the polls because he's so controversial.  Not to even mention shenanigans he might try and pull off.

I'm just ready for it to be over.  A week from tomorrow.

The debate was actually fairly watchable last night.  Very cool that, win or lose, it's the last Trump debate I'll ever have to sit through.

Republican polls seem to be getting a bit more daring - one poll had Trump up 4 in Michigan when no other poll has Biden up less than four.  Most don't even have Biden leading by less than eight.  Biden is winning essentially every swing state according to every reputable poll.  All that's left is knowing whether or not the polls were wrong.  But they'd have to be very wrong in a lot of places.

And I think that's okay.  I disagree with them, but I think they're at least coming at it from a place that can be negotiated with.  Someone that loves guns and doesn't want their guns taken away can work with everyone else.  Most hardcore gun owners are okay with reasonable restrictions that don't take away *their* guns (of course there are exceptions).  Most hardcore abortion people might be less willing to negotiate, but at least them come from a place that I can understand (no one is pro-abortion).

And I think both of these groups (if they're truly single-issue voters) only support Trump because he represents their side.  If the party flowed to a more traditional Republican, they'd stay with at least a similar level of support.  Trump is a means to an end, not a hero or an idol.

I can work with that going forward.

And that's why I actually feel sorry for a lot of MAGA people.  I'm not talking about the obviously racist or the white supremacists or any of those assholes.  I'm talking about poor white grandmas who fell for Russian propaganda and legitimately think that the nation will win if Trump doesn't win - and then donate their last $50 to the Trump campaign.  I feel like there should be thousands of lawsuits - if I donated to the Trump campaign and he used it for non-campaign purposes, I'd be pissed.

I'm naive and I'm trying to be optimistic, and I just don't believe that 40% of my fellow Americans love this guy for nefarious purposes.  Selfish economic reasons?  Sure.  Strictly political "I've never voted Democrat in my life and I won't now" reasons?  Okay.  Even "one of the most powerful countries in the world spending all their time coming up with realistic-ish propaganda tricked me" reasons are somewhat okay.  Or even "guns are my favorite thing in the whole world" or "literally nothing in this world is more evil than abortion" people. 

But "Trump is the best" or "this guy represents me!" or people like that - I hope those are just loud people on social media.

**********

FiveThirtyEight's model seems to have stalled at around 87-88% for Biden.  It's gone up and down the last couple days without any significant movement.  I think that's pretty much where we are.  If Florida goes to Biden, it's almost certainly Biden.  If Florida goes to Trump, the door opens up.  It's still a long road (even if Trump wins Florida, but Biden gets Arizona and North Carolina, Trump has very little shot), but if Biden can just get Florida on Election night, Biden essentially has it locked up no matter what else happens.

I'd love for Biden to get my home state and he just had a poll where he's tied, but I just don't think it happens this year despite record voting here.

Very true.  But I think you have to remember a couple of things.

1. These guys aren't Lindsey Graham or Ted Cruz.  Their jobs are secure.  They can vote however they want, and they don't have to worry about it.  Barrett knows that she's only getting on the bench through nefarious ways, but once she's on, she's on.  Not only has Roberts surprised but even Brett Kavanaugh has surprised (the thought is that he's now the median opinion).

2. I'm not talking about the Supreme Court throwing out illegitimate votes.  I think there's probably some legitimacy to the argument that votes that are received after the election might have less constitutional weight.  So I think there's a judicial argument to be made.  And if I were a Pennsylvania Democrat, I'd be making sure there there's no way that my ballot gets received later than Election Day.

What I'm referring to is Trump literally trying to cheat and trying to get the court to uphold his shenanigans.  Either getting a legislature to throw out all the votes and name him the winner or throwing out *legitimate votes* just because they were going to give Biden the election.  People are worried that just because Trump has the court, they'll always vote in his favor no matter what.  And I don't believe that all five of the "Trump votes" are that crooked.  Maybe ACB is.  Maybe Gorsuch is.  But it doesn't seem like Kavanaugh is, and I think/hope the rest of them take their jobs seriously enough not to let Trump get away with something that is clearly both unconstitutional and illegal.

I don't see how going to war with Fauci helps him in *any* way.  Isn't Fauci, while unpopular with MAGAs, mostly popular?

So I've been watching some of the DC Universe shows.  I watched Doom Patrol on HBO Max, Harley Quinn on SyFy and then HBO Max, and I've been watching Swamp Thing on CW and Stargirl on the CW app.

I'm actually fairly impressed with the shows they've come up with.  I watched Titans season one last year and thought it was fun (although it felt a bit restrained).  I really liked Harley Quinn - it's my favorite of the batch (but also gets the most freedom with animation).  Doom Patrol was a lot of fun, but again, I feel like that show would've been better if it was more tied with Titans.  Even just a cameo here and there would've been nice.

Swamp Thing and Stargirl are a little harder to read since they've edited for CW.  I'm sure it's much worse with Swamp Thing, but as I'm currently watching Stargirl, something was bothering me.

Mainly....what is this universe they've created?  It doesn't feel at all like a superhero universe.  It feels like the JSA/ISA were completely underground, but at the same time, Wildcat had a Wikipedia page with all of his powers?  A world where there used to be superheroes and then the villains killed them all is interesting - they seem to want the world to be identical to others but also there used to be open superheroes but most people don't seem to care/remember anymore.

And I don't see the point.  These are all people who are going to vote for him no matter what.  The *only* possible outcome is that people get sick at these events and then can't vote.  There's no way an undecided voter is going to go to one of these events.  I just don't see the point.

(And of course the point is to stroke Trump's ego.  But the rest of the family wants him to win, right?)

I don't buy the Primary Model.  I think, if anything, it's correlation.  Incumbents tend to win, and incumbents tend to run unopposed.  People running against incumbents tend to have wide open races.  If it's a race between no incumbents, I can buy the enthusiasm metric.

I'm not saying Trump can't win.  But 91% for Trump implies that TONS of people are lying about voting for Biden, and there's been no evidence of that.  And I think the hardest part about shy voters or lying voters is that there's been a stunning consistency to this race.  If you look at the national polls, it's been remarkably consistent since March.  If you look at the state polls, they're pretty consistent.

If they were polling the same exact group of people every time, then I could buy the lying argument.  But there are dozens of polls, all trying to poll different groups.  Conservative polls, liberal polls, independent polls, international polls.  Polls of likely voters, polls of registered voters, polls of all voters.  Polls in every state.  And in all those polls, it's Biden up by 3-15 points all along the way.

So yeah there could be a certain percentage of Trump voters that don't want to admit that they're going to vote Trump or are lying to screw with polls.  But for the results to be the same, that group of liars/shy people have to remain consistent regardless of the sample.  They can't randomly draw a group of people that is more likely to be shy or lie - otherwise the results would tip way in favor of Biden.  They can't find people who are less shy or less likely to lie, or it'd show Trump winning.

We aren't really seeing those polls.  Which tells me that there aren't that many people that are doing it because you'd expect to see those people show up in the polling unless it was *very* coordinated.

Trump can definitely win.  One thing that I'm seeing a lot of Trump people talk about is that percentages aren't a score.  Even if the Primary Model is right, Biden has a 9% chance to winning.  According to 538, Trump has a 13% chance of winning.  These aren't small odds.  People in casinos make those kinds of bets all the time.  I need an ace on the river!  I need the dealer to bust.  I need lucky 21!

Not likely.  But the unlikely happens all the time.

Oh, I agree.  But I still like to hear the far right insanity.  Maybe because I feel like I'm immune to it.  But I think hearing the crazy helps me center myself with the sane.

Classic villain origin, I know.

Yeah this was the crux of the article I posted.  If Biden wins Florida, there's a chance he's at 270 before Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, or Michigan are even counted.  And, honestly, it really isn't even that big of a stretch.  That's Biden winning Arizona (where he's up fairly big) and Florida.  Trump could win Iowa, Ohio, North Carolina, and Georgia, *and* sweep Wisconsin/Michigan/Pennsylvania and Biden still wins.

And there are still so many paths to victory for Biden if he doesn't win Florida, but any notion of Trump pulling funny business ends if Biden gets Florida.  Which we should know election night.

(Everything that I said would also work, obviously, if Biden gets Texas - which I still view as a fair longshot - I'd agree with 538's guess that it's around 30% - but that's still higher than their prediction that Trump wins at all)

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/1 … ght-428856

This is an interesting thoughtpiece.  Trump will certainly press for a winner on Election night, but what if he's not winning?  He'll obviously pivot to some sort of "let's count the ballots" stance, but he's got very few paths to victory, and as the article says, essentially zero that will be counted by election night unless he flips some states he's not expected to win.

The hope is that Trump isn't winning enough states on Election night (with just the votes that have been counted) that he can say "ELECTION OVER" and try to get people to stop counting.

This is probably true and that's sad.

This makes some sense.  I've been listening to a lot of FiveThirtyEight's political podcast recently, and they speculated that Biden should pull a "you made me do this" with the Republicans.  Saying they won't stack the court if they don't proceed with their nomination.  That 4-5 may be preferable to 7-6.  But maybe he can't say that because it would make the senate races worse.  Maybe someone like Lindsey Graham wins their race because Republicans know they can't lose the Senate and the White House.

****

It sounds like they might agree to an in-person debate for October 22.  I think that would make some sense, but if I'm Biden, I don't see the point.  He debated Trump.  His VP debated Pence.  I don't think there's a ton of room for this race to get much more lopsided than it already is.  I think there's only room for it to get closer.  There's no point in risking it.  The debates aren't adding anything to the race, and there's just the risk that Biden says something that either loses moderate voters or far left ones.

I'm sure Biden doesn't want to besmirch the process, and I'm sure he doesn't think he can ruin it.  But we're really close and Biden's both winning over new voters and strengthening his lead.

My only notes from the debate:

1. I don't know why Harris and Biden won't give a straight answer on stacking the Supreme Court.  Obviously evading the question is the same as answering it.  Just like Pence and Trump obviously evading the "will you accept the results" is the same as answering it.  They need to have a better answer, or they just need to say "yes, we plan on doing that."  What they're doing is effectively the same thing.

2. I thought Pence came off very unlikeable.  I don't know if Harris did a good job, but Pence came off as disrespectful and haughty.  His answer on the "will you accept the results" question was just as disturbing as Trump's, and I have no idea why Harris and the moderator (who I thought was terrible) let him get away with it.  I've always seen Pence as the RNC liaison to Trump.  To see him use the same "I don't think we're going to lose so there's no point in even talking about it" was disturbing.

That's really disappointing.  I think if they picked the right guy, the show could continue without MacFarlane.  But I think he's great on the show, and it's written really well.

I wonder if he'd be okay with some sort of Sherlock-like situation.  Maybe just get the gang back together every few years and do something like 10 episodes.  People that can return will.  People that can't wouldn't.  Crews would probably rotate like that anyway.

Either way, I'm excited about Season 3 if it ever comes.  And if that's it, MacFarlane gave us an awesome show.

Also, remember two things:

1. Trump has stopped trying to win voters over.  His only strategy right now is to discredit the election, and it isn't working.  It also seemed like he might've been trying to force Biden to commit to things that would cause Biden to lose voters (adding to the Supreme Court, defund the police, antifa, etc).  The problem is that most of the radical left already hates Biden and wasn't going to vote for him anyway.  And there's a good chance that Trump sheds moderate voters with that strategy, making it a zero sum gain.

2. Biden doesn't have to win these debates.  He just can't lose so badly that he loses 6-7 points.  Ties are great for him.  "This debate was unwatchable" is great for him.  Even a minor Trump win is not bad.  Biden can't get blown away or look like a lost old man.  Stay on script, take your jabs when they're offered, and do what ireactions says.  Connect with your audience.

In sporting terms, Biden's magic number is 7 with 7 games remaining.  He can lose out, and he still wins if Trump also loses out.

It isn't about the name on the ballot.  You have to think about this in Trump terms.  If you're playing monopoly with a five year old and they are about to go bankrupt and they walk away, they don't consider themselves as having lost.  The loss doesn't happen until it's official.  And in that sense, he can absolutely do that.  I think it's a near-certainly that he will do that, even if it's in January.

He *cannot* lose.  He *will* not lose.  You see this a lot with online gaming - back in they day if your connection dropped during an online game, it would register as a tie.  So if you were playing a game with someone and they were losing, they could just unplug their game or internet connection and they wouldn't register a loss.  They could remain undefeated.

So I think Trump could drop out of the race, claiming fraud, at any point and he would consider himself to have never lost.  Biden would be president but it would be because it was unfair, not because he lost.  It would be on Trump's terms.  So whether that happens today or in a month or election day or two weeks after, he can drop out.  Take his ball and go home.  That or he'd stay and be escorted out by the secret service.  But even then, I think he'd claim that he quit before.

That's remarkable!  I've been staying off social media so I hadn't read that.

******

Another side note.  I thought Chris Wallace was incredible.  I also thought he was fair, putting Biden's feet to the fire as much as Trump's.  He was harder on Trump, but Trump was also acting out significantly more.

I ended up watching the debate.  What a disaster.

I don't know if Biden won, but he held his own against Trump's bullying.  Trump was obviously trying to get the old man confused and either get him angry or confused.  Neither worked.  That's a win.

The "stand by" comment is all people will remember, and it's an insane gaffe for Trump to make.  I think Trump is right that if he peels back from Bernie too much, he could lose some of the ultra-left. But I don't see why Trump feels like he has to specifically pander to the ultra-right.  You gotta think there are some Trump voters (not his base but his fringe voters) who would be turned off by that, and you gotta think that's a greater number than the Proud Boys he'd lose even if he openly condemned them.

Trump was already losing and even his base didn't think he did particularly well last night.  That's a really, really bad sign for him.  He lost voters last night.  He'll lose voters once the Supreme Court isn't an issue.  Are there 62 million Proud Boys?

Again, I think we need to discuss what "war" is.  It can be a "civil war" but it probably can't be a civil war like the last one we had.  This isn't North vs South or East vs West or anything like that.  There are Trump people and Biden people in every state.  In the "battleground states", it's close to 50/50.  So what would "war" even look like?  Neighbors shooting their neighbors with the wrong sign?  Trump might control the military, but he doesn't control every person in the military.  He can order the military to bomb blue cities, but they don't have to listen.  Same with the national guard.  Same with the police.  So I don't know who the "war" would be between.  There have to be "sides" to a war, and there aren't easily-distinguished sides in this war.  You can't look at someone and know who they voted for.

If you're talking about riots, then yeah.  I could see that either way.  If Trump throws out legit ballots to win, there will be protests and riots.  If Trump tries to throw out legit ballots to win and anyone stops him, there will be protests and ballots.

But there have been protests this whole time and there hasn't been anything like war.  Trump people have protested.  Biden people have protested.  And they've gone (mostly) peacefully.

Is there a chance that lone wolves could bring assault weapons to protests like we saw with that one kid?  And that people could die?  Sure.  But while I know there are people that are devoted to Trump, I haven't seen anyone willing to die for him.  I don't know if a 63-year-old retired housewife who watches OAN is going to take up arms and suicide bomb a DNC building.

If you're talking about political war....then absolutely.  And at that point, it depends on how much the Republicans are willing to "die" for Trump.  If they commit a crime for him and it doesn't work, they go to jail.  He can't protect them and might not protect them even if he wins.  All these scenarios assume that Republicans are willing to burn the country down to protect Donald Trump.  And while they were happy to vote to keep him in office, throwing out democracy for him is something completely different.  I'm happy to vote for Joe Biden, but I'm not going to fight for him.  I certainly wouldn't go to jail for him or die for him.

And it all depends on how things go.  Which is why it is 100% imperative that every Democrat vote early and, if in any way possible, vote in person.  Mail-in ballots have already been denied for administrative reasons, and there's plenty of time to re-send.  I'm going to vote as soon as they open in person and will encourage everyone I know to do so.

People should assume that every vote by mail is either going to count for Trump or be thrown out.

https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/superg … 234779394/

Interesting.  So Arrow and Supergirl will be gone.  Batwoman is obviously in some sort of state of chaos.  Legends is only *barely* in the Arrowverse (like Stargirl or Black Lightning).  Flash seems to be on its last legs, narratively.

I wonder if this is the beginning of the end.  There's a scenario where Flash ends soon.  Superman & Lois is about to start and Batwoman is rebooting with their season two so those two shows could keep it going for a long time.  But I wonder if, like the DC movies, these shows might not be all that connected.  There was a tie between Supergirl and Batwoman but all that ended with Kate Kane.

I'll be interested in what they decide to do.  Does this make Green Arrow and the Canaries more likely to move forward?  Or less likely?  Will Stargirl join Earth Prime?  Will Swamp Thing get picked up and added?  Or will they let this thing run its course on a smaller scale once Flash ends?

I can see that.  I do wish the show did some more positive stuff in this world.  I get what they're trying to do.  That, like athletes and actors and politicians, absolute power and love corrupts absolutely.  And I find the idea of superheroes who suck at their job (the Homelander plane crash being the best example) and a group of people with no powers who bring them in.

But while the Boys are heroic, I'd love to see examples of good superheroes (other than Starlight) in this universe.  I don't necessarily need Civil War every week, but it'd be nice to see some more of the superheroes you're talking about.

I think there's a real concern for this, but I don't even think they need to stack anything for it to happen.  For all the Republicans' celebrations of the Electoral College and the Democrats' condemnations of it, the EC is what's going to lock up Democratic power in the White House for a long time.  Once Texas flips (and it's only a matter of time), the Republicans in their current state have zero chance.  Right now, they essentially need to sweep every swing state to barely win.  If Texas is blue, they'd need to start flipping blue states...not just purple ones.

But I think there's an out for all this chaos.  Maybe a few.

1. The GOP in its current form dies and something replaces it.  We're probably due for something like this.  The Whigs died off.  Democrats and Republicans have rebranded before.  Maybe it'll still be called Republicans or something similar, but Trump could end up killing off the GOP as we know it (win or lose) and something would rise from the ashes.  Because the current strategy of "mostly uneducated white people" is not a strong one.  I think there are plenty of avenues to get people who are tired of both parties.  And if the Republicans rebrand, the Democrats could do the same.  Could be positive change.

2. The Democrats are on the verge of their own civil war.  There's a decent chance that the Democratic Party breaks into two - we'll call it the Biden Party and the Bernie Party for lack of better terms.  That would also help the Republicans either hold out for longer or help their new party gain traction.  I could see a timeline where the Republicans die, the Democrats take over and then schism, and then the Republicans come back.  Three parties for a time until we get back to two.

3. The Democrats are really bad at this game.  This election should be an absolute landslide, but they make things difficult on themselves.  They made things difficult on themselves in 2016.  They even made things difficult for themselves when they had a supermajority.  They're usually in a position to get things done, but they usually blow it.

RBG died.

I do wonder how this effects the election.  One of the reasons to vote for Trump would be for the Court.  If they rush through a confirmation, there's less reason to vote for Trump.  You might think you got 3 justices out and it doesn't matter after that.  Maybe Breyer retires or dies in the next four years, but RBG's spot was the jewel.  I'm fairly certain a lot of conservatives would happily trade a Biden win for another justice and call it a day.

But McConnell sucks.  And Lindsey Graham is showing him to be the piece of shit we all knew him to be.

RIP Justice Ginsburg.  You did a hell of a job.

I don't think Biden is a lock.  I'll just start with that.

But if things go the way they should, Biden should absolutely win.  538 has Biden at a 75% chance of winning and that's including Rasmussen polls (which are getting more biased and thus more wrong since 2016).  That also includes built-in shenanigans from both the coronavirus and the Trump administration (as best they could).  I would think if this were a normal election, it'd be much closer to the 84% that we see from the Economist.  Maybe higher.

I would 100% hope that as many people go and vote as soon as the early voting happens.  I'm going to make sure I can go day one.  Get your vote in, in person, and if something is wrong with your voter record, you have time to try and sort it out.  If you're worried about violence or lines or coronavirus, you can pick your location.  In Texas, they give a status on how long the wait is at each place and you can vote at any of them.  If you see people with guns or you see a line or you're worried about cleanliness, you can go somewhere else.

I know people don't have unlimited free time, especially from work...especially now.  But you have time to work with your boss/supervisor and get time off.  If you can easily get away, you could only miss an hour of work and you have a month to swap shifts with someone, pick up some extra time to make up for any lost pay, etc.  There will be people that will have to get off for election day - volunteer to swap shifts with them so you can vote early. 

There are ways to make it work.  Every time I've voted early, I was in and out in less than 10 minutes.  I've done it every single elections I've been eligible for.

I would also add that, if it were me, I'd have moved the movie out of Gotham.  Again, this is a movie within the underground of Gotham and featuring the Gotham PD where there are no A-list Batman villains nor any real mention of Batman himself.

If this was all happening anywhere else, then there's no narrative issue.  You can even have a plot where Sionis has moved out of Gotham because it got too weird and moved to a place that was more-easily conquered.  The one plot change you'd have to make is the whole "everyone in town wants to kill Harley" but you could either have that at the beginning of the movie before she moves or give any other reason why Harley is hated (my thought - Harley goes "home" after the breakup and the town hates her because their claim to fame is being home to Harley Quinn).