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There’s a fair chance Americans won’t know the winner of Tuesday’s presidential election while it’s still Tuesday or maybe even Wednesday. The main reason? Many states have made it easier to request a mail ballot amid the coronavirus pandemic and concerns about crowded polling places. But mail ballots generally require more time to process than ballots that are.
“We need to give voters more credit than some talking heads and pundits tend to do,” said Steven Greenberg, pollster for Siena College. “Voters see (governors) a lot closer and know a lot more about what they re doing, and therefore can nuance their views (better).”
Polarization - particularly in presidential battleground states - also seems to limit the swing of approval numbers these days. Although most governors saw a double-digit boost in approvals during the early months of the pandemic, most politicians have seen those gains come back to Earth as the partisan divide over COVID deepens.
Bigger swings have been seen in states without deeply-sowed partisan lines, as the most popular governors in the country during the pandemic were moderate Republicans leading traditionally-blue states, according to data intelligence company Morning Consult.