Apparently not: the first spike is two and three days after the election, the second is November 26th

Yes

I just switched mine; thanks!
Do I need to tell all (well, both) my followers to update anything?
Also: the page mentions that my old handle becomes available. It's unlikely but possible that someone with the same name as me will join. Would we need to coordinate things should that happen?

And, as if to prove it, mine is showing the same problem. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Try it again - I didn’t have any problem finding yours. I think it’s a temporary scaling problem. They’ve picked up a lot more interest than expected over the last week or so and the servers are struggling to keep up