Vote!

Today is election day.

Even if you're frustrated with what's going on in the world or even in the United States, your vote matters and I hope you take the time to make the ballot.

The 2023 United States elections are scheduled to be held, in large part, on Tuesday, November 7, 2023. The off-year election includes gubernatorial and state legislative elections in a few states, as well as numerous citizen initiatives, mayoral races, and a variety of other local offices on the ballot. At least three special elections to the United States Congress were scheduled as either deaths or vacancies arose.

The election cycle was generally marked by a trend of strong Democratic overperformances in special elections. Daily Kos and FiveThirtyEight analyses of at least 38 races as of September 2023 determined that the party outperformed the partisan lean by an average of 10 percent; in comparison, Democrats outperformed by an average of 4 percent in elections held between the 2018 and 2020 elections, and an average of 7.6 percent in elections held in 2020. The 2023 overperformances consisted of unusually larger margins of victory in races held in safely Democratic areas and unusually smaller margins of defeat in races held in safely Republican areas. These results were seen as surprising considering the low approval ratings of incumbent Democratic President Joe Biden and polls indicating his middling prospects in the 2024 presidential election. Both Democratic and Republican operatives attributed the overperformance streak to general support for abortion access in the wake of the Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision (which was also believed to have driven a similarly strong Democratic overperformance during the second half of the 2022 election cycle), as well as disapproval over the 2024 presidential campaign of Washed Up 45 and his continuing influence over the Republican Party.