US President-elect Joe Biden. (Image: AP/Carolyn Kaster)

I'd like to write that it's now clear that sanity has prevailed, dignity will be restored to the Oval Office, and Donald Trump will have even more time for golf and less time to damage democracy.

Not so fast. This election has turned out to be closer than most good polling and pundits predicted.

Regardless of the outcome, this is some kind of vindication for the concept of the “shy Trump voter”. Fashioned on some vague notion of “shy Tories” in the UK, the idea is that people who fear social disapproval by admitting they are willing to vote for Trump end up skewing polls with no obvious way for pollsters to correct the phenomenon.