2020 Presidential Election Results & Exit Polls commentary thread

[Virginiá]

As I long suspected, we should know who won Michigan tonight unless it's super close. There really wasn't a lag in reporting back in the primary and municipalities have upped their capacity to deal with the surge of absentee ballots so I was unsure why some expected a long drawn-out count in Michigan.

https://twitter.com/OmarJimenez/status/1323739698871885829

That's the upside of putting an election law expert who actually cares about fair, competently-run elections into the top election administrator office of a state.

[Virginiá]

So far we haven't crashed, which is a good sign. Thanks to Virginia (famous last words, yes I am going to jinx it)...

In 2016, it didn't crash until 7:23pm.

Well, it hasn't even gotten laggy yet.

I'd be surprised if it crashes tonight, tbh. I've been keeping track of the page load times and there has been no slippage at all today. At worst it starts to lag and I can quickly fix it by paring back some resource-intensive forum features.

[Virginiá]

https://twitter.com/anenews/status/1324559175985233921

I don't get it, are they asking God to steal an election for them by changing ballots before they are counted?

Big if true

[Virginiá]

Just give the name of the person we’re going to sh**t at for next four years and let people move on. And for the world’s sake, please consider adopting electronic voting machines.

In theory, it sounds better, but then you have larger overhead for machine costs (repair/replacement), which inevitably gets neglected and leads to years of using old, constantly-malfunctioning machines. Also, the lack of stringent security requirements means manufacturers are still putting out voting equipment that have the security of Windows programs from the 1990s (in other words: none).

Our local/state governments are simply not responsible nor competent enough to make it work at this current time.

[Virginiá]

I don't really pay too much mind to the dooming if people are being genuine (instead of outright trolling). It's an election on an election forum with very committed partisans and election enthusiasts... of course people are going to worry, get massive anxiety, and fear the worst. It's not uncommon behavior in virtually every aspect of our existence. It shouldn't taint a person's image on here, unless, again, they are doing it just to bait and screw with people.

Just my 2 cents.

[Virginiá]

Seems like Trump followed a trajectory similar to Obama 2012, in that he and his party performed better than expected, but only about half as good (give or take) as his original win. The problem for Trump is that his first "win" was a 2.1% plurality LOSS, and won the rust belt states that brought him over the edge by slim margins.

If you wanted to apply the same trend to Biden, 2024 wouldn't bode well, but he's probably not running again anyway, so who knows.

[Virginiá]

https://twitter.com/ZcohenCNN/status/1324849481381257218

[Virginiá]

And now that the GOP was able to hold off Democrats in down-ballot races in North Carolina, Florida, and Texas among other states that we were hoping to make gains in (still awaiting final results in Arizona and Georgia...), we are going to see Republicans double down on gerrymandering for yet another decade.  We can't catch a break.  

Technically NC should be fine since the NCSC is still Dem-held, but the GOP put a huge dent in majority. Unless SCOTUS decides that legislatures cannot be constrained by anyone or any branch of government, new gerrymanders will be litigated in state court.

[Virginiá]

Me too.  But why is that?  I'd like to think it's because they are being responsible.  But I have to think a factor is that they know the state is changing and they can't get away with BS anymore.  They have a political future beyond Donald Trump and his personal interests.

Eh, if that was the case, given Georgia's sordid history of dirty tricks and abuse of power, I think they'd actually double down rather than let up. It's what the NCGOP did, and they didn't really pay a penalty for it. They just screwed themselves over by changing the rules in ways that they only later realized hurt them at that particular moment.

[Virginiá]

I never understood the logic that Democrats are constantly stealing elections, yet at the same time, also suck at winning elections. Like, if Democrats have a massive secret network of fraudulent voters and election workers, even in Republican-controlled states like Georgia, then why are Democrats still losing elections there? Why did we not win the two Senate seats outright? Why did we perform worse further downballot? Why are Democrats losing anywhere if we're so sophisticated as to steal entire states for the presidential candidate?

These kinds of argument are just like, the dumbest arguments people can make. It also shows a disturbingly high opinion of the competency of the average criminal and their ability to not only carry out such an operation, but to keep it a secret. The kind of people willing to go this far just aren't that smart, nor reliable, nor numerous.

[Virginiá]

And from my Point of view there should be Criminal Investigations by the Senate into the Polling Industry as well as how Networks call Races. FOX bad call about AZ clouded the entire Election Night Coverage not to mention the early House Call by FOX particularly with the underlining Headline "Democrats expand Majority" which is nowhere near true.

What crimes have been committed?

[Virginiá]

https://twitter.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/1329509841149243406
https://twitter.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/1329508699359023105
https://twitter.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/1329511268970065929


These are such low-quality conspiracy theories.

[Virginiá]

Unfortunately there is a segment of these voters still willing to vote R down ballot even though those Rs  have shown a totally lack of spine and constant appeasement and pandering towards the Trump fascists.  I mean you see it here.

It's not that unlike other demographics that moved to the other side of the aisle over time. Usually takes a few cycles or more for these people to shake off old habits. Democrats still benefited from some Trump supporters habitually voting Dem as well.

Shame trends couldn't catch up in the last cycle before redistricting, though.

[Virginiá]

Biden did flip AZ and GA though, however narrowly. Two states Obama never won, hadn't been won since Bill Clinton in the 90s. In the end, he flipped everything he was "expected" to except NC and FL; the first was very close and the second has never been trusted, especially after 2018. If you just showed people a year ago the final map, including margins, they would consider it a resounding success.

Really, I think it's very clear that the biggest reason people found it underwhelming is the late ballot-counting left things hanging and feeling uncertain for so long. That said, it was possible to do the math and figure out the likely result on election night/early the morning after; by 5 AM November 4, I was calling the 306 map, as were several others in this very thread. It just didn't feel quite the same as seeing everything called by the networks and light up on their maps in a single night like it did in 2012.

Another part is that Democrats really did not do well downballot, and in a redistricting year - their last chance to try and even the scales. We lost the New Hampshire legislature and EC despite Biden winning the state by 7 points. We couldn't even defeat Collins in Maine. All of this stuff really mattered. A Senate majority being necessary for Biden to accomplish anything, and legislatures to avoid redistricting losses again.

I mean, yeah, the presidency is a bit less underwhelming at this point than it was 2 weeks ago, but the other results are very depressing.

[Virginiá]

https://twitter.com/ryanjreilly/status/1333439836959744002