2020 Presidential Election Results & Exit Polls commentary thread

[Platypus]

Cautiously optimistic that Biden will win, but it's close.

[Platypus]

So if Biden wins, would he be a lame duck with a GOP Senate and 2022 Midterm stacked against him?

But, no Trump, so still a win for the world.

[Platypus]

There's still a lot of votes to count in Kenosha, too, and they're pretty much all mail-in, no?

[Platypus]

For context, Kenosha was basically a tie in 2016, so 60% for Trump in a broadly suburban county seems unlikely... in any other suburban county in the country. Given the events of this year there, anything from 60% Biden to 60% Trump seems possible.

[Platypus]

We had an issue with the printer on one of our machines too...I was stuck at the precinct for an extra hour because I had to sign *one* receipt that wouldn’t print.

America’s election infrastructure remains terrible.

Why are absentee ballots being the last to be counted despite being the first to be received?

It looks incredibly suspicious that votes are suddenly materializing but only once they already knew what Trumps lead was from the people who turned up in person to vote.

Oh god this is gonna be the conspiracy theory isn’t it?

I personally don't like conspiracy theories and I am not saying that anything untoward has happened, but I would like something who knows about this sort of thing to explain.

I've just never seen a situation where one candidate is clearly ahead in so many states, only for that lead to suddenly diminish and in some cases disappear just with the processing of 'one batch' of votes.

That's literally what just happened in Florida and North Carolina earlier in reverse. People were predicting this phenomena all week.

Yes but in Florida the vote changed over the course of an hour or two.

In Wisconsin Trump was ahead by 4%. Within the space of a few minutes this changed to Biden up by 0.3%.

Never seen that once in the course of decades of elections.

When was the last time you saw an election with a city of a million people with a huge absentee and mail vote update those votes at the same time?

(Never)

[Platypus]

Maine senate is looking better than it was, hard not to consider it a tossup (again) now, right?

[Platypus]

So I realize it's probably too early to tell, but for the information we have this far is this largely a repeat up 2016 where polls orc wrong necessarily, but rather undecideds broke overwhelmingly for Trump? The difference here of course being that whereas Hillary was in the high forties both nationally and in crucial swing States, Biden was right about 50% which allowed him to squeak out narrow wins in the EV?

This feels like a very astute bit of analysis.

[Platypus]

Hard to see how Biden isn't the winner on the first count of votes. Court cases and recounts could yet find a way for Trump to win, but I think the real question is whether Biden squeaks across the line or gets a comfortable-ish win.

[Platypus]

As anyone who was on this forum back in 2004 knows all too well, exit polls are useless trash.

[Platypus]

As Badger suggested earlier, there's actually a pretty solid argument that the polls weren't wrong, just that Biden got his polling numbers within the MOE, but that undecided voters broke overwhelmingly for Trump. It makes sense given that this election was basically a referendum on Trump, and if after the last four years of every news bulletin starting with his latest ridiculousness someone wasn't decided against him they probably wouldn't be when they entered the voting booth.

Same thing, but less strongly, happened with the incumbents in 2012 and 2004.

[Platypus]

The more I look, the more I see Maine senate as still up for grabs, but Collins is favoured if she stays over 48%.

If the remaining 25% of votes break a very possible, and perhaps slightly conservative estimate here, 60% for Gideon, two-candidate preferred:

1,051,376 votes total (if there's exactly 25% outstanding)
262,844 votes remaining

Gideon to gain 60% two candidate preferred means +157,706.4
Collins to gain 40% two candidate preferred means +105,137.6

Gideon net gain = 52,569

Current gap based on first preferences only = 40,825

And that's before factoring in the votes for the other two candidates - Linn's 1.7% probably breaks towards Collins pretty strongly, but Savage's 5% probably breaks towards Gideon strongly.

Long story short from someone who is very used to looking at preferential voting - Maine Senate is still very much up for grabs.

[Platypus]

Even rural areas nationwide are seeing D leading mail votes by at least 55%, so...

Make it a 55% margin for Gideon with outstanding ballots TCP, and the gain from outstanding ballots is still +26,284, add in the preferences from Savage and Linn and it's still a very tight result.

[Platypus]

I agree that Collins is in a better spot than Gideon, I just think it's way way closer than the narrative suggests. I've shown my working, you can disagree with them freely, fiddle around the edges... the point isn't Gideon will win, the point is Gideon still has a realistic chance of winning.

[Platypus]

That's far too early from Gideon and I hope there isn't reason to regret it in the near future.

[Platypus]

Sportsbet is notorious for paying out early, that was a joke for the non-Australians (but also may be a true joke).

[Platypus]

But maybe, just maybe, we should take lessons from Canada, most of Europe or Australia, because they don't have these delays.

Don't forget that in most European countries way less elections have to be counted at once. German federal elections just have 2 votes for instance, while the US elect every single office from President, Representative, Senator, State Legislator, County Official, City Councillor to Garbage Commissioner at the same time.

In 2013, in the state of Hesse (~Missouri in terms of population) there were state legislature elections taking place simultaneously with federal elections and it took them until next morning to have the results for the state legislature elections. Now imagine how much time would be needed if every other statewide and local office were elected additionally.

In Australia, we do sometimes have these delays - but nobody has a problem with it, because we all have absolute faith that the count is being done properly, apolitically, and with the intention of counting every valid vote. It can take a week, week and a half to call a particularly close race sometimes.

[Platypus]

What's funny is, if we stop counting all votes now, then Trump loses. Either all states count their votes or all states stop. Did we not learn anything from Bush v. Gore in 2000?

270-268 opens up the possibility for shenanigans in Nebraska, beyond the faithless elector possibility.

[Platypus]

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1324375334653988864?s=19

...no sh**t, he'd have won 400+ EVs without mail in ballots

[Platypus]

I kind of dislike the counting before election day idea, all ballots should be unknown until all ballots are cast. Maybe there's a case to be made for the processing re:valid signatures and so on, but counting votes before all votes are received just smells wrong to me.

I think the solution is happening now - move the American people beyond the unreasonable expectation that they'll always know the winner by bedtime, or by breakfast at worst.

[Platypus]

Hoping for Biden to lose either GA or AZ ...

Why?

Because I have a 50€ bet on William Hill, in which I would win 450€ if Trump ends somewhere between 240 and 268 EV.

If he wins both states, Trump drops below 240 EV ...

Hoping a meteor hits Austria today because I bet money on it.

Why is there a glowing orange thing in the sky?

[Platypus]

Genuine question, do you actually think this is what is happening?

[Platypus]

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1324401527663058944

What an excellent idea.

[Platypus]

Even if Trump wins in Arizona, he still loses. Even if he wins in Georgia, he still loses. Even if he wins in Nevada, he still loses. He has to win Pennsylvania, and the maths are pretty merciless for him there - he will lose it by, at BEST for him, 40,000 votes.

[Platypus]

Am I imagining things, or has Biden outperformed Obama in DC?

[Platypus]

We're expecting a big batch of PA imminently, hopefully this is the one that finally flips it.