On the 538 forecast, I have some sympathy. They gave Biden a 90% chance of winning. It looks likely he has won. He could even get a fairly decent EC result if the final states all fall in line. 90% is not 100%. We are dealing with probabilities here.
The problem was more that the received wisdom appeared to be that a Biden win was going to be apparent early doors, with strong results in NC and FL supposed to set the scene for the evening. That didn’t happen and he’s had to rely on some squeakers to get through. The polls were particularly off in the South. But to be fair to Nate Silver he has always said Trump had a path to victory and Biden’s victory could be anything from a nailbiter to a landslide. Though i must admit that always looked like bet-hedging to me - if you say any result is possible it means you’re going to be able to claim some sort of victory after the event.
Although this wasn’t the blowout the Democrats wanted (I think they wanted a cathartic clean sweep to purge the nation of Trumpism) at the end of the day nobody cares how many EVs the president won for the next 4 years. I don’t think they should be despondent.
The senate is a different story and that is where the Democrats do have cause to be disappointed. It will make a Biden presidency much less radical and much more small c conservative, and if the GOP want to play obstructionists they can.
But also to be fair, the issue was people misunderstanding what a "90%" chance meant. People thought it meant "a landslide". What it actually meant was "multiple paths to victory" (of course the corollary is that a landslide was possible). The more paths you have to victory, the more you can sustain polling errors or other upsets in individual (or even a number of) states. Trump had a very narrow path to victory and could not afford any upsets. It looks like this will be the case. Biden may well do more than he needed*, but can even afford to lose Pennsylvania because of the alternative path including Arizona. And possibly there will have even been an alternative path involving Georgia.
I am sure FiveThirtyEight will be given stick for their predictions of Biden having a 90% chance. But in some sense this has been vindicated - Biden looks like he has won despite a polling error similar to Clinton (possibly bigger in FL)
The real winner of this cycle was Ann Selzer's Iowa poll
Would love to know why that massive swing occurred.
Why incumbent presidents are so hard to defeat, the politically disinterested naturally gravitate toward them. Only a huge Democrat turnout effort was able to overcome it this time. To my mind the fact the Selzer poll was able to reach Trump supporters and have them honestly reveal their preferences is interesting too.
Name recognition probably counts for a lot, in a world where most people don't follow politics. Biden might have been a canny choice after all, given how long he's been around and his generally good reputation
Time to wheel out my roles theory? The President is Head of State (cf HM Queen) and also Head of Government (cf the Prime Minister) and it is quite likely that many voters approved of Trump as Head of Government, boosting the economy and not starting wars, even if repelled by the lack of dignity (lies, racebaiting) he brought to the Head of State role.
And if you do not like that, how about my Covid theory? Early on, voters were appalled by Trump's mishandling of the pandemic killing hundreds of thousands of Americans, but recent encouraging news from the test tube wallahs has taken Covid off the table of issues that matter.
So if you’re Biden, you’ve just won more votes than any of predecessors but you’ll struggle to pass any legislation for two years during the long slog of recovery from Covid-19. You then lose the House, definitely can’t pass anything, and spent your life on the defensive on the run in to 2024.
What a mad electoral system.
Unless you think the best thing for a country is a government that can't do anything. Italy used to provide some evidence to support that idea. Not so much these days.
So if you’re Biden, you’ve just won more votes than any of predecessors but you’ll struggle to pass any legislation for two years during the long slog of recovery from Covid-19. You then lose the House, definitely can’t pass anything, and spent your life on the defensive on the run in to 2024.
What a mad electoral system.
The system is designed to be inherently conservative. However it does suppose a degree of government by consensus which doesn’t reflect the current American political culture.
Conversely you could argue not having the Senate might help Biden as he wont be able to say yes to the more left-leaning members of the Democratic caucus like AOC and he’ll have to govern as a moderate.
I'm up about thirty quid on under 100 staked, so this isn't a tilt-rage, but the inability of major US cities to get a count done in good time is a real stain on US politics. This isn't a partisan thing; Wisconsin is as bad as Michigan, although Pennsylvania seems to be the worst. As well as being crap (it's just counting bits of paper) it means that the "they stole the election" meme looks legit, even if it isn't.
If a handful of states stop counting overnight, and then pick up again all with big D swings, it looks suspicious. And there's no honest reason for stopping and starting either; if the banjo-plucking moonshine drinkers of Bumphook County, Oklahoma can flick their mayonnaisey fingers through all the ballots by midnight, then huwhy in cousin-f*cking tarnation can't a city of Philadelphia's reputation get more than halfway by now?
And reporting votes in a way that has Biden getting 130k+ votes, with no other candidate getting any, does not assuage calls of shenanigans. It's not proof of f*ckery, but it's enough to put even the most casual observer on notice that the possibility of f*ckery is not to be entirely discounted: https://twitter.com/JayVal00/status/1323966769854382082?s=09
I'm pretty sure that image is totally fake.
It was widely discussed that Biden won a batch of 140k/150k - not 140k/140k. The numbers have been doctored.
Time to wheel out my roles theory? The President is Head of State (cf HM Queen) and also Head of Government (cf the Prime Minister) and it is quite likely that many voters approved of Trump as Head of Government, boosting the economy and not starting wars, even if repelled by the lack of dignity (lies, racebaiting) he brought to the Head of State role.
And if you do not like that, how about my Covid theory? Early on, voters were appalled by Trump's mishandling of the pandemic killing hundreds of thousands of Americans, but recent encouraging news from the test tube wallahs has taken Covid off the table of issues that matter.
I think the Covid effect might have helped Trump, because it turned into an admittedly brain-dead culture war about masks and 'freedom'.
If you were going to steal this election for the Dems, by finding lots of postal votes stuffed down the sofa, you couldn't do it in this scenario without grossly inflating the turnout could you?
There was much annoying pro-Trump trolling early this morning, but I think you just took the prize.
Thanks. I am just trying to get it straight in my head. IF this happened, it would show as significantly elevated turnout in the 'late Biden surge' states that counted their postal ballots last, and turnout being as predicted, or at least significantly lower, in the 'Trump surge' states where they were counted first.
At the end of the day, this is going to the SC. I’ve been told on good authority that the reason the Rs rushed through Barrett was not because they thought they would lose the Senate but that they were “terrified” (and this is their word, not mine) that the Democrats would continue to find postal ballots until the Ds won in the states. It’s essentially what happened in several of the CA House seats in 2018 (it was never proved but ballot harvesting was suspected).
This argument came from a very well connected, establishment Republican who is anti-Trump
Even if everything was above board, it doesn't look good from a Trump supporter's perspective.
Most states count the postal votes first and on the day votes last, except the Democrat run marginal states where they do it in reverse, so they know exactly how many votes they need to win each state (and also by then which states they need to win).
Surely the law in Pennsylvania preventing mail-in ballots from being counted or processed earlier was passed by the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania state assembly? (for example) I've certainly heard more push from Dems than Rs for work on postal votes to begin early, precisely to avoid Trump trying to claim victory on the night.
Fair enough, although Trump might win PA anyway.
If the Dems wanted early counting, why didn't they do it in states they control?
That was because Milwaukee declared almost all their mail in vote in one go.
And the Dems got 100% of that? You can see the Dems gain 200k and the Reps get no extra votes at all.
Almost yes, because Milwaukee is heavily Democrat and GOP voters were told to vote on the day. If you look at Milwaukee vs 2016 then there's clearly nothing out of the usual going on.
Well I can believe 85%-15% I suppose...but 100%-0% all at once?
That just seems impossible and it happened in MI too
When people talked about it here it was 140k votes for Biden out of 150k. So Trump did receive 10k votes in that declaration. People staring at graphs afterwards are being silly.
'Silly staring at graphs' isn't a rebuke I ever expected to see on PB. As long as it gets rid of Trump, we should ignore the data should we?
I'm up about thirty quid on under 100 staked, so this isn't a tilt-rage, but the inability of major US cities to get a count done in good time is a real stain on US politics. This isn't a partisan thing; Wisconsin is as bad as Michigan, although Pennsylvania seems to be the worst. As well as being crap (it's just counting bits of paper) it means that the "they stole the election" meme looks legit, even if it isn't.
It's 100% a partisan thing because the GOP controlled legislature in ALL those places refused to allow early tallying of ballots.
If you were going to steal this election for the Dems, by finding lots of postal votes stuffed down the sofa, you couldn't do it in this scenario without grossly inflating the turnout could you?
There was much annoying pro-Trump trolling early this morning, but I think you just took the prize.
Thanks. I am just trying to get it straight in my head. IF this happened, it would show as significantly elevated turnout in the 'late Biden surge' states that counted their postal ballots last, and turnout being as predicted, or at least significantly lower, in the 'Trump surge' states where they were counted first.
At the end of the day, this is going to the SC. I’ve been told on good authority that the reason the Rs rushed through Barrett was not because they thought they would lose the Senate but that they were “terrified” (and this is their word, not mine) that the Democrats would continue to find postal ballots until the Ds won in the states. It’s essentially what happened in several of the CA House seats in 2018 (it was never proved but ballot harvesting was suspected).
This argument came from a very well connected, establishment Republican who is anti-Trump
Even if everything was above board, it doesn't look good from a Trump supporter's perspective.
Most states count the postal votes first and on the day votes last, except the Democrat run marginal states where they do it in reverse, so they know exactly how many votes they need to win each state (and also by then which states they need to win).
Surely the law in Pennsylvania preventing mail-in ballots from being counted or processed earlier was passed by the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania state assembly? (for example) I've certainly heard more push from Dems than Rs for work on postal votes to begin early, precisely to avoid Trump trying to claim victory on the night.
Fair enough, although Trump might win PA anyway.
If the Dems wanted early counting, why didn't they do it in states they control?
That was because Milwaukee declared almost all their mail in vote in one go.
And the Dems got 100% of that? You can see the Dems gain 200k and the Reps get no extra votes at all.
Almost yes, because Milwaukee is heavily Democrat and GOP voters were told to vote on the day. If you look at Milwaukee vs 2016 then there's clearly nothing out of the usual going on.
Well I can believe 85%-15% I suppose...but 100%-0% all at once?
That just seems impossible and it happened in MI too
When people talked about it here it was 140k votes for Biden out of 150k. So Trump did receive 10k votes in that declaration. People staring at graphs afterwards are being silly.
'Silly staring at graphs' isn't a rebuke I ever expected to see on PB. As long as it gets rid of Trump, we should ignore the data should we?
But the graphs did not say what DAlexander and the tweeters said they said. They both showed increases to both Biden and Trump's vote tally. So the silliness isn't so much at staring at the graphs, but misreading them so patently.
So if you’re Biden, you’ve just won more votes than any of predecessors but you’ll struggle to pass any legislation for two years during the long slog of recovery from Covid-19. You then lose the House, definitely can’t pass anything, and spent your life on the defensive on the run in to 2024.
What a mad electoral system.
The system is designed to be inherently conservative. However it does suppose a degree of government by consensus which doesn’t reflect the current American political culture.
Conversely you could argue not having the Senate might help Biden as he wont be able to say yes to the more left-leaning members of the Democratic caucus like AOC and he’ll have to govern as a moderate.
Yes I am sure having no budget he can pass in the Senate will be fantastic for an economy needing fiscal stimulus.
Trump campaign staff on FOX making it clear the result (providing Biden wins) is going to court. 'The president will have won legitimately'. So popcorn time , no concession from Trump til 2023 I guess
The question is do the GOP have their own version of the Tories "Men in grey suits" to go and visit Trump with the proverbial revolver and glass of whisky?
Win or lose Trump has won more votes now than any Republican presidential candidate in history and the highest voteshare for any Republican candidate since Bush in 2004, it is his party for the foreseeable future so the party top brass cannot tell him anything, even if he loses and decides not to run again he will effectively be Kingmaker in deciding the party's nominee in 2024 probably either Pence or one of his kids
Won't be Pence if he loses as VP. He will be a candidate but never get momentum.
Indeed. Pence was widely derided as being a bit thick even by Trump fans. His job was basically to keep the Evangelicals onside.
Quite the change in sentiment in the last 6-12 hours. I hope it has been profitable.
Disasterous.
We both talked about in play opportunities, and then both ballsed them up!
Only reason I recovered was holding my nerve in not cutting my losses at 4am last night and trading and repositioning this morning..
Considering you were talking about cashing out completely, bet you're glad you didn't completely?
Well done on holding your nerve.
Yes - thank you. I've got better (braver) at this in recent years because I have experience in how markets can overreact and am more confident in reading the runes of elections as they count up. Scars on my back from too many elections and referendums like this.
Nevertheless, if I'd got it badly wrong I'd be sitting on a loss of about £2k today.
'Silly staring at graphs' isn't a rebuke I ever expected to see on PB. As long as it gets rid of Trump, we should ignore the data should we?
Certainly if the data lead you to the conclusion that someone thought "hmm I want to steal the election with 150,000 fake votes - I know, I'll drop them all in for one candidate in one go and hope nobody notices rather than trickling them in with a few for the other candidate alongside to make it look legit", you should probably have a lie down.
The exit poll has Biden winning voters earning over $200k a year in household income as well as those earning under $50k a year, Trump did best with middle income white voters who are not college graduates.
The Trump coalition therefore close to the Tory coalition under Boris now
So if you’re Biden, you’ve just won more votes than any of predecessors but you’ll struggle to pass any legislation for two years during the long slog of recovery from Covid-19. You then lose the House, definitely can’t pass anything, and spent your life on the defensive on the run in to 2024.
What a mad electoral system.
The system is designed to be inherently conservative. However it does suppose a degree of government by consensus which doesn’t reflect the current American political culture.
Conversely you could argue not having the Senate might help Biden as he wont be able to say yes to the more left-leaning members of the Democratic caucus like AOC and he’ll have to govern as a moderate.
Yes I am sure having no budget he can pass in the Senate will be fantastic for an economy needing fiscal stimulus.
Senate don't matter for budgets, but if Biden wins they will definitely sit on his judicial appointments until a GOP president
Have consulted Magna Carta, but there doesn't appear to be a clause allowing me to shoot the builders next door for playing shit music on the radio.
Yet one more disappointment from King John.
Is there a clause that affords builders this special privilege? I mean there must be or folk wouldn't put up with it would they? Or window cleaners, gardeners, cleaners, accountants, postal workers etc., etc., would also be polluting the neighbourhood with their chosen racket every time they did a stroke of work too. Wouldn't they?
So if you’re Biden, you’ve just won more votes than any of predecessors but you’ll struggle to pass any legislation for two years during the long slog of recovery from Covid-19. You then lose the House, definitely can’t pass anything, and spent your life on the defensive on the run in to 2024.
What a mad electoral system.
The system is designed to be inherently conservative. However it does suppose a degree of government by consensus which doesn’t reflect the current American political culture.
Conversely you could argue not having the Senate might help Biden as he wont be able to say yes to the more left-leaning members of the Democratic caucus like AOC and he’ll have to govern as a moderate.
Yes I am sure having no budget he can pass in the Senate will be fantastic for an economy needing fiscal stimulus.
My comment was not what I personally favour, just what might be politically more helpful to Biden. We shall see what happens.
We haven't talked about the Senate yet, but it looks like Susan Collin will just hang on in Maine (she'll only need about a quarter of second choice preferences), and Thom Tills will likely do the same in North Carolina. (He's polling a couple of points better than Trump.)
In the NC Special, the Dems have lucked out and it'll be Loeffler vs Warnock. The question is whether they are able to get their vote out for the Special.
Another quick update on the Senate. The NYT has it 47-47 with 6 races left to call:
Alaska - Will go Rep (just haven't counted enough yet) Georgia regular - Perdue is running ahead of Trump and should be OK Georgia special - will go to run off North Carolina - looks very similar to the presidential race Michigan - looks very similar to the presidential race so likely Dem hold Maine - Collins is running way ahead of Trump. She is currently 6% ahead but they are now using ranked choice voting and so the gap will likely close. Being suggested we won't know for a week.
I'm up about thirty quid on under 100 staked, so this isn't a tilt-rage, but the inability of major US cities to get a count done in good time is a real stain on US politics. This isn't a partisan thing; Wisconsin is as bad as Michigan, although Pennsylvania seems to be the worst. As well as being crap (it's just counting bits of paper) it means that the "they stole the election" meme looks legit, even if it isn't.
If a handful of states stop counting overnight, and then pick up again all with big D swings, it looks suspicious. And there's no honest reason for stopping and starting either; if the banjo-plucking moonshine drinkers of Bumphook County, Oklahoma can flick their mayonnaisey fingers through all the ballots by midnight, then huwhy in cousin-f*cking tarnation can't a city of Philadelphia's reputation get more than halfway by now?
And reporting votes in a way that has Biden getting 130k+ votes, with no other candidate getting any, does not assuage calls of shenanigans. It's not proof of f*ckery, but it's enough to put even the most casual observer on notice that the possibility of f*ckery is not to be entirely discounted: https://twitter.com/JayVal00/status/1323966769854382082?s=09
I'm pretty sure that image is totally fake.
It was widely discussed that Biden won a batch of 140k/150k - not 140k/140k. The numbers have been doctored.
Have they been doctored? I don't know but has anyone shown that screen shot is fake? The guy is saying he took it off DDHQ
If you were going to steal this election for the Dems, by finding lots of postal votes stuffed down the sofa, you couldn't do it in this scenario without grossly inflating the turnout could you?
There was much annoying pro-Trump trolling early this morning, but I think you just took the prize.
Thanks. I am just trying to get it straight in my head. IF this happened, it would show as significantly elevated turnout in the 'late Biden surge' states that counted their postal ballots last, and turnout being as predicted, or at least significantly lower, in the 'Trump surge' states where they were counted first.
At the end of the day, this is going to the SC. I’ve been told on good authority that the reason the Rs rushed through Barrett was not because they thought they would lose the Senate but that they were “terrified” (and this is their word, not mine) that the Democrats would continue to find postal ballots until the Ds won in the states. It’s essentially what happened in several of the CA House seats in 2018 (it was never proved but ballot harvesting was suspected).
This argument came from a very well connected, establishment Republican who is anti-Trump
Even if everything was above board, it doesn't look good from a Trump supporter's perspective.
Most states count the postal votes first and on the day votes last, except the Democrat run marginal states where they do it in reverse, so they know exactly how many votes they need to win each state (and also by then which states they need to win).
Surely the law in Pennsylvania preventing mail-in ballots from being counted or processed earlier was passed by the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania state assembly? (for example) I've certainly heard more push from Dems than Rs for work on postal votes to begin early, precisely to avoid Trump trying to claim victory on the night.
Fair enough, although Trump might win PA anyway.
If the Dems wanted early counting, why didn't they do it in states they control?
That was because Milwaukee declared almost all their mail in vote in one go.
And the Dems got 100% of that? You can see the Dems gain 200k and the Reps get no extra votes at all.
Almost yes, because Milwaukee is heavily Democrat and GOP voters were told to vote on the day. If you look at Milwaukee vs 2016 then there's clearly nothing out of the usual going on.
Well I can believe 85%-15% I suppose...but 100%-0% all at once?
That just seems impossible and it happened in MI too
When people talked about it here it was 140k votes for Biden out of 150k. So Trump did receive 10k votes in that declaration. People staring at graphs afterwards are being silly.
'Silly staring at graphs' isn't a rebuke I ever expected to see on PB. As long as it gets rid of Trump, we should ignore the data should we?
We could look at the data properly - which showed that Trump did receive votes at that time as well - or we could stare at graphs and make shit up.
Quite the change in sentiment in the last 6-12 hours. I hope it has been profitable.
Disasterous.
We both talked about in play opportunities, and then both ballsed them up!
Only reason I recovered was holding my nerve in not cutting my losses at 4am last night and trading and repositioning this morning..
Considering you were talking about cashing out completely, bet you're glad you didn't completely?
Well done on holding your nerve.
Yes - thank you. I've got better (braver) at this in recent years because I have experience in how markets can overreact and am more confident in reading the runes of elections as they count up. Scars on my back from too many elections and referendums like this.
Nevertheless, if I'd got it badly wrong I'd be sitting on a loss of about £2k today.
I feel reckless now. I went to bed feeling foolish for not going heavy on Biden around the same time - when he was out at 4-5 but Arizona was heading his way.
We haven't talked about the Senate yet, but it looks like Susan Collin will just hang on in Maine (she'll only need about a quarter of second choice preferences), and Thom Tills will likely do the same in North Carolina. (He's polling a couple of points better than Trump.)
In the NC Special, the Dems have lucked out and it'll be Loeffler vs Warnock. The question is whether they are able to get their vote out for the Special.
You can bet on huge out of state money for both candidates.
If you were going to steal this election for the Dems, by finding lots of postal votes stuffed down the sofa, you couldn't do it in this scenario without grossly inflating the turnout could you?
There was much annoying pro-Trump trolling early this morning, but I think you just took the prize.
Thanks. I am just trying to get it straight in my head. IF this happened, it would show as significantly elevated turnout in the 'late Biden surge' states that counted their postal ballots last, and turnout being as predicted, or at least significantly lower, in the 'Trump surge' states where they were counted first.
At the end of the day, this is going to the SC. I’ve been told on good authority that the reason the Rs rushed through Barrett was not because they thought they would lose the Senate but that they were “terrified” (and this is their word, not mine) that the Democrats would continue to find postal ballots until the Ds won in the states. It’s essentially what happened in several of the CA House seats in 2018 (it was never proved but ballot harvesting was suspected).
This argument came from a very well connected, establishment Republican who is anti-Trump
Even if everything was above board, it doesn't look good from a Trump supporter's perspective.
Most states count the postal votes first and on the day votes last, except the Democrat run marginal states where they do it in reverse, so they know exactly how many votes they need to win each state (and also by then which states they need to win).
Surely the law in Pennsylvania preventing mail-in ballots from being counted or processed earlier was passed by the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania state assembly? (for example) I've certainly heard more push from Dems than Rs for work on postal votes to begin early, precisely to avoid Trump trying to claim victory on the night.
Fair enough, although Trump might win PA anyway.
If the Dems wanted early counting, why didn't they do it in states they control?
That was because Milwaukee declared almost all their mail in vote in one go.
And the Dems got 100% of that? You can see the Dems gain 200k and the Reps get no extra votes at all.
Almost yes, because Milwaukee is heavily Democrat and GOP voters were told to vote on the day. If you look at Milwaukee vs 2016 then there's clearly nothing out of the usual going on.
Well I can believe 85%-15% I suppose...but 100%-0% all at once?
That just seems impossible and it happened in MI too
When people talked about it here it was 140k votes for Biden out of 150k. So Trump did receive 10k votes in that declaration. People staring at graphs afterwards are being silly.
'Silly staring at graphs' isn't a rebuke I ever expected to see on PB. As long as it gets rid of Trump, we should ignore the data should we?
But the graphs did not say what DAlexander and the tweeters said they said. They both showed increases to both Biden and Trump's vote tally. So the silliness isn't so much at staring at the graphs, but misreading them so patently.
The more reason to stare at them, it would seem to me. On the face of it, to me, these results seem ridiculous. If it was Trump finding just enough miraculous postal votes in key states at the 11th hour to overturn Biden leads, the whole world would be losing their shit.
My understanding is that the remaining votes are not the same type but mail-in and provisionals
NYT has a 90K lead for Biden with 98% reported but not clear how accurate this is
There are still postals to come in the next few days, and they'll favour Biden.
Democrat gain.
I thought AZ was a state where the mail-ins were counted first and the in-day last?
Maybe it's a case of majority of postals (ie. those processed before election day) are counted first. But any that haven't been (including those arriving on the day) aren't?
If you were going to steal this election for the Dems, by finding lots of postal votes stuffed down the sofa, you couldn't do it in this scenario without grossly inflating the turnout could you?
There was much annoying pro-Trump trolling early this morning, but I think you just took the prize.
Thanks. I am just trying to get it straight in my head. IF this happened, it would show as significantly elevated turnout in the 'late Biden surge' states that counted their postal ballots last, and turnout being as predicted, or at least significantly lower, in the 'Trump surge' states where they were counted first.
At the end of the day, this is going to the SC. I’ve been told on good authority that the reason the Rs rushed through Barrett was not because they thought they would lose the Senate but that they were “terrified” (and this is their word, not mine) that the Democrats would continue to find postal ballots until the Ds won in the states. It’s essentially what happened in several of the CA House seats in 2018 (it was never proved but ballot harvesting was suspected).
This argument came from a very well connected, establishment Republican who is anti-Trump
Even if everything was above board, it doesn't look good from a Trump supporter's perspective.
Most states count the postal votes first and on the day votes last, except the Democrat run marginal states where they do it in reverse, so they know exactly how many votes they need to win each state (and also by then which states they need to win).
Surely the law in Pennsylvania preventing mail-in ballots from being counted or processed earlier was passed by the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania state assembly? (for example) I've certainly heard more push from Dems than Rs for work on postal votes to begin early, precisely to avoid Trump trying to claim victory on the night.
Fair enough, although Trump might win PA anyway.
If the Dems wanted early counting, why didn't they do it in states they control?
That was because Milwaukee declared almost all their mail in vote in one go.
And the Dems got 100% of that? You can see the Dems gain 200k and the Reps get no extra votes at all.
Almost yes, because Milwaukee is heavily Democrat and GOP voters were told to vote on the day. If you look at Milwaukee vs 2016 then there's clearly nothing out of the usual going on.
Well I can believe 85%-15% I suppose...but 100%-0% all at once?
That just seems impossible and it happened in MI too
When people talked about it here it was 140k votes for Biden out of 150k. So Trump did receive 10k votes in that declaration. People staring at graphs afterwards are being silly.
'Silly staring at graphs' isn't a rebuke I ever expected to see on PB. As long as it gets rid of Trump, we should ignore the data should we?
But the graphs did not say what DAlexander and the tweeters said they said. They both showed increases to both Biden and Trump's vote tally. So the silliness isn't so much at staring at the graphs, but misreading them so patently.
The more reason to stare at them, it would seem to me. On the face of it, to me, these results seem ridiculous. If it was Trump finding just enough miraculous postal votes in key states at the 11th hour to overturn Biden leads, the whole world would be losing their shit.
I think that is exactly how Trump supporters will want to present this data. But it is neither ridiculous nor unexpected - if you simply look at which precincts were reporting when those tallies were dumped.
Furthermore, outstanding ballots are similarly expected to break heavily for Biden - that is how the MI and WI and PA legislatures set up the timing of the count of the various forms of voting, precisely so that they could make the argument you seem to be supporting.
I have no idea why CNN say only 86% reported in AZ as of now and NYT say 98% ,
Votes counted so far is all guesswork. Some may be comparing votes cast with prior election turnout. Others may be being more sophisticated and modelling turnout increases. Or maybe assuming all requested mail ballots are yet to be counted.
Of course in some cases absentee ballots won't have even been received yet.
Worth remembering that North Carolina ballots are accepted (if postmarked before election day) for another week, so we can expect to see some narrowing of the gap there.
If you were going to steal this election for the Dems, by finding lots of postal votes stuffed down the sofa, you couldn't do it in this scenario without grossly inflating the turnout could you?
There was much annoying pro-Trump trolling early this morning, but I think you just took the prize.
Thanks. I am just trying to get it straight in my head. IF this happened, it would show as significantly elevated turnout in the 'late Biden surge' states that counted their postal ballots last, and turnout being as predicted, or at least significantly lower, in the 'Trump surge' states where they were counted first.
At the end of the day, this is going to the SC. I’ve been told on good authority that the reason the Rs rushed through Barrett was not because they thought they would lose the Senate but that they were “terrified” (and this is their word, not mine) that the Democrats would continue to find postal ballots until the Ds won in the states. It’s essentially what happened in several of the CA House seats in 2018 (it was never proved but ballot harvesting was suspected).
This argument came from a very well connected, establishment Republican who is anti-Trump
Even if everything was above board, it doesn't look good from a Trump supporter's perspective.
Most states count the postal votes first and on the day votes last, except the Democrat run marginal states where they do it in reverse, so they know exactly how many votes they need to win each state (and also by then which states they need to win).
Surely the law in Pennsylvania preventing mail-in ballots from being counted or processed earlier was passed by the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania state assembly? (for example) I've certainly heard more push from Dems than Rs for work on postal votes to begin early, precisely to avoid Trump trying to claim victory on the night.
Fair enough, although Trump might win PA anyway.
If the Dems wanted early counting, why didn't they do it in states they control?
That was because Milwaukee declared almost all their mail in vote in one go.
And the Dems got 100% of that? You can see the Dems gain 200k and the Reps get no extra votes at all.
Almost yes, because Milwaukee is heavily Democrat and GOP voters were told to vote on the day. If you look at Milwaukee vs 2016 then there's clearly nothing out of the usual going on.
Well I can believe 85%-15% I suppose...but 100%-0% all at once?
That just seems impossible and it happened in MI too
When people talked about it here it was 140k votes for Biden out of 150k. So Trump did receive 10k votes in that declaration. People staring at graphs afterwards are being silly.
'Silly staring at graphs' isn't a rebuke I ever expected to see on PB. As long as it gets rid of Trump, we should ignore the data should we?
But the graphs did not say what DAlexander and the tweeters said they said. They both showed increases to both Biden and Trump's vote tally. So the silliness isn't so much at staring at the graphs, but misreading them so patently.
The more reason to stare at them, it would seem to me. On the face of it, to me, these results seem ridiculous. If it was Trump finding just enough miraculous postal votes in key states at the 11th hour to overturn Biden leads, the whole world would be losing their shit.
I think that is exactly how Trump supporters will want to present this data. But it is neither ridiculous nor unexpected - if you simply look at which precincts were reporting when those tallies were dumped.
Let's put it another way. Biden is leading in key states and looking as though he is cruising to victory. Then there is a sudden rush of postal votes, showing 90%+ to Trump, which then changes the dynamic, with almost no votes to Biden. You saying you would not be questioning what happened?
If you were going to steal this election for the Dems, by finding lots of postal votes stuffed down the sofa, you couldn't do it in this scenario without grossly inflating the turnout could you?
There was much annoying pro-Trump trolling early this morning, but I think you just took the prize.
Thanks. I am just trying to get it straight in my head. IF this happened, it would show as significantly elevated turnout in the 'late Biden surge' states that counted their postal ballots last, and turnout being as predicted, or at least significantly lower, in the 'Trump surge' states where they were counted first.
At the end of the day, this is going to the SC. I’ve been told on good authority that the reason the Rs rushed through Barrett was not because they thought they would lose the Senate but that they were “terrified” (and this is their word, not mine) that the Democrats would continue to find postal ballots until the Ds won in the states. It’s essentially what happened in several of the CA House seats in 2018 (it was never proved but ballot harvesting was suspected).
This argument came from a very well connected, establishment Republican who is anti-Trump
Even if everything was above board, it doesn't look good from a Trump supporter's perspective.
Most states count the postal votes first and on the day votes last, except the Democrat run marginal states where they do it in reverse, so they know exactly how many votes they need to win each state (and also by then which states they need to win).
Surely the law in Pennsylvania preventing mail-in ballots from being counted or processed earlier was passed by the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania state assembly? (for example) I've certainly heard more push from Dems than Rs for work on postal votes to begin early, precisely to avoid Trump trying to claim victory on the night.
Fair enough, although Trump might win PA anyway.
If the Dems wanted early counting, why didn't they do it in states they control?
That was because Milwaukee declared almost all their mail in vote in one go.
And the Dems got 100% of that? You can see the Dems gain 200k and the Reps get no extra votes at all.
Almost yes, because Milwaukee is heavily Democrat and GOP voters were told to vote on the day. If you look at Milwaukee vs 2016 then there's clearly nothing out of the usual going on.
Well I can believe 85%-15% I suppose...but 100%-0% all at once?
That just seems impossible and it happened in MI too
When people talked about it here it was 140k votes for Biden out of 150k. So Trump did receive 10k votes in that declaration. People staring at graphs afterwards are being silly.
'Silly staring at graphs' isn't a rebuke I ever expected to see on PB. As long as it gets rid of Trump, we should ignore the data should we?
But the graphs did not say what DAlexander and the tweeters said they said. They both showed increases to both Biden and Trump's vote tally. So the silliness isn't so much at staring at the graphs, but misreading them so patently.
The more reason to stare at them, it would seem to me. On the face of it, to me, these results seem ridiculous. If it was Trump finding just enough miraculous postal votes in key states at the 11th hour to overturn Biden leads, the whole world would be losing their shit.
I think that is exactly how Trump supporters will want to present this data. But it is neither ridiculous nor unexpected - if you simply look at which precincts were reporting when those tallies were dumped.
Let's put it another way. Biden is leading in key states and looking as though he is cruising to victory. Then there is a sudden rush of postal votes, showing 90%+ to Trump, which then changes the dynamic, with almost no votes to Biden. You saying you would not be questioning what happened?
We know that postal voters are overwhelmingly Democrat because the President of the United States discouraged his supporters from voting by mail.
We haven't talked about the Senate yet, but it looks like Susan Collin will just hang on in Maine (she'll only need about a quarter of second choice preferences), and Thom Tills will likely do the same in North Carolina. (He's polling a couple of points better than Trump.)
In the NC Special, the Dems have lucked out and it'll be Loeffler vs Warnock. The question is whether they are able to get their vote out for the Special.
That's a very impressive (likely ) result for Susan Collins, given she was behind in every poll.
If you were going to steal this election for the Dems, by finding lots of postal votes stuffed down the sofa, you couldn't do it in this scenario without grossly inflating the turnout could you?
There was much annoying pro-Trump trolling early this morning, but I think you just took the prize.
Thanks. I am just trying to get it straight in my head. IF this happened, it would show as significantly elevated turnout in the 'late Biden surge' states that counted their postal ballots last, and turnout being as predicted, or at least significantly lower, in the 'Trump surge' states where they were counted first.
At the end of the day, this is going to the SC. I’ve been told on good authority that the reason the Rs rushed through Barrett was not because they thought they would lose the Senate but that they were “terrified” (and this is their word, not mine) that the Democrats would continue to find postal ballots until the Ds won in the states. It’s essentially what happened in several of the CA House seats in 2018 (it was never proved but ballot harvesting was suspected).
This argument came from a very well connected, establishment Republican who is anti-Trump
Even if everything was above board, it doesn't look good from a Trump supporter's perspective.
Most states count the postal votes first and on the day votes last, except the Democrat run marginal states where they do it in reverse, so they know exactly how many votes they need to win each state (and also by then which states they need to win).
Surely the law in Pennsylvania preventing mail-in ballots from being counted or processed earlier was passed by the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania state assembly? (for example) I've certainly heard more push from Dems than Rs for work on postal votes to begin early, precisely to avoid Trump trying to claim victory on the night.
Fair enough, although Trump might win PA anyway.
If the Dems wanted early counting, why didn't they do it in states they control?
That was because Milwaukee declared almost all their mail in vote in one go.
And the Dems got 100% of that? You can see the Dems gain 200k and the Reps get no extra votes at all.
Almost yes, because Milwaukee is heavily Democrat and GOP voters were told to vote on the day. If you look at Milwaukee vs 2016 then there's clearly nothing out of the usual going on.
Well I can believe 85%-15% I suppose...but 100%-0% all at once?
That just seems impossible and it happened in MI too
When people talked about it here it was 140k votes for Biden out of 150k. So Trump did receive 10k votes in that declaration. People staring at graphs afterwards are being silly.
'Silly staring at graphs' isn't a rebuke I ever expected to see on PB. As long as it gets rid of Trump, we should ignore the data should we?
But the graphs did not say what DAlexander and the tweeters said they said. They both showed increases to both Biden and Trump's vote tally. So the silliness isn't so much at staring at the graphs, but misreading them so patently.
The more reason to stare at them, it would seem to me. On the face of it, to me, these results seem ridiculous. If it was Trump finding just enough miraculous postal votes in key states at the 11th hour to overturn Biden leads, the whole world would be losing their shit.
I think that is exactly how Trump supporters will want to present this data. But it is neither ridiculous nor unexpected - if you simply look at which precincts were reporting when those tallies were dumped.
Let's put it another way. Biden is leading in key states and looking as though he is cruising to victory. Then there is a sudden rush of postal votes, showing 90%+ to Trump, which then changes the dynamic, with almost no votes to Biden. You saying you would not be questioning what happened?
I'd definitely question it if Trump won 90% of the vote in Detroit.
I'm up about thirty quid on under 100 staked, so this isn't a tilt-rage, but the inability of major US cities to get a count done in good time is a real stain on US politics. This isn't a partisan thing; Wisconsin is as bad as Michigan, although Pennsylvania seems to be the worst. As well as being crap (it's just counting bits of paper) it means that the "they stole the election" meme looks legit, even if it isn't.
If a handful of states stop counting overnight, and then pick up again all with big D swings, it looks suspicious. And there's no honest reason for stopping and starting either; if the banjo-plucking moonshine drinkers of Bumphook County, Oklahoma can flick their mayonnaisey fingers through all the ballots by midnight, then huwhy in cousin-f*cking tarnation can't a city of Philadelphia's reputation get more than halfway by now?
And reporting votes in a way that has Biden getting 130k+ votes, with no other candidate getting any, does not assuage calls of shenanigans. It's not proof of f*ckery, but it's enough to put even the most casual observer on notice that the possibility of f*ckery is not to be entirely discounted: https://twitter.com/JayVal00/status/1323966769854382082?s=09
I'm pretty sure that image is totally fake.
It was widely discussed that Biden won a batch of 140k/150k - not 140k/140k. The numbers have been doctored.
Have they been doctored? I don't know but has anyone shown that screen shot is fake? The guy is saying he took it off DDHQ
Yes, and if you look there is a 10k bump for Trump.
So if you’re Biden, you’ve just won more votes than any of predecessors but you’ll struggle to pass any legislation for two years during the long slog of recovery from Covid-19. You then lose the House, definitely can’t pass anything, and spent your life on the defensive on the run in to 2024.
What a mad electoral system.
The system is designed to be inherently conservative. However it does suppose a degree of government by consensus which doesn’t reflect the current American political culture.
Conversely you could argue not having the Senate might help Biden as he wont be able to say yes to the more left-leaning members of the Democratic caucus like AOC and he’ll have to govern as a moderate.
If you were going to steal this election for the Dems, by finding lots of postal votes stuffed down the sofa, you couldn't do it in this scenario without grossly inflating the turnout could you?
There was much annoying pro-Trump trolling early this morning, but I think you just took the prize.
Thanks. I am just trying to get it straight in my head. IF this happened, it would show as significantly elevated turnout in the 'late Biden surge' states that counted their postal ballots last, and turnout being as predicted, or at least significantly lower, in the 'Trump surge' states where they were counted first.
At the end of the day, this is going to the SC. I’ve been told on good authority that the reason the Rs rushed through Barrett was not because they thought they would lose the Senate but that they were “terrified” (and this is their word, not mine) that the Democrats would continue to find postal ballots until the Ds won in the states. It’s essentially what happened in several of the CA House seats in 2018 (it was never proved but ballot harvesting was suspected).
This argument came from a very well connected, establishment Republican who is anti-Trump
Even if everything was above board, it doesn't look good from a Trump supporter's perspective.
Most states count the postal votes first and on the day votes last, except the Democrat run marginal states where they do it in reverse, so they know exactly how many votes they need to win each state (and also by then which states they need to win).
Surely the law in Pennsylvania preventing mail-in ballots from being counted or processed earlier was passed by the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania state assembly? (for example) I've certainly heard more push from Dems than Rs for work on postal votes to begin early, precisely to avoid Trump trying to claim victory on the night.
Fair enough, although Trump might win PA anyway.
If the Dems wanted early counting, why didn't they do it in states they control?
That was because Milwaukee declared almost all their mail in vote in one go.
And the Dems got 100% of that? You can see the Dems gain 200k and the Reps get no extra votes at all.
Almost yes, because Milwaukee is heavily Democrat and GOP voters were told to vote on the day. If you look at Milwaukee vs 2016 then there's clearly nothing out of the usual going on.
Well I can believe 85%-15% I suppose...but 100%-0% all at once?
That just seems impossible and it happened in MI too
When people talked about it here it was 140k votes for Biden out of 150k. So Trump did receive 10k votes in that declaration. People staring at graphs afterwards are being silly.
'Silly staring at graphs' isn't a rebuke I ever expected to see on PB. As long as it gets rid of Trump, we should ignore the data should we?
But the graphs did not say what DAlexander and the tweeters said they said. They both showed increases to both Biden and Trump's vote tally. So the silliness isn't so much at staring at the graphs, but misreading them so patently.
The more reason to stare at them, it would seem to me. On the face of it, to me, these results seem ridiculous. If it was Trump finding just enough miraculous postal votes in key states at the 11th hour to overturn Biden leads, the whole world would be losing their shit.
I think that is exactly how Trump supporters will want to present this data. But it is neither ridiculous nor unexpected - if you simply look at which precincts were reporting when those tallies were dumped.
Let's put it another way. Biden is leading in key states and looking as though he is cruising to victory. Then there is a sudden rush of postal votes, showing 90%+ to Trump, which then changes the dynamic, with almost no votes to Biden. You saying you would not be questioning what happened?
Not if those precincts were expected to break that heavily for Trump.
I am naturally a GOP supporter. I have actually lived through this several times watching the VA results when supporting the GOP candidate for Governor - he (always a he so far) is way up based on the rural and Tidewater vote until the very last minute, when Fairfax and Alexandria report. Then the Dem wins it.
Do I call fraud and conspiracy, and the Dems have stolen the election? No, because that was baked in. It is just an artifact of when the votes are counted.
Interesting that the Trump camp still feel confident in winning Arizona. For some reason I'm wondering if people are misreading whats left there and the true picture. Just a thought. Their statement mentioned AZ and NV but not MI and WI and also the we will PA with 'legal votes'
Meanwhile 104 Covid deaths reported today in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We wait to see how much of that is backdating, but seems pretty bad at first glance.
If you were going to steal this election for the Dems, by finding lots of postal votes stuffed down the sofa, you couldn't do it in this scenario without grossly inflating the turnout could you?
There was much annoying pro-Trump trolling early this morning, but I think you just took the prize.
Thanks. I am just trying to get it straight in my head. IF this happened, it would show as significantly elevated turnout in the 'late Biden surge' states that counted their postal ballots last, and turnout being as predicted, or at least significantly lower, in the 'Trump surge' states where they were counted first.
At the end of the day, this is going to the SC. I’ve been told on good authority that the reason the Rs rushed through Barrett was not because they thought they would lose the Senate but that they were “terrified” (and this is their word, not mine) that the Democrats would continue to find postal ballots until the Ds won in the states. It’s essentially what happened in several of the CA House seats in 2018 (it was never proved but ballot harvesting was suspected).
This argument came from a very well connected, establishment Republican who is anti-Trump
Even if everything was above board, it doesn't look good from a Trump supporter's perspective.
Most states count the postal votes first and on the day votes last, except the Democrat run marginal states where they do it in reverse, so they know exactly how many votes they need to win each state (and also by then which states they need to win).
Surely the law in Pennsylvania preventing mail-in ballots from being counted or processed earlier was passed by the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania state assembly? (for example) I've certainly heard more push from Dems than Rs for work on postal votes to begin early, precisely to avoid Trump trying to claim victory on the night.
Fair enough, although Trump might win PA anyway.
If the Dems wanted early counting, why didn't they do it in states they control?
That was because Milwaukee declared almost all their mail in vote in one go.
And the Dems got 100% of that? You can see the Dems gain 200k and the Reps get no extra votes at all.
Almost yes, because Milwaukee is heavily Democrat and GOP voters were told to vote on the day. If you look at Milwaukee vs 2016 then there's clearly nothing out of the usual going on.
Well I can believe 85%-15% I suppose...but 100%-0% all at once?
That just seems impossible and it happened in MI too
When people talked about it here it was 140k votes for Biden out of 150k. So Trump did receive 10k votes in that declaration. People staring at graphs afterwards are being silly.
'Silly staring at graphs' isn't a rebuke I ever expected to see on PB. As long as it gets rid of Trump, we should ignore the data should we?
But the graphs did not say what DAlexander and the tweeters said they said. They both showed increases to both Biden and Trump's vote tally. So the silliness isn't so much at staring at the graphs, but misreading them so patently.
The more reason to stare at them, it would seem to me. On the face of it, to me, these results seem ridiculous. If it was Trump finding just enough miraculous postal votes in key states at the 11th hour to overturn Biden leads, the whole world would be losing their shit.
I think that is exactly how Trump supporters will want to present this data. But it is neither ridiculous nor unexpected - if you simply look at which precincts were reporting when those tallies were dumped.
Let's put it another way. Biden is leading in key states and looking as though he is cruising to victory. Then there is a sudden rush of postal votes, showing 90%+ to Trump, which then changes the dynamic, with almost no votes to Biden. You saying you would not be questioning what happened?
Not if the one losing out discouraged using postal votes among his supporters. Hes provided an explanation.
We haven't talked about the Senate yet, but it looks like Susan Collin will just hang on in Maine (she'll only need about a quarter of second choice preferences), and Thom Tills will likely do the same in North Carolina. (He's polling a couple of points better than Trump.)
In the NC Special, the Dems have lucked out and it'll be Loeffler vs Warnock. The question is whether they are able to get their vote out for the Special.
That's a very impressive (likely ) result for Susan Collins, given she was behind in every poll.
There was a big vote for the independent in Maine, that the pollsters don't seem to have picked up on.
That being said, we're only 70% counted in the Senate race there. If it's the postals that are still to be counted, then she could still lose. My guess - FWIW - is that it will end up 48.5 - 46.0, and that Collins will get around half of Savage's transfers.
I think Collins' vote against ACB is what probably saved her.
Meanwhile 104 Covid deaths reported today in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We wait to see how much of that is backdating, but seems pretty bad at first glance.
I'm wondering why Starmer is going so strongly on the "madness" of England leaving lockdown in December if R is still above 1. What is he saying to Drakeford who is going to exit lockdown with case numbers having soared since he commenced the 'firebreak'.
The Trump campaign just hosted a call with reporters, led by Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien. Stepien said that they are confident that "count all legal ballots, the president wins." They also believe that can still win Arizona if all legal ballots are counted. On Wisconsin, they believe it is a tight race and in "recount territory." In Michigan there are outlying Republican counties, and in Nevada late breaking mail-in voting helped Republicans -- predicting a win by 5,500 votes. They are also confident in a healthy lead in Georgia.
If you were going to steal this election for the Dems, by finding lots of postal votes stuffed down the sofa, you couldn't do it in this scenario without grossly inflating the turnout could you?
There was much annoying pro-Trump trolling early this morning, but I think you just took the prize.
Thanks. I am just trying to get it straight in my head. IF this happened, it would show as significantly elevated turnout in the 'late Biden surge' states that counted their postal ballots last, and turnout being as predicted, or at least significantly lower, in the 'Trump surge' states where they were counted first.
At the end of the day, this is going to the SC. I’ve been told on good authority that the reason the Rs rushed through Barrett was not because they thought they would lose the Senate but that they were “terrified” (and this is their word, not mine) that the Democrats would continue to find postal ballots until the Ds won in the states. It’s essentially what happened in several of the CA House seats in 2018 (it was never proved but ballot harvesting was suspected).
This argument came from a very well connected, establishment Republican who is anti-Trump
Even if everything was above board, it doesn't look good from a Trump supporter's perspective.
Most states count the postal votes first and on the day votes last, except the Democrat run marginal states where they do it in reverse, so they know exactly how many votes they need to win each state (and also by then which states they need to win).
Surely the law in Pennsylvania preventing mail-in ballots from being counted or processed earlier was passed by the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania state assembly? (for example) I've certainly heard more push from Dems than Rs for work on postal votes to begin early, precisely to avoid Trump trying to claim victory on the night.
Fair enough, although Trump might win PA anyway.
If the Dems wanted early counting, why didn't they do it in states they control?
That was because Milwaukee declared almost all their mail in vote in one go.
And the Dems got 100% of that? You can see the Dems gain 200k and the Reps get no extra votes at all.
Almost yes, because Milwaukee is heavily Democrat and GOP voters were told to vote on the day. If you look at Milwaukee vs 2016 then there's clearly nothing out of the usual going on.
Well I can believe 85%-15% I suppose...but 100%-0% all at once?
That just seems impossible and it happened in MI too
When people talked about it here it was 140k votes for Biden out of 150k. So Trump did receive 10k votes in that declaration. People staring at graphs afterwards are being silly.
'Silly staring at graphs' isn't a rebuke I ever expected to see on PB. As long as it gets rid of Trump, we should ignore the data should we?
But the graphs did not say what DAlexander and the tweeters said they said. They both showed increases to both Biden and Trump's vote tally. So the silliness isn't so much at staring at the graphs, but misreading them so patently.
The more reason to stare at them, it would seem to me. On the face of it, to me, these results seem ridiculous. If it was Trump finding just enough miraculous postal votes in key states at the 11th hour to overturn Biden leads, the whole world would be losing their shit.
I think that is exactly how Trump supporters will want to present this data. But it is neither ridiculous nor unexpected - if you simply look at which precincts were reporting when those tallies were dumped.
Let's put it another way. Biden is leading in key states and looking as though he is cruising to victory. Then there is a sudden rush of postal votes, showing 90%+ to Trump, which then changes the dynamic, with almost no votes to Biden. You saying you would not be questioning what happened?
Not if the one losing out discouraged using postal votes among his supporters. Hes provided an explanation.
My understanding is that the remaining votes are not the same type but mail-in and provisionals
NYT has a 90K lead for Biden with 98% reported but not clear how accurate this is
There are still postals to come in the next few days, and they'll favour Biden.
Democrat gain.
I thought AZ was a state where the mail-ins were counted first and the in-day last?
Postals received after election date, but posted before, count.
In 2018, the Democrats were actually behind on election day but caught up as postals were recieved.
AZ is done.
Apparently they don't check the postmark either? So they can now just post till they don't need to post any more?
It would make Tower Hamlets blush.
I don't think that's quite true: they count ballots with illegible postmarks.
True? Why place such an unnecessary burden on complaints.
I think the logic is not to disenfranchise voters. Whether the postmark is legible or not is not something in the voter's control, so given them the benefit of the doubt. Think of cricket rules and batsmen.
The Trump campaign just hosted a call with reporters, led by Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien. Stepien said that they are confident that "count all legal ballots, the president wins." They also believe that can still win Arizona if all legal ballots are counted. On Wisconsin, they believe it is a tight race and in "recount territory." In Michigan there are outlying Republican counties, and in Nevada late breaking mail-in voting helped Republicans -- predicting a win by 5,500 votes. They are also confident in a healthy lead in Georgia.
From their website Timing of results:Due to an error in a Edison Research data feed of results, the estimate of the counted vote in Arizona is too high. The actual estimate is that 86% of the vote has been counted.
I am sure FiveThirtyEight will be given stick for their predictions of Biden having a 90% chance. But in some sense this has been vindicated - Biden looks like he has won despite a polling error similar to Clinton (possibly bigger in FL)
The real winner of this cycle was Ann Selzer's Iowa poll
Would love to know why that massive swing occurred.
Why incumbent presidents are so hard to defeat, the politically disinterested naturally gravitate toward them. Only a huge Democrat turnout effort was able to overcome it this time. To my mind the fact the Selzer poll was able to reach Trump supporters and have them honestly reveal their preferences is interesting too.
Name recognition probably counts for a lot, in a world where most people don't follow politics. Biden might have been a canny choice after all, given how long he's been around and his generally good reputation
Time to wheel out my roles theory? The President is Head of State (cf HM Queen) and also Head of Government (cf the Prime Minister) and it is quite likely that many voters approved of Trump as Head of Government, boosting the economy and not starting wars, even if repelled by the lack of dignity (lies, racebaiting) he brought to the Head of State role.
And if you do not like that, how about my Covid theory? Early on, voters were appalled by Trump's mishandling of the pandemic killing hundreds of thousands of Americans, but recent encouraging news from the test tube wallahs has taken Covid off the table of issues that matter.
The emerging second wave in Europe probably helped him also, allowing Americans to think, well they did all that lockdown masky stuff and look what good it’s done them. Even CNN had stories along that line over recent weeks,
CNN mapping a path to WH for Biden that needs NV and AZ.
Hmmmm..
I'm Biden green all the way, but this looks shaky still.
AZ is done.
I think MI and WI are too.
NV is not, could go either way. If you put that in the Republican column (50/50 chance), then Biden has to win one of GA, PA and NC.
Christ. I thought it was a done deal now. Back to fretting...
If that is the case, is Trump value? Given 2/3 of those other states are probably more Trump than not and PA is a toss-up.
Guess that depends on your view on NV?
I'd say Trump is looking value now to be honest. I'm getting a bad feeling.
It depends on what you believe regarding NV. Trumps campaign say they expect to win by about 5000 votes, but most sources say that pretty much all thats left there is early voting and absentee ballots in Clark County which is heavily Dem. So take your pick, but both NV and AZ seem to me to have been coloured blue a little early, even if both end up that way
If you were going to steal this election for the Dems, by finding lots of postal votes stuffed down the sofa, you couldn't do it in this scenario without grossly inflating the turnout could you?
There was much annoying pro-Trump trolling early this morning, but I think you just took the prize.
Thanks. I am just trying to get it straight in my head. IF this happened, it would show as significantly elevated turnout in the 'late Biden surge' states that counted their postal ballots last, and turnout being as predicted, or at least significantly lower, in the 'Trump surge' states where they were counted first.
At the end of the day, this is going to the SC. I’ve been told on good authority that the reason the Rs rushed through Barrett was not because they thought they would lose the Senate but that they were “terrified” (and this is their word, not mine) that the Democrats would continue to find postal ballots until the Ds won in the states. It’s essentially what happened in several of the CA House seats in 2018 (it was never proved but ballot harvesting was suspected).
This argument came from a very well connected, establishment Republican who is anti-Trump
Even if everything was above board, it doesn't look good from a Trump supporter's perspective.
Most states count the postal votes first and on the day votes last, except the Democrat run marginal states where they do it in reverse, so they know exactly how many votes they need to win each state (and also by then which states they need to win).
Surely the law in Pennsylvania preventing mail-in ballots from being counted or processed earlier was passed by the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania state assembly? (for example) I've certainly heard more push from Dems than Rs for work on postal votes to begin early, precisely to avoid Trump trying to claim victory on the night.
Fair enough, although Trump might win PA anyway.
If the Dems wanted early counting, why didn't they do it in states they control?
That was because Milwaukee declared almost all their mail in vote in one go.
And the Dems got 100% of that? You can see the Dems gain 200k and the Reps get no extra votes at all.
Almost yes, because Milwaukee is heavily Democrat and GOP voters were told to vote on the day. If you look at Milwaukee vs 2016 then there's clearly nothing out of the usual going on.
Well I can believe 85%-15% I suppose...but 100%-0% all at once?
That just seems impossible and it happened in MI too
When people talked about it here it was 140k votes for Biden out of 150k. So Trump did receive 10k votes in that declaration. People staring at graphs afterwards are being silly.
'Silly staring at graphs' isn't a rebuke I ever expected to see on PB. As long as it gets rid of Trump, we should ignore the data should we?
But the graphs did not say what DAlexander and the tweeters said they said. They both showed increases to both Biden and Trump's vote tally. So the silliness isn't so much at staring at the graphs, but misreading them so patently.
The more reason to stare at them, it would seem to me. On the face of it, to me, these results seem ridiculous. If it was Trump finding just enough miraculous postal votes in key states at the 11th hour to overturn Biden leads, the whole world would be losing their shit.
I think that is exactly how Trump supporters will want to present this data. But it is neither ridiculous nor unexpected - if you simply look at which precincts were reporting when those tallies were dumped.
Let's put it another way. Biden is leading in key states and looking as though he is cruising to victory. Then there is a sudden rush of postal votes, showing 90%+ to Trump, which then changes the dynamic, with almost no votes to Biden. You saying you would not be questioning what happened?
Not if the one losing out discouraged using postal votes among his supporters. Hes provided an explanation.
Comments
*if he does indeed win
And if you do not like that, how about my Covid theory? Early on, voters were appalled by Trump's mishandling of the pandemic killing hundreds of thousands of Americans, but recent encouraging news from the test tube wallahs has taken Covid off the table of issues that matter.
Thanks to everyone for commentary, tips and advice throughout.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-arizona-president.html
Conversely you could argue not having the Senate might help Biden as he wont be able to say yes to the more left-leaning members of the Democratic caucus like AOC and he’ll have to govern as a moderate.
It was widely discussed that Biden won a batch of 140k/150k - not 140k/140k. The numbers have been doctored.
Jesus. Don't want to live through that again. I am officially a bedwetter, and my self imposed max future stake is £20.
Nevertheless, if I'd got it badly wrong I'd be sitting on a loss of about £2k today.
The Trump coalition therefore close to the Tory coalition under Boris now
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/exit-polls-president.html
I mean there must be or folk wouldn't put up with it would they?
Or window cleaners, gardeners, cleaners, accountants, postal workers etc., etc., would also be polluting the neighbourhood with their chosen racket every time they did a stroke of work too.
Wouldn't they?
Can Biden win without AZ and Penn?
Time to go to bed I think.
In the NC Special, the Dems have lucked out and it'll be Loeffler vs Warnock. The question is whether they are able to get their vote out for the Special.
Alaska - Will go Rep (just haven't counted enough yet)
Georgia regular - Perdue is running ahead of Trump and should be OK
Georgia special - will go to run off
North Carolina - looks very similar to the presidential race
Michigan - looks very similar to the presidential race so likely Dem hold
Maine - Collins is running way ahead of Trump. She is currently 6% ahead but they are now using ranked choice voting and so the gap will likely close. Being suggested we won't know for a week.
So it looks like 50-52 Republicans
Democrat gain.
Hmmmm..
I'm Biden green all the way, but this looks shaky still.
Your call.
I could have held my nerve entirely and been up £3.1k rather than £1.2k
I think MI and WI are too.
NV is not, could go either way. If you put that in the Republican column (50/50 chance), then Biden has to win one of GA, PA and NC.
In 2018, the Democrats were actually behind on election day but caught up as postals were recieved.
AZ is done.
Furthermore, outstanding ballots are similarly expected to break heavily for Biden - that is how the MI and WI and PA legislatures set up the timing of the count of the various forms of voting, precisely so that they could make the argument you seem to be supporting.
Of course in some cases absentee ballots won't have even been received yet.
For me, that was what this was mainly about.
That seems critical to me.
Son of a Bitch LOOOSSSSEEEERRRRR
It would make Tower Hamlets blush.
I am naturally a GOP supporter. I have actually lived through this several times watching the VA results when supporting the GOP candidate for Governor - he (always a he so far) is way up based on the rural and Tidewater vote until the very last minute, when Fairfax and Alexandria report. Then the Dem wins it.
Do I call fraud and conspiracy, and the Dems have stolen the election? No, because that was baked in. It is just an artifact of when the votes are counted.
Guess that depends on your view on NV?
That being said, we're only 70% counted in the Senate race there. If it's the postals that are still to be counted, then she could still lose. My guess - FWIW - is that it will end up 48.5 - 46.0, and that Collins will get around half of Savage's transfers.
I think Collins' vote against ACB is what probably saved her.
As an aside, Marc Morris' biography has a copy of the clauses at the back.
The Trump campaign just hosted a call with reporters, led by Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien.
Stepien said that they are confident that "count all legal ballots, the president wins." They also believe that can still win Arizona if all legal ballots are counted.
On Wisconsin, they believe it is a tight race and in "recount territory."
In Michigan there are outlying Republican counties, and in Nevada late breaking mail-in voting helped Republicans -- predicting a win by 5,500 votes. They are also confident in a healthy lead in Georgia.
One of the problems in this race is just how Democratic mail in have been, and this has really skewed some of the numbers.
Trump was leading handily in Virginia with 60% in, and ended up down 9%.
DEM 1.12
NV is not a 50/50 chance dont be ridiculous
From their website Timing of results:Due to an error in a Edison Research data feed of results, the estimate of the counted vote in Arizona is too high. The actual estimate is that 86% of the vote has been counted.
Today in dropped on his head as a child