We all know that the plural of anecdote is not data. However, I thought this anecdote was worth sharing.
I live in Greene County in Ohio. Sadly, it is fairly red; I think it went ~69% for Romney in 2012. Neighboring Montgomery County, which includes the city of Dayton, is much more blue, and while Greene County has some islands of blue (i.e. Yellow Springs, home of Antioch College and comedian Dave Chappelle), it is mostly red.
There have been several folks in and around my neighborhood who have had Trump signs up for a while. A few “Hillary for Prison” signs here and there, and the occasional friendly Clinton/Kaine sign. Of course yard signs are not an accurate measure of enthusiasm or estimator of voting, but there are a LOT more Trump than Clinton signs around.
I have been making mental notes of which homes and businesses have put up Trump signs so as to not associate with them in the future. There is a house around the corner who put up three Trump/Pence signs just about 10 days ago. It happens to be a corner house, so it is pretty visible. I was not surprised to see the signs, as this home is the kind who finds it funny to hide on the porch and jump out to scare little kids trick-or-treating (we have avoided them the last couple Halloweens and were planning to do the same this year even before the Trump signs went up).
Anyway, I was just out taking the dogs for an evening walk when I noted that the signs were gone. Taken down. Missing.
Now I don't know if these folks were embarrassed after the news from the last 24 hours, if they have changed their vote, or if they were just not interested in publicly proclaiming their support for a sexual offender. But the signs are down.
Much like all the cowardly Republicans who are just now disavowing Trump, these folks were fine with the xenophobic comments, the racist comments, insulting a Gold Star mother, the complete lack of substance, the homophobia… but loathsome comments about white women (combined with the polls looking terrible for Team Red) — now finally that's what got them to put the signs away, to take down their public support for the monster running as the Republican.
So it probably doesn't mean much, but it was still gratifying to see.
Hillary is going to win the debate soundly tomorrow night, and the avalanche of polls next week will have her up around double digits. Ohio is going blue. 350+ electoral votes are on the way, a blue Senate, and just maybe Speaker Pelosi.
And the neighbors who scare little kids will be too embarrassed to show their support for Trump, the worst nominee from a major party in the history of our great nation.