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State of the Union, Election Day – politicalbetting.com
So here we are, finally at election day. And as the comedian Emo Phillips said, ‘It’s hard to believe that this long, crazy election will finally be over in a few months.’ Because it’s that close.
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It was my wife's birthday, so I asked her what she wanted.
"Oh, I don't know - something expensive that I don't need...."
So I bought her a course of chemotherapy....
Feeling nervous about the vote? At @Georgetown's McCourt School of Public Policy, students dealing with election jitters can play with Legos, or have milk and cookies.
Not satire:
https://x.com/bariweiss/status/1853803197636190429
My rates are reasonable.
Back in 2007, I attended a conference at Snowbird, Utah. In January, flying from London to Salt Lake City via a layover at Chicago O'Hare. Didn't stray too far from the conference centre/hotel, except to take the aerial tram (cable car) to the top of Hidden Peak, 11,000 feet up, and affording a very decent view of Salt Lake City in the distance. Coming back from Salt Lake City, my domestic flight was delayed by snow for at least two hours, only just made it to O'Hare on time to catch the London flight!
In 2009, I attended the same conference but this time at Santa Fe, New Mexico, in February, again flying via O'Hare to Albuquerque, and then a shuttle bus. Much better location, with its famed neat Adobe buildings all over the town. Also had a spare day to do my first ever train ride Stateside, Santa Fe to Albuquerque (walked a teeny section of Route 66!) and back on the New Mexico Rail Runner. The route was very scenic, although as we went through a Native American Reserve part of the way through, we were told not to take any pictures from the window. Most of that week was very sunny and reasonably warm. No snow delay this time around!
My third (and thus far last) stay in the US was my longest. Actually worked the first three months of 2011 at the University of Colorado at Boulder. I flew direct from London to Denver, then shuttle bus to Boulder. Stayed in Uni accommodation, subsidised, but decent, as in an entire apartment. Weather fluctuated wildly in January that year, the day after I arrived there was a blizzard, whereas three weeks later, I walked around the Uni campus without a coat. Had free travel in the Greater Denver area (the RTD), so took advantage of that to spend quite a bit of what free time I had exploring Denver (just one hour away by bus) and doing the whole of the Light Rail network (as it was in 2011 - it's expanded a lot since!). I was actually a little apprehensive regarding availability of vegetarian food, but I needn't have worried. Boulder and even Denver actually had a decent selection! Also remember seeing The King's Speech in Boulder, and True Grit re-make in Denver. Back then, of course, Denver was still in good shape, but perhaps presaging @Leon's recent observations, the main bus station had quite a few homeless people staying there.
Minnesota I have put some money on it going Red. The rationale is:
1. Demographics fairly favourable to Trump;
2. He was close in 2016 if not 2020;
3. Polling has been scarce - the last two were Ras and Atlas but a few weeks back the Minneapolis Post only had Harris was a +3 lead;
4. Minnesota was one of those states that had a heavy anti-Biden vote in the primaries. It has a large-ish Somali population and it is a widely held Muslim view that the Palestinian issue is a Muslim one, not an Arab one o.e. if dissatisfaction at Harris over Gaza is widespread, it will manifest itself in the Somali population.
Re Virginia, weighing things up - Youngkin's arguments seem credible but the demographics are less attractive. However (1) the turnout in Democrat areas has lagged R ones generally (2) the question mark over the Black vote and (3) the trans issue effect, particularly in places like Loudoun
At the end of the day if Harris wins it will not be due to anti Trump votes in my view but scraping home in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania because inflation is lower than it is US wide there (and she may pick up Iowa too which also has below average inflation) and unemployment also overall lower in the bluewall states than US wide.
By contrast I expect Trump to sweep the sunbelt with Nevada unemployment the highest of any US state and inflation in Georgia for instance also above average.
Hopefully not with students, although they might all end up fighting over the blue bricks?
Very little of any value to contribute (twas ever thus) but to what extent have the markets and the "guesstimates" been driven by polling which has been weaponised in this election in a way we only saw glimpses of in our election (People Polling?).
If you get polling biased toward one side it creates an impression, drives perceptions, drives markets.
As the line had it in the late and probably unlamented Babylon 5 spinoff, Crusade, (you see, @TSE, you're not the only one who can put in obscure sci fi references) and should be asked of all pollsters and polls.
"Who do you serve? And who do you trust?"
Against that, the polls in Kansas, New Hampshire and Iowa all have Harris doing extremely well in very white Midwest and/or North Eastern states. And Minnesota is a very white state. Plus Tim Walz was the Governor (and was a pretty popular one as I understand it.)
They managed to make the Saturn V from 1969 pieces
R+24
🔴 REP: 143,373 (48.53%)
🔵 DEM: 73,148 (24.76%)
🟡 NO PARTY: 69,860 (23.65%)
Coup de Grace #1 was that all participants - that is, about 80 buildings - were then invited to place their buildings around a road layout. It was the most satisfying lego outcome of my life that far. It was a town which had grown organically but which made sense.
Coup de Grace #2 was that everyone plugged their wires into a battery, and the lights were switched off, giving us the town at night.
It was one of the happiest moments of my life.
A slightly bittersweet post script: the following morning, my daughter said to me "I wonder what we'll be doing next week at Lego club?" Very hard to tell her that something so wonderful was just a one-off.
Cut it out!
The models, for all their sins, still do have Trump edging it.
Trump ahead: the election is over, he's won nationwide. Why? Because even with a big gender gap in favour of Democrats, and even with the Democratic strongholds of Fulton, DeKalb and Cobb having higher than average turnout, he's leading. It's not going to be particularly close. Pile on Trump.
Harris up by more than 5 percentage points: she's going to win Georgia. Why? Because if three quarters of the vote has been counted and someone is 5+ points behind, they need to win on the day by a massive amount - around 20 percentage points, maybe more. And if Harris wins Georgia, I think it's highly, highly likely she wins the Presidency.
If Harris is up by 0 to 2 points, then Georgia is almost certainly going Red, but you probably can't read too much into the nationwide picture yet. If she's up by 3 to 5 points, then she needs to be favourite for Georgia, but -again- you probably can't read too much into the national picture.
Polling stations are open across America and I understand polling is "brisk"
See you all later 👍
A bit like PB Tory Labour three quidders.
🔴 REP: 243,360 (47.5%)
🔵 DEM: 183,524 (25.4%)
🟡 NO PARTY: 173,673 (24,0%)
R+22. This is fairly similar to the early vote stats. A bit more Republican but not much.
The question is how many of the REPs actually vote DEM? Shy women
And how many of the NO PARTY vote DEM? A lot.
DEM taking Florida is 13/1 on Betfair. I think that is fair.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/08/upshot/florida-poll-harris-trump.html
Of course, if it's R+24 in the end (and I suspect it won't be because I suspect Independents break more Dems), then it's disastrous for Harris, and she will lose nationwide by a big margin.
Early votes D/R/N was 33/44/23 so votes today are more Republican.
Since 2018 Florida has been going backwards fast for the Democrats. Like Ohio, it simply isn't a swing state any more.
Really good debater though, I could listen to her and Bill Maher argue about politics for days on end - they agree on far more than they disagree. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpCDZXERKnQ
took almost 90 minutes
the line is longer now. They expect it to get worse
The new machines are the problem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_New_York_gubernatorial_election#By_county
For Trump to win the state, he would need to take Queens and run close in Brooklyn plus win Erie county (Buffalo) up state. It feels like it would require a significant switch of ethnic minority voters in NYC.
New Jersey is probably a slightly easier target. Here is the 2021 Gubernatorial result
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_New_Jersey_gubernatorial_election
Trump would need to flip some of the NYC suburban counties like Bergen or Passaic or close the gap in inner city areas like Camden and Jersey City.
Total votes: 9,152,354
Dem: 2,955,696
R: 3,974,687
NP: 1,955,901
R lead D by 11%
This is the vote as of now on VoteHub livefeed.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c07912lxx33o
Count the presidential race first. Then the senate, then the house then the gubernatorial. Then state house senators, state house congressmen and so on in decreasing order of importance. Noone is going to give a hoot if the dog catcher takes a month to come in.
Remember, though, at the moment nobody knows anything. And anyone with isolated crumbs of information knows less than nothing.
He has told MPs he has twice written to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in the past month to say "it needs to be finished by the end of March 2025".
"I never received a response," Sir Alan said, adding: "Deadlines do need to be set. People have been waiting far too long."
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Another small straw in the wind that the #10 media operation isn't very good. This bloke (quite rightly) is going to make sure everybody knows if you dick him around, if you get a letter from him, probably good idea to get some sort of reply out ASAP.
You can't slash 80% of the public sector without eating into police, soldiers, doctors and nurses.
Seems to be a lot of assumption flying about that registered voters will stick with party.
Sir Tim Lankester, Margaret Thatcher's first private secretary for economic affairs, discusses his new book "Inside Thatcher's Monetarism Experiment"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XntmE8UIghQ
I find the whole election process in the US extremely confusing but then I admit I do not have a great interest in it though Trump must be beaten
I really admire the detail and in depth knowledge of so many on here in this highly significant event and find it quite fascinating
I hope everyone wins well on their bets and the world wins with the defeat of Trump
Slow Horses is easily the better drama of the two. The Diplomat takes a dramatised American approach to British politics and while it might work for American audiences, for me it just didn't feel credible at all. The idea that the Foreign Secretary would basically ask the permission of the US ambassador to launch a VONC is ridiculous.
The acting is first rate though and probably what saves it, the script and story could use a lot of refinement.
Starmer needs to respond as Sir Alan is not someone to fall out with
We will get the first numbers from Kentucky, where polls in the Eastern half of the stake close at 6pm first. So: not long after 11pm UK time, the first figures will start to show on the various news sites. There basically haven't been any polls from Kentucky (literally none on Trump v Harris), and Trump won it by 26 points in 2016. Almost all the Democrat votes (literally) are in two urban counties, with many of the rural ones coming in with 80+% numbers for Trump last time. Therefore, one probably can't read too much into early results.
At midnight UK time, the polls close in (most of) Florida and Georgia. Personally, I buy the NYTimes thesis that Florida has trended sharply red since 2016 (with the Democrats having won essentially no statewide races in a decade), and I suspect this won't be any different. That said: if Trump looks like he's carrying Florida by more than 15 percentage points (i.e. slightly more than the NYTimes poll), then you want to pile on him. Conversely, if it looks close, then it's very good news for Harris. But I would be wary of extrapolating too much.
At 12:30am UK time, North Carolina polls close. And they will drop - almost immediately - about 35% of the votes. Now - unlike with Georgia - I don't known the composition of the early votes there. But I think the Democrats would want to see a lead to be confident of being competitive in the State. We probably won't know for sure which way the State is pointing until 1:30am, when 65% of the vote will be in.
Georgia, I've written on below, but by 1am UK time, we're going to have 75% of the state counted. At that point - unless it's something like Harris +3 - we're going to know the likely winner of the state.
Virginia closed at 7pm Eastern (midnight UK), but it is a relatively slow counter. If @Renegade_pollster is right, though, we'll see some big Republican numbers early from here because rural areas report first. The same is true of New Hampshire, where - again - it will take some time for votes to be counted.
We won't get anything from Michigan or Pennsylvania until 2am UK time, and Wisconsin will be 3am. That said, at least Wisconsin counts quickly. We should know the results of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania by 4am UK time, which will also be when Arizona drops. (Yes, Arizona gets its results out before Michigan.)
Nevada I'm afraid probably won't report its first vote until 6am UK time, so I probably wouldn't stay up for that unless it was a complete nail biter.
https://www.bricktownnm.com/