Harger: Three weeks until Election Day and 2016’s lessons still matter

With Election Day rapidly approaching, the pace in newsrooms across the country is shifting into high gear. That sure is the case in the KIRO Newsradio/MyNorthwest newsroom. In just three weeks, Americans will cast their votes, ballot boxes will be locked and the fate of the nation will be sealed.

But as the final stretch of this election cycle unfolds, one thing has become clear to me: some people still haven’t learned from the political lessons of 2016. And no, this isn’t about the candidates. It’s about voters and pundits — those who were stunned by the outcome of that presidential race, despite the clear signs that should have softened the blow. Polls had Hillary Clinton leading, and respected data analysts like Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight put Donald Trump’s chances of victory at around 1 in 3. Yet somehow, many interpreted that number as meaning a Trump win was nearly impossible.

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They didn’t grasp that a one-in-three chance doesn’t mean “no chance.” It means that, in roughly every three scenarios, Trump was likely to win one of them. And in November 2016, that’s exactly what happened.

Fast forward to today, and I’m not so sure that same lesson has sunk in for everyone. Over the weekend, I was out and about in Seattle, catching up with people who know I work at KIRO Newsradio and follow politics closely. Naturally, the topic of the upcoming election came up, and I was asked the question that’s on everyone’s mind: “So, who’s going to win?”
Without hesitation, I answered, “It’s a coin flip.”

I expected some confusion, but the looks of shock and disbelief I received were something else entirely. It reminded me of that iconic moment from “The NeverEnding Story” — the scene where Atreyu loses his horse, Artax, in the Swamp of Sadness. The expressions on their faces carried the same weight of pain and denial, as if I had just delivered news that something they held dear was slipping away.

You see, even though it might feel like some candidates are clear favorites, the reality is that this election is anything but predictable. If we are to believe the polls — and that’s always a cautious “if” — the race is too close to call in crucial swing states like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

For some voters, the idea their candidate might not cruise to an easy victory is hard to accept. They see their choice as the clear, superior option and can’t fathom how the opposition could be gaining any traction. In some cases, they even dismiss the polls entirely, arguing that the numbers are manipulated by partisan interests or biased media outlets.

It’s true that there are some lower-quality polls out there, ones that might skew the numbers in favor of a particular narrative. But the major, respected polls — the ones we rely on for a broader sense of the national race — show that Vice President Kamala Harris has a slight lead overall. Yet in those all-important swing states, she’s locked in a tight race with Donald Trump.

This isn’t to say that Harris can’t pull ahead or that Trump is guaranteed a repeat of 2016. What it does mean is that this election is likely to come down to the wire. In fact, it could be decided by fewer than 100,000 votes spread across a handful of states. That’s razor-thin in a country with millions of voters, and it underscores just how much every ballot counts.

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If you’re looking at the odds, they suggest this race is even closer than the one we saw eight years ago. In 2016, FiveThirtyEight gave Trump a 1-in-3 chance of victory. This year, they’re giving him a 46% chance of reclaiming the presidency — nearly a toss-up.

With only three weeks to go, it’s anyone’s game. The next few weeks will be filled with debates, campaign stops and endless polling data, but if 2016 taught us anything, it’s that nothing is certain until the last vote is cast — and even then, the story might not end the way we expect.

In fact, this election feels a bit like “The NeverEnding Story.” We’ve trudged through the Swamp of Sadness before, thinking we knew how it would end, only to be surprised by the twists and turns along the way. So, buckle up — because just like in the movie, we don’t know who will emerge victorious until the final chapter is written.

Charlie Harger is the news director for MyNorthwest and KIRO Newsradio. Follow Charlie on X here and email him here

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