Which basket case are you? 6 types of election anxiety

Well, here we are in the home stretch. With barely 72 hours until polls close, it’s time for anxious Bay Areans to enter their final freakout phase. Some are phone-banking strangers until they can’t dial another digit. Others are ignorantly blissing out, believing that the universe always comes through.

Three days before the presidential election that may be the most significant of our lives — although hasn’t that been the case with the past five or six? — the stress of it all is positively overwhelming. But everybody handles anxiety differently, so we came up with a set of categories. Call it a typology of basket cases, if you will. Here are the different types of SF voters and how they’re dealing with quadrennial November dread.

Signs this is you: 4:45 a.m. doomscrolling about which way Georgia’s electoral votes might go. 

Carolyn Wysinger is not merely a registered Democrat; she’s also the mayor pro tem of the City of El Cerrito. A Black lesbian, she’s sweating the election almost as much as if her name were on the ballot this time. (She’s safe until 2026.) “I spent all last weekend in Reno door-knocking for Kamala, so being around other Harris supporters who have election anxiety made me feel better,” she said. 

She connected her family in Louisiana with local Democratic organizations, and her mother reported signs of enthusiasm from that ruby-red state. “Polls are not accounting for all the new people [Harris] is bringing into the coalition, and I think she’ll win all the Blue Wall states,” said Wysinger.

Optimism is not necessarily quieting her mind, and she admits to losing sleep. “I am very clearly in early menopause, so insomnia’s part of the package. They talk about not scrolling at all to balance your hormones, but I doomscroll to check [prediction site] 270toWin first thing in the morning. To calm myself, I wake up to ‘Cheaters’ on VH1.” 

If the election were held today: “I do think Kamala will win. I think it will be 2016 in reverse.” 

Signs this may be you: Your media diet is on a diet.

Not everyone is freaking out — even people who face uncertain futures in the event of a Trump victory. Korvin Bothwell is a transgender man and Duboce Triangle resident who works in tech and typically pays close attention to the news. Not now, however. 

“I would describe myself as a disengaged optimist and dedicated progressive,” Bothwell said. “And the reason for my disengagement is I’m not reading any mainstream media.” His approach isn’t a total media blackout. He occasionally peeps at “journalists who are sending their positive takes into the world” on Bluesky, which has emerged as the plucky alternative to an ever-grimmer X. “But no, no doomscrolling!”

If the election were held today: “I’m going to say Harris.”

Signs this might be you: People in SF blink when you mention where you’re from; you’re the only one in your biological family to the left of Sen. Joe Manchin.

Donald Hamblock, a self-described techie who lives in Ashbury Heights, grew up in a small town in Montana. He’s watching the closely fought Senate race there — in which Democratic incumbent Sen. Jon Tester is in the fight for his political life, putting control of the chamber in play — more closely than the presidential race. But he’s trying to avoid the news. 

“I was a lot more actively panicked in previous elections,” Hamblock said. “You can’t avoid the headlines, but I try not to read the articles. I know who I’m voting for. I don’t need to know anything more about Trump, ever.” 

If the election were held today: “I still think Harris is gonna squeak it out.”

Signs this may be you: You distract yourself with travel or even busy work to keep from considering what you think is inevitable.

In spite of the fallout from the racist jokes at Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden, at least one Bay Area of Puerto Rican descent thinks the former president is poised to win this thing. 

“It’s not equally divided, but there are huge groups of Puerto Ricans who are Trump supporters,” said Yosiat Gimbernard, who lives near Alamo Square and works in finance. One reason is that the threat of deportation doesn’t apply to Puerto Ricans, who are American citizens. “We don’t feel the brunt of the talking points of the greater Latin American community.”

Gimbernard volunteered for a District 5 candidate for supervisor but otherwise sat out the presidential race. To put some distance between himself and any ulcers, he mailed his ballot and joined his partner on an extended business trip to Jordan, where they will be until several days after the election. U.S. politics followed them to the Middle East anyway. “My [Jordanian] taxi driver was like, ‘I think he’s gonna win,’” he said. 

If the election were held today: “I honestly feel a little detached being abroad, but I don’t feel hopeful. Trump would win.”

Signs this might be you: You’re involved with getting out the vote but take the long view when it comes to the actual outcome.

Jay Donde is president of the Briones Society, a center-right GOP group that has taken over the local Republican Party chapter from a more fervent MAGA faction. He’s trying to be philosophical about Nov. 5, he said. “This election is one of many, and if things don’t go our way, we’ll have another bite at the apple. Certainly, if Trump gets elected, there will be limits on what he can accomplish.”

He sounds serene, but Donde is working hard, estimating he put in 80 hours of effort in October alone. Briones has sent out a slate mailer to 30,000 households this month and undertaken four straight weekends of door-knocking, trying to get the 12.7% of SF residents who are registered Republican to vote. This weekend will bring a big phone-banking session.

If the election were held today: “It’s a coin toss. Am I losing sleep over whether a coin toss goes my way? No, it’s gonna be an accident of the universe.” 

Signs this is you: You’re exhausted with the process, coupled with a whole lot of shitposting.

“I may be the least panicked person you’re going to talk to,” said Dom Marconi, who works in biotech and posts a lot of leftist memes on social media. “This is the inevitable conclusion when everything is always the lesser of two evils.” Putting almost no value in electoral politics as a vehicle for change, he’s disgusted with the tone of the ads on both sides.

How would Marconi characterize his state of mind? Total apathy, he said. “I’ve never felt less concerned. I saw this coming a year ago, and it’s all kind of happening now, even in more hilarious ways.”

Still, he plans to vote. “I’m loving the boxes in every neighborhood you can drop your ballot off in,” he said.

If the election were held today: “My gut instinct says Harris, in a tight one that may be contested for weeks.”