2020 Presidential Election Results & Exit Polls commentary thread

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

Trump has 60% of the vote. It's all over. I can't believe we failed to see this coming

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

By all appearances Biden's Florida fate is in the hands of a bunch of geriatric Republicans deciding to vote for him. Or maybe indies swinging hard for Biden.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

The biggest obvious takeaway here is that old people vote super early whereas the middle aged and young vote after getting off work. In Florida, where the Republican base is old, this translates into a big early E-day lead whereas in the Midwest, where the Republican base is middle aged this translates into a sluggish start.

I still think Trump has the advantage in Florida and the disadvantage in Pennsylvania but some people are reading too much into this. I'll start caring about the turnout figures again in 5 hours.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

So are these Florida numbers good or no?

No one knows for sure, and we won't until we actually see the results. This whole thread is just speculation, at this point.

I still remember the gold standard Atlas opinion well into election day 2016 was that there were record breaking lines in Philadelphia and Trump was going to get crushed. It's definitely easy to read way too much into early numbers and speculation.

At risk of breaking that, though, I think there's one factor in Florida I think people are missing regarding independents: while the early voting independents definitely leaned Biden, by most indications the election day independents will favour Trump. The math around how big a lead Republicans need to overcome the EV Indie lead Biden built up will change pretty drastically if there's significant turnout among independents today.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

Basically things are going the way I thought they would (well, I didn't think Trump would do so well in Miami) but I still find it suspicious that NYT thinks Trump has a 90% chance in Florida already. It's pretty early.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

I'd just like to point out that, regardless of the mail vote, Trump is up over 100k votes from 2016 in Miami. The mail ins and EDs might favour Biden, but the raw improvement for Trump was really all he needed if Biden isn't really bringing home the seniors (and it doesn't look like he is).

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

We saw from polling that Florida was all over the place and might not come through for Biden. There are states where he polled much better that haven't even closed yet. Please calm down.

This enitre damn forum was insisting Biden would win Florida no matter what.

It's the Atlas tradition: predict a Democratic landslide, then panic when that landslide fails to materialize.

I'm only going to seriously consider a Trump victory if I see serious signs that he's pulling it out in one of the former Blue Wall states. Otherwise we're tracking towards my original prediction (except maybe Arizona, Trump might hold that after all)

My actual prediction:

Trump overperforms polls, still loses.

Slight Biden overperformance:

(I'm not sure whether Florida or Georgia would flip first this election)

Slight Trump overperformance:

Trump still loses unless he flips both NE-2 and ME-2, in which case he brings it to a tie.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

You guys need to stop reading so much into early results. IIRC Clinton led Ohio's early vote too (as in the early reported vote) before rapidly losing it.

Just relax and wait for a bigger sample.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

Again though: is this not the point in 2018 when people said no blue wave and then...?

FL appears to still be an isolated incident?

Like in OH, was Hillary still up double digits with 50% of the vote in?

They're all mail ins. Not sure if Hillary was up with 50% but she was up by a similar margin for a while at the beginning of 2016.

Can't really conclude anything definitively yet but a narrow Biden win still looks more likely than not.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

Biden didn’t take „Latinos for granted“.

It’s more a combination of Latinos not wanting more of their folk coming into the US illegally when they themselves came often legally and stick to the rules, buying more and more into Trumps tough immigration rhetoric. Also, many Latinos are machos.

Biden took Latinos for granted. His outreach was consistently terrible during the primaries and we've little reason to believe that changed during the GE. Even in FL where they were much less drawn to Sanders, Bloomberg polled well (often better than Biden).

If Cubans in FL were easily swayed by Trump calling *Joe Biden* a socialist, there was no saving them.

Biden did a bad job defining himself with Latinos. My feeling was that calling him a socialist wouldn't work for most people, but without strong Democratic messaging it was easy for Trump to shape the narrative with Spanish ads and pointing to the craziest of Biden voters. Democrats overestimated how outraged your average Cuban or Mexican (at least in Texas, so far) would be by Trump's "racist statements" and forgot to actually put forward a positive image of Biden.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

So far as I can tell Trump is tracking to win Ohio by slightly less than he won it in 2016, with better margins in most working class areas but worse margins in suburbs. Just might go down to the wire in the Blue Wall but I still say Biden has a narrow edge

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

Yep, this is 2004/1948 all over again.

Fairly unpopular incumbent mismanages a crisis (Coronavirus, Iraq war) but still manages to get reelected off of social issues (ssm, blm).

Also the biggest polling error since 1948. Nate Silver is definitely out of a job.

What a mess.

He deserves a demotion to Nate Bronze for giving Biden over 60% odds of winning Florida. Literally all the available info except polls was extremely favourable for Trump.

The real moral of this election is that there are factors to consider besides the polls. If the polls say the Dems will dominate the early vote but then the early vote turns up considerably closer then clearly something is fishy with the polls.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

So right now everything appears to point to my exact prediction, a close Biden victory where he narrowly holds the former Blue Wall + AZ. Biden is ahead of Hillary's 2016 percentage and total vote in Ohio which is probably the best sign he's had all night and he's got a good lead in Maricopa. We all know that they count the massively pro-Biden early votes last in Pennsylvania so it would appear Biden is in a good place compared to last election once you look past the panicking from everyone who thought Biden would crush the Southeast.

But.

There are things that look a lot better for Trump than expected. He's pulling off turnout and margins in Appalachian counties that nobody though possible, which is part of why there's so much drama around Virginia (Biden will still win, but it'll be much closer than people thought). Biden was supposed to flip the white working class votes but that appears to be pretty marginal since Trump is already approaching his 2016 margins and turnout if not surpassing them in counties like Erie (52% Trump -> 55% Trump) and Lorain (47.5% Trump -> 50.5% Trump). Biden's margins are mostly being carried by primarily Suburban gains like in Franklin (60% Clinton -> 68% Biden).

Frankly, if Trump's rural and working class small town/suburban margins look like they do in Ohio then you can forget all the polling from Michigan or Wisconsin since Biden's big leads there were predicated on a significantly better working class margin. If Trump is doing no worse than 2016 except in suburbs then suddenly those states look real close. I also wouldn't read too much into the "red mirage" since, besides Pennsylvania the mail in vote didn't go as hard for Biden as some people seem to think. For example, Republicans in Michigan have a long tradition of mail in voting, and most of what I've seen suggests they'll put up a strong fight. In Wisconsin the early votes are pretty good for Biden but from what I've heard urban turnout is down and Wisconsin suburbs are uniquely favourable to Trump even if he's behind.

I wouldn't say any of the three states is favoured to Trump, but I'm having a real hard time saying that the odds are better for Trump to not win any of them. I really don't know who I'd rather be right now but Trump sure has momentum considering where he was sitting earlier.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

Maybe I'm going crazy but everything I'm seeing suggests Wisconsin polling was nonsense. If it was accurate Trump should be down significantly in rural Wisconsin but his margin is up 4% from 2016 in Juneau (74% reporting) and both his total vote and margin are up in Clark (98% reporting).

Most concerningly of all for Dems is Lafayette in Southwestern Wisconsin, a key area for Dems, where Trump has improved from 52% to 56% (!!!) with 100% reporting. For reference, Tammy Baldwin won Lafayette with 55% and she only won the election with 55% of the vote so if I were Biden I'd be extremely concerned.

This Wisconsin map does not look like a Democrat victory in the slightest. Maybe mail in votes will come to Biden's rescue but it's going to be extremely close.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

Maybe I'm going crazy but everything I'm seeing suggests Wisconsin polling was nonsense. If it was accurate Trump should be down significantly in rural Wisconsin but his margin is up 4% from 2016 in Juneau (74% reporting) and both his total vote and margin are up in Clark (98% reporting).

Most concerningly of all for Dems is Lafayette in Southwestern Wisconsin, a key area for Dems, where Trump has improved from 52% to 56% (!!!) with 100% reporting. For reference, Tammy Baldwin won Lafayette with 55% and she only won the election with 55% of the vote so if I were Biden I'd be extremely concerned.

This Wisconsin map does not look like a Democrat victory in the slightest. Maybe mail in votes will come to Biden's rescue but it's going to be extremely close.

I think some of those "100% reporting" are errors unless turnout has plummeted, which is not likely. Seems more like only the same day vote is completely counted.

Don't think that's it. The 2016 margin was 3,977-3,288 for Trump whereas right now it's 4,820-3,647 for Trump. Baldwin got just under 3,600 so this looks like the right final margin, Biden maxed out the same group of voters but Trump brought out almost 1,000 new voters, something we saw earlier tonight in Obama-Trump counties in Ohio. Scott Walker only managed 3,300 voters in his narrow 2018 loss, so this is a very bad sign for Biden.

If I wasn't broke I'd put money on Trump in Wisconsin. I can't believe how garbage the polling was. I can't believe I listened to people who explained it away with "undecideds breaking" because there's no goddamn way southwestern Wisconsin gives this many votes to Trump without him winning.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

This is shaping up to be a LOT like 2018. Florida goes bad, everyone freaks the fu—k out, then we slowly learn over the course of the night that just about everywhere else is fine.

We might even still win Georgia LOL. And to think we had doomers dooming, Trumpers gloating, and everyone pointing fingers and arguing over the cause of this “loss” that was never very likely to actually occur.

Convince me I'm wrong. How does Biden win Wisconsin when Trump has 1,000 more votes in Lafayette than he got in 2016? The polls giving Biden the edge were predicated on Trump losing those voters hard, but I just don't see a Democrat path to victory in Wisconsin without the Southwest. Wisconsin doesn't have the same disproportionately D favouring, late arriving mail ins that

For reference, in 2018 Baldwin won Lafayette by her exact margin of victory (55%) and Scott Walker narrowly won it with 1,800 fewer voters. Unless Biden pulls out crazy margins in Milwaukee or dramatically flips the WOW I just don't see a path to victory for him here.

Pennsylvania is obviously harder to tell with the huge D mail in advantage but the same trend appears to be happening there too. Trump already has 54k votes in Erie with less than 60% counted, he only got 60k in 2016 and Romney only got around 40k in 2012. This is a county that Biden was supposed to flip by double digits.

I want my prediction to be 100% right but everything I'm seeing suggests we're far closer to 2016 than 2018. The only potentially redeeming factor for Biden is better suburban margins and turnout, which could definitely save him in Pennsylvania, but if Biden wins Wisconsin on the back of the suburbs I'll eat a sock.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

So how are we currently feeling about:

MI?

WI?

PA?

MI: At this point Trump has surpassed or nearly surpassed his total 2016 votes in a few traditionally Republican counties (eg. Ottawa) and also in Flint. His margin in key counties like Macomb is substantial but he's farther from hitting his 2016 vote totals. Typically the Democratic votes in Detroit come late in Michigan even without mail ins, but on the other hand Michigan Republicans have a strong mail in vote operation and I doubt they'll be getting blown out like they will be in Pennsylvania. One bright spot for Biden is that he won back Leelaunau and has 1,000 more voters than Hillary did with 90% reporting. Probably the hardest state to call right now but it has the most for Biden to be happy about outside of the suburbs. Tilt Biden I guess?

WI: Everything I'm seeing suggests Trump will win. He's improving his vote totals in key southwestern counties that Biden was supposed to have won back and the Wisconsin suburbs are famously inflexible to the usual trends. In Lafayette Trump has pulled 1000 brand new voters straight out of his ass when they were supposed to be defecting in droves to Biden. The only silver lining for Biden is that he's somehow doing even better in Madison, but Madison alone ain't gonna cut it. Unless Biden pulls out crazy numbers from Milwaukee or its surrounding suburbs or unless it turns out the maps are lying and actually there are thousands of mail ins for those key southwestern states and turnout is almost double 2016 somehow I don't see a path for Biden and frankly I want to be proven wrong. Likely Trump.

PA: There are similarly bad signs for Biden in Trump's total votes in counties like Erie, but at least Biden can rest safe knowing hundreds of thousands of votes will arrive near the end of the count in his favour and his margins/turnout in the Philly suburbs will probably be substantial. The Allegheny turnout and margin will matter a ton here and I think will be decisive: if Trump does significantly worse here than his 2016 margin on the back of the suburbs (40%) then Biden has the edge but if Trump even manages to stem the bleeding to at least 35%ish then he'll be in a good position to win.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

So how are we currently feeling about:

MI?

WI?

PA?

MI: At this point Trump has surpassed or nearly surpassed his total 2016 votes in a few traditionally Republican counties (eg. Ottawa) and also in Flint. His margin in key counties like Macomb is substantial but he's farther from hitting his 2016 vote totals. Typically the Democratic votes in Detroit come late in Michigan even without mail ins, but on the other hand Michigan Republicans have a strong mail in vote operation and I doubt they'll be getting blown out like they will be in Pennsylvania. One bright spot for Biden is that he won back Leelaunau and has 1,000 more voters than Hillary did with 90% reporting. Probably the hardest state to call right now but it has the most for Biden to be happy about outside of the suburbs. Tilt Biden I guess?

WI: Everything I'm seeing suggests Trump will win. He's improving his vote totals in key southwestern counties that Biden was supposed to have won back and the Wisconsin suburbs are famously inflexible to the usual trends. In Lafayette Trump has pulled 1000 brand new voters straight out of his ass when they were supposed to be defecting in droves to Biden. The only silver lining for Biden is that he's somehow doing even better in Madison, but Madison alone ain't gonna cut it. Unless Biden pulls out crazy numbers from Milwaukee or its surrounding suburbs or unless it turns out the maps are lying and actually there are thousands of mail ins for those key southwestern states and turnout is almost double 2016 somehow I don't see a path for Biden and frankly I want to be proven wrong. Likely Trump.

PA: There are similarly bad signs for Biden in Trump's total votes in counties like Erie, but at least Biden can rest safe knowing hundreds of thousands of votes will arrive near the end of the count in his favour and his margins/turnout in the Philly suburbs will probably be substantial. The Allegheny turnout and margin will matter a ton here and I think will be decisive: if Trump does significantly worse here than his 2016 margin on the back of the suburbs (40%) then Biden has the edge but if Trump even manages to stem the bleeding to at least 35%ish then he'll be in a good position to win.

You’re completely wrong about Wisconsin for several reasons that have been explained repeatedly. You’re too obsessed with those Southwest counties and have ignored Biden’s gains elsewhere and the massive amount of outstanding Milwaukee vote.

I've seen the explanations but I just don't buy them.

The cities could save Biden, but from what I've seen the big turnout among suburban anti-Trump whites has been matched by comparatively low turnout (and very slightly worse margins) with urban nonwhites. Milwaukee proper has plenty of votes left for Biden, but I've seen zero evidence that Biden is going to improve enough to make up the difference literally everywhere else.

The WOW could also save Biden if the mail ins are really favourable (I'll get to that in a minute), but while it doesn't look like as disastrous for Biden as the Southwest it also doesn't look great for him. Trump already has 137k votes in Waukesha (he ended 2016 with 144k), 55k in Washington (he got 51k in 2016), 29k in Ozaukee (30k in 2016), 42.5k in Racine (47k in 2016) and 33k in Kenosha (36k in 2016). Biden has also improved his turnout, but not by the sort of margins necessary to single handedly save the state for him.


If the mail in vote was as heavily for Biden as it is in Pennsylvania then he might have a shot but it isn't. It'll make things much closer but it won't save Biden. I'm getting confident enough about this that I'd be willing to make a flair bet.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

So how are we currently feeling about:

MI?

WI?

PA?

MI: At this point Trump has surpassed or nearly surpassed his total 2016 votes in a few traditionally Republican counties (eg. Ottawa) and also in Flint. His margin in key counties like Macomb is substantial but he's farther from hitting his 2016 vote totals. Typically the Democratic votes in Detroit come late in Michigan even without mail ins, but on the other hand Michigan Republicans have a strong mail in vote operation and I doubt they'll be getting blown out like they will be in Pennsylvania. One bright spot for Biden is that he won back Leelaunau and has 1,000 more voters than Hillary did with 90% reporting. Probably the hardest state to call right now but it has the most for Biden to be happy about outside of the suburbs. Tilt Biden I guess?

WI: Everything I'm seeing suggests Trump will win. He's improving his vote totals in key southwestern counties that Biden was supposed to have won back and the Wisconsin suburbs are famously inflexible to the usual trends. In Lafayette Trump has pulled 1000 brand new voters straight out of his ass when they were supposed to be defecting in droves to Biden. The only silver lining for Biden is that he's somehow doing even better in Madison, but Madison alone ain't gonna cut it. Unless Biden pulls out crazy numbers from Milwaukee or its surrounding suburbs or unless it turns out the maps are lying and actually there are thousands of mail ins for those key southwestern states and turnout is almost double 2016 somehow I don't see a path for Biden and frankly I want to be proven wrong. Likely Trump.

PA: There are similarly bad signs for Biden in Trump's total votes in counties like Erie, but at least Biden can rest safe knowing hundreds of thousands of votes will arrive near the end of the count in his favour and his margins/turnout in the Philly suburbs will probably be substantial. The Allegheny turnout and margin will matter a ton here and I think will be decisive: if Trump does significantly worse here than his 2016 margin on the back of the suburbs (40%) then Biden has the edge but if Trump even manages to stem the bleeding to at least 35%ish then he'll be in a good position to win.

You really see this as likely Trump?  Seems like Trump isn't improving enough to offset Dane/Milwaukee.  

Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 with 1.4 million votes total. Right now he's at 1.39 million votes and the key counties that were supposed to go for Biden have 1,000+ more votes each for Trump than last time.

Obama 2008 peaked at almost 1.7 million votes and Obama 2012 only got 1.6 million votes, and in both cases he resoundingly won those aforementioned southwestern counties. Is Biden going to get better turnout than Obama while losing every rural county by margins no Democrat has ever lost before? No damn way.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

I'm going to bed. I still think Trump wins Wisconsin and probably Pennsylvania too. Michigan could go either way depending on how late votes go (Michigan is complicated because the mail in vote will be more Republican than usual, but traditionally the Democratic votes come later regardless) but John James is running just far ahead enough of Trump that I'd say he's favoured to win the Senate seat. Georgia could flip if the stars align but frankly I doubt it. If "projected votes" meant anything Biden would have won North Carolina too. It would be a pretty hilarious map if Biden wins Georgia and Arizona but loses Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, though. Kind of the ultimate "realignment" map.

Relax everyone!

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

So Biden is extending his lead in MI while James is exetending his. Ticket splitters were a real thing this election, not necessarily by sheer numbers, but decisive.

Going by the map it looks like James is doing better among the apparently crucial rich white retiree demographic that gave Biden Leelanau but he's inexplicably doing worse in Flint.

Incidentally, that's the one weird thing about Michigan; how the hell did Trump improve his margins in Genesee enough to actually hold a lead there with 95% counted?

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

Is it just me or did a batch of the Clark County NV late votes go heavily for Trump? Biden's lead there looks narrower than on Nov 3rd

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

So there's about 550,000 left in Pennsylvania which should seal the deal for Biden if they continue to favour him by the huge margins they have so far. Just one snag though:

https://twitter.com/AndrewSolender/status/1324423231210721282

If Biden wins 80% of the remaining urban and suburban votes he'll be statistically tied (by my estimate down by just under 10k votes), but it appears the vast remainder of those votes are in rural counties. If the count estimates are right then these include Greene County (79% reporting, currently 80% for Trump, went 68% for Trump in 2016), Tioga County (79% reporting, 81% for Trump, 74% Trump in 2016) and Crawford County (72% reporting, 79% for Trump, 66% Trump in 2016).

So if Biden gets it close and the rural late counts go like Erie did (1-3/1-4 margins for Biden) then Biden has it in the bag. The only snag is that Erie was extremely narrow in both elections, whereas most of these counties went massively for Trump even in 2016. If Biden can at least tie or win on the back of his mail in overperformance then he's safe, but if they come in any worse than 50-50 then Trump could actually narrowly win Pennsylvania. It all comes down to whether mail/late votes in heavily red counties went for Biden or not, again assuming the tweet's numbers are accurate.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

Meanwhile in Arizona

https://twitter.com/AndrewSolender/status/1324423231210721282

So it looks like the late ballots in Arizona really are consistently more favourable to Trump and it wasn't just a quirk of the Maricopa results. 58-39 in a county that's currently 53-46 is a good sign for him.

Of course even if Trump gets Arizona he's still toast unless he keeps Pennsylvania which is looking less likely, but it'd leave Fox with egg on their faces.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

Meanwhile in Arizona

https://twitter.com/AndrewSolender/status/1324423231210721282
So it looks like the late ballots in Arizona really are consistently more favourable to Trump and it wasn't just a quirk of the Maricopa results. 58-39 in a county that's currently 53-46 is a good sign for him.

Of course even if Trump gets Arizona he's still toast unless he keeps Pennsylvania which is looking less likely, but it'd leave Fox with egg on their faces.

Wrong tweet?

Yes you're right I'm an idiot who didn't check that I had the right tweet copied.

This is the one I meant:

https://twitter.com/Data_Orbital/status/1324461288181829632