It is Going to be Unreasonably Close, But Hillary is Going to Win: It is incredibly frustrating to be watching the election from this side of the pond. I just feel so utterly impotent. If I was back in New Jersey, I’d be volunteering, making calls, going house to house, and taking road trips to swing states. It might not actually do any good (but the chance that it might would be enough). It would at least make me feel better. What I have been doing is compulsively reading about the election, which has mainly served to drive me crazy. But I have become convinced that Hillary is going to pull this out. Here is why:

• The Democrats always go into Presidential Elections with a large number of electoral votes pretty much in the bag, since they should win the big states on both coasts (except Florida). This election is no exception and Hillary seems to have a base of 260+ relatively sure electoral votes. She doesn’t have to win more than one or two of the toss-up states to win the election and she is ahead in a number of them.
• Trump, on the other hand needs to run the table of all of the swing states and probably take a surprise state like Michigan. You can’t say it is impossible, especially if you believe the possibility that the polls might be completely off. But it seems very unlikely.
• People and pundits seem to love to point at the Brexit vote (and the last Cameron victory) as proof of the unreliability of polls, but, in fact, that only shows the unreliability of British polls. I was listening to a 538 podcast the other day and they explained that American polls are simply better. This is partly because we have so many more polls. There is a multi-million dollar election industry in the US that is on a different scale than that of the UK and which relies on and pays for accurate polling. Between money and volume, US polls are more likely to be accurate over all. It is not a sure thing for Hillary to go into Election Day with a three-point lead in the polling average, but it is very meaningful.
• After this whole horrible endless election, the state of the race is startlingly similar to the place it was in the same point in 2008 and 2012, with a few more undecided votes. It may be that a 3-5 point win for the Democratic candidate is just the equilibrium point and that Clinton and Donald somehow cancelled each other out and we ended up back at square one.
• It appears from early voting that turnout will be very large, especially among Hispanics. This should favor Clinton. Trumps’ best shot (and what is always the Republican’s best shot) is a low turnout election in which his angry white men turn out in waves.
• Judie’s mother voted for Clinton and reported that the other people in her assisted living home, mostly conservative church ladies and lifelong Republicans in North Carolina, unanimously voted for Clinton. I find that kind of remarkable.
• I have an unreasoning and utterly unscientific belief that a majority of the American people will reject Trump.

I think I am right. I certainly hope so.

Brexit Update: the big news last week was that the Court ruled on the challenge to the way Article 50 might be invoked. (That is the Article of the EU Agreement that governs leaving the Union and starts a two-year timetable.) Theresa May and the Conservatives have taken the position that this can be done by Prime Minister, relying on the ancient principle of “royal prerogative”, which was gradually moved from the monarch to the PM. The challengers said that, under British constitutional law, the Parliament is supreme. They argued that since Parliament passed an act joining the EU, which conferred rights to UK citizens, an act of Parliament is needed to reverse that step. The challengers carried the day and the government is appealing to the highest court. (The right-wing, pro-Brexit press immediately engaged in a truly reprehensible attack on the judiciary, which May and the new Lord Chancellor never really denounced and took their time even saying “tsk, tsk”.)

There is a decent argument in favor of overruling the lower court and it might happen. But if it doesn’t, May is in a tricky spot. The Conservative majority is small and many of them were anti-Brexit in the referendum. Indeed, if one had polled Parliament before the referendum, Britain would still be in the EU. But now the MPs are all talking about “the will of the people”. What no one says is that it was only 52% of the people, in a campaign in which it was clear that both sides lied about the impact and a good number of people didn’t completely understand what is that they were voting for. But that doesn’t seem to matter, since many formerly pro-EU MPs are now worried about an electoral backlash. So it has always seemed to me that this fear will trump reason and there is no real likelihood that a majority of the Parliament will reject the referendum result.

But what they might do is insist on some sort of detail about what Brexit means to May and her team. If such a course was possible as a part of an Article 50 Parliamentary approval, the disarray in May’s government would be exposed. It is unclear that the Brexit ministers have a coherent idea of what they are looking for in the break from the EU and it is abundantly clear that members of Conservative party have wildly divergent ideas. You can appreciate that May doesn’t want to go into negotiations having given away their strategy. On the other hand it would be nice to know whether their goal is a hard Brexit, with a complete break from the EU (favored by the far right MPs) or a result which maintains market access while slightly limiting immigration in some way. In two and half years, the negotiations will be over and Britain will be faced with essentially a take it or leave it proposition, since there will be no time to negotiate a further change. So this is probably Parliament’s best shot to direct the outcome.

Faced with that, there is a chance that May will call a snap election, figuring that she could increase the Conservative majority with Labour in disarray. This would make it easier to push through whatever it is they want to do with respect to Brexit, in theory. But maybe not. There would be a danger that such an election could turn into a de facto second referendum on leaving the EU. That is a vote that would not be a sure thing for May. Given the dangers of holding an election that might lead to a weakening of “the will of the people”, I’d guess that is more likely that May and the government will just try to play political hardball with the Parliament if the current judicial decision is upheld.