2020 Presidential Election Results & Exit Polls commentary thread

[GeneralMacArthur]

So I guess the 6 PM Georgia drop was fake news and we're not getting anything until AZ and GA both drop at 9?

[GeneralMacArthur]

I can’t get over the fact that Cal's sexy messenges might cost us the Trifecta for Dem legislation to effectively combat climate change. Icebergs will melt because of how hot he is. Sexiest butterfly effect.

What really burns me is wasn’t Tillis also implicated in the Loeffer pandemic profiteering scandal? That seems a bit more relevant than a text about making out with a reporter but we never heard anything about that.

No that was Richard Burr, the other NC senator, who is already retiring in 2022

[GeneralMacArthur]

Biden down to 72c on PredictIt from 80+ earlier today.  Based on what?  We haven't heard anything at all from Arizona and the only development has been Fox News fending off Trumpworld assaults on their call.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Biden earlier today said "only three times in our country has an incumbent election been defeated, this would be the fourth."

He mis-spoke, it's actually 3 times in the last century.  The losers are:
George H.W. Bush
Jimmy Carter
Herbert Hoover
William Howard Taft
Grover Cleveland
Martin van Buren
John Quincy Adams
John Adams

I also would be hesitant to count HW and MVB as "single-term presidents" because they both explicitly ran as VP successors to their incredibly popular presidents, so HW was really a third Reagan term and MVB a third Jackson term.  Cleveland also can't really be characterized as a loser since he came back and won later.  You could also argue that Taft was a third Roosevelt term, although he didn't end up governing that way -- you could also definitely make the case that progressivism won the 1912 election, and Taft would have gotten most or all of Roosevelt's 28% to handily defeat Wilson, who only got 41%.

That leaves you with just Carter, Hoover, and the Adams family as presidents who were so bad that the public gave them the boot after one term.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Do we know anything about the makeup of these Arizona votes being reported late?

[GeneralMacArthur]

Here's what I'm seeing in Arizona:

County	% Reported	Num Votes so far	Trump margin so far	Projected Trump gain
Apache	75	20,930	-35	-2,441
Greenlee	76	3,053	+30	289
Mohave	82	94,046	+50	10,322
Coconino	82	61,560	-28	-5,885
Cochise	82	46,073	+17	1,719
Santa Cruz	82	18,137	-37	-1,473
Maricopa	83	1,713,063	-5	-175,434
Navajo	83	46,539	+7	6,672
La Paz	83	6,677	+37	506
Gila	85	25,499	+33	1,484
Graham	85	14,842	+44	1,152
Pinal	87	141,530	+13	2,749
Yuma	87	59,895	+8	715
Pima	88	465,065	-21	-13,317
Yavapai	98	133,574	+21	572

The current vote is 1,444,213 to 1,365,040.  Trump is down by 79,173 votes.

If the current margins in Arizona held steady, Trump would LOSE 172,370 votes and end up crushed in Arizona.  Obviously that's not going to happen.

But let's dive deeper.  Let's sum up all the expected diffs in the areas of the state outside of Maricopa.  That's a 3,064 gain for Trump.  He would still need 76,109 to win.  With 350,868 outstanding ballots in Maricopa, he needs 213,489 of them.  That's 60.8%.

Trump's best chance would be if he is also narrowing the Biden lead in Pima.  Because other than Mohave, the rest of the rurals really aren't going to help him much.

[GeneralMacArthur]

"Fun" fact:

Out of the 30 states Trump won in 2016, 7 of them trended R (as of the vote counts a 9:57 ET on November 4th), while 23 of them trended D.

Of the 20 states Clinton won in 2016, 17 of them trended D and three trended R.

In other words, Dems are gaining everywhere, but much more so in states that are already safe. This is resulting in a close electoral college matchup despite improving their margin in 40 states.

Yayyy even more Democratic voter inefficiency, this is epic!

At least it's nice for the House.  There's still a good chunk of California House seats that are occupied by some of the worst Republicans in the country.

[GeneralMacArthur]

I posted this about 5 hours ago, and calculated that Trump needed to win the remaining 350,000 outstanding votes in Maricopa by a 60-40 margin.  That was in line with what Wasserman said as well, I believe.

With that in mind, a 51-47 result in 62,000 ballots is catastrophic for Trump.  That's way below where he needs to be.  Trump only closes the gap by 2,480 votes.  He needed to close the gap by 76,110 from Maricopa.  Now he only has approximately 288,000 left, and he needs to win 182,000 of them, or 63.2%.

That may not seem like a big change, so let me put it another way:  Just to get back to a situation where Trump only needs to win 60% of the remaining vote, he would need the next 62K ballot drop to be 75% Trump votes.

It's a big county, and anything could happen.  But I'm feeling more optimistic after this drop.

Here's what I'm seeing in Arizona:

County	% Reported	Num Votes so far	Trump margin so far	Projected Trump gain
Apache	75	20,930	-35	-2,441
Greenlee	76	3,053	+30	289
Mohave	82	94,046	+50	10,322
Coconino	82	61,560	-28	-5,885
Cochise	82	46,073	+17	1,719
Santa Cruz	82	18,137	-37	-1,473
Maricopa	83	1,713,063	-5	-175,434
Navajo	83	46,539	+7	6,672
La Paz	83	6,677	+37	506
Gila	85	25,499	+33	1,484
Graham	85	14,842	+44	1,152
Pinal	87	141,530	+13	2,749
Yuma	87	59,895	+8	715
Pima	88	465,065	-21	-13,317
Yavapai	98	133,574	+21	572

The current vote is 1,444,213 to 1,365,040.  Trump is down by 79,173 votes.

If the current margins in Arizona held steady, Trump would LOSE 172,370 votes and end up crushed in Arizona.  Obviously that's not going to happen.

But let's dive deeper.  Let's sum up all the expected diffs in the areas of the state outside of Maricopa.  That's a 3,064 gain for Trump.  He would still need 76,109 to win.  With 350,868 outstanding ballots in Maricopa, he needs 213,489 of them.  That's 60.8%.

Trump's best chance would be if he is also narrowing the Biden lead in Pima.  Because other than Mohave, the rest of the rurals really aren't going to help him much.

[GeneralMacArthur]

From Jennifer Medina:

In the latest results, Trump hit the percentage he needed to stay on track to potentially keep Arizona, but it may not hold. The next Maricopa release is not expected until Thursday night.

What is she basing this on?  Is she going down to the precinct level?  51% is way below what Trump needed from Maricopa.

[GeneralMacArthur]

So I guess I'm going to wake up tomorrow morning around 10 AM EST and Biden will be declared the winner?  Looks like we'll have PA results by then?

Or if not, shouldn't Nevada be putting out some results that will make it possible for networks to call it for Biden, at which point Fox/AP would crown Biden the next president due to already having called AZ.

[GeneralMacArthur]

With Nevada dumps about to come, I think one thing is very clear:  The Fox/AP Arizona call has been handled very poorly.

If Nevada drops and the state is called for Biden, then Fox News would have Biden at 270 votes and should call the race for Biden.  So they're going to be sitting there talking about the next president, Joe Biden, winner of the election.  And nobody's going to believe them.  It'll be comical.

If they truly believe that Arizona is a done deal for Biden, they need to thoroughly explain it and sell it to their viewers.  If we don't believe the call, we're not going to believe any of the subsequent coverage based on the call.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Georgia SOS just announced by-county totals of remaining vote for Georgia.  Did we already know that information?  Sounded like there weren't very many left in Fulton.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Please stop posting nonsense from the Trump team and bickering!

The election is probably going to be decided in the next 2 hours.  We should be focused on numbers, numbers, numbers.

[GeneralMacArthur]

There are 11,000 left in Fulton
7,000 in Clayton
18,000 in Chatham

and a bunch of other counties IIRC.

Fulton is 72-26 Biden-Trump right now, so Biden would net 5,060 from those.
Clayton, 85-15, nets Biden 4,900.
Chatham, 58-41, nets Biden 3,060.
So that's at least 13,000 votes Biden can be expected to gain from those three counties.  He still needs 5,000 to come from the rest of the state.

[GeneralMacArthur]

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 ...

Nobody cares about your gambling!  God!

It's like coming on this thread to talk about your fantasy football team.  Except its worse because the rest of us have a very real, personal stake in the outcome of this election, and you're just hoping for things to happen so you can win a couple hundred euros.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Nevada jumped from 73c to 88c on PredictIt.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Source on the PA vote count being paused? I don't see it anywhere. Is this just a misreading of the Allegheny County situation?

https://twitter.com/MauraBarrettNBC/status/1324393923922579457

PA Supreme Court is 5-2 Dem. PA Governor is a Dem. PA SoS is a Dem.

Downballot elections matter. Imagine if Hillary had narrowly won in 2016, Dems lose ground in PA in 2018 instead of crushing it as they did, and now we have Republican administrators and state courts overseeing this process.

Okay, please catch me up as I've been in court all morning and I'm just taking a break for lunch.

1. WTF is happening regarding this lawsuit?

 2. To give the devil their due, no matter how much Republicans embrace the concept of voter suppression to retain power, I would be seriously concerned if a heavily populated republican-dominated county in an extremely closely contested election did not allow representatives of the democratic campaign to personally observe the recount. Someone mentioned watching it on stream, but that seems insufficient to try to see if there maybe double-dealing going on.

 Or is there more to this than I'm missing? Are there already Republican Representatives already duly appointed by the state or County elections board inside The Counting Room I assume?

Unless I'm mixing up my lawsuits, there are already Republican representatives, but not as many as Democratic representatives.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Nevada apparently had 120K outstanding absentees listed on their website, but that was due to a glitch and it's actually 60K.  What a screw-up.  Hope it doesn't matter.

[GeneralMacArthur]

This thread explains pretty well why Trump probably can’t win AZ:

https://twitter.com/djquinlan/status/1324428554403110913?s=20

So to summarize, if this information is correct:

Biden up by 68K
435K outstanding ballots

265K outstanding in Maricopa
65K = Trump-friendly
200K = Other (probably Biden-friendly)

160K outstanding in non-Maricopa

62K Pinal
41K = Trump-friendly
21K = Other

58K Pima/Coconino

36K rurals


The Trump-friendly ballots are the ones that have been counted so far in Maricopa and have been going for Trump by about 60-40.  In my earlier post, I wrote that Trump needed ALL the remaining ballots to average out to 60-40.  Instead, he's only barely sniffing at those numbers with the Trump-friendly ballots, and the vast majority of ballots left to count are "Other" which are most likely NOT Trump-friendly.

So basically, he needs to be doing BETTER with the "Other" ballots than he's been doing with the "Trump-friendly" ballots in Maricopa, if he's going to stand a chance.  Gains in Pinal and the Rurals alone won't cut it.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Trumpland
https://twitter.com/rooshv/status/1324183227951624194?s=20

It's the bread scientist!

If Daryush "legalize rape" Valizadeh would like to move to West Virginia, I'm sure whatever state he currently lives in would be happy to see him go.

Only legitimate rape, of course.

I remember reading some super-cringe RooshV stuff about how all women were trash and rape should be legalized, that kind of stuff, back when making fun of MRA/GamerGate losers was a thing.  He used to be a "pickup artist", and won the contest to be the most uber-misogynistic of that whole uber-misogynistic subculture.

I guess he's now moved on to being a right-wing bulls--t artist?  Although based on his Twitter bio it looks like he took a brief detour into the tech-bro influencer culture?  Lonely, right-wing white internet bros are the world's easiest targets for grift.

[GeneralMacArthur]

It's absurd to blame "socialism" for Biden's (and the Democrats') failures among Latinos.  If Latinos were uniquely averse to "socialism", they wouldn't have overwhelmingly voted for Bernie in the primary.

The reason Biden failed among Latinos is that he made almost no effort to appeal to Latinos in either his presentation or policy focus.  Choosing Harris as a running mate was a huge mistake in this sense.  Say what you will about Tim Kaine's other weaknesses, but at least he spoke fluent Spanish and would frequent give speeches on the campaign trail in Spanish.

Moreover, this biggest moral crimes committed by the Trump administration throughout the term were on immigration.  Yet Biden almost entirely ignored this issue in favor of a focus on covid and BLM issues.  How can the communities most personally affected by Trump's immigration atrocities fail to notice this?

Yeah, I know it's trendy for everyone to absolutely hate Tim Kaine and call him the worst VP pick ever, but I wonder if the latino result in this election helps vindicate the Kaine pick somewhat.  You may have thought it was goofy, but Kaine made a real effort to reach out to latinos.  Kaine was out there in AZ/FL giving speeches entirely in fluent spanish.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Is there any risk of Gary Peters losing, at the end of the day, due to oddities in Michigan?

[GeneralMacArthur]

Re: The Pima Drop.

Is that all the remaining votes in Pima, or just the earlier ones, that were always more likely to be favorable to Trump?

My understanding of Arizona is that the main "gap" is between earlier-counted votes and later-counted votes, where earlier-counted votes are expected to be friendlier to Trump than later-counted votes.  Meaning that the first drop from X county would be good for Trump, but the second drop would be worse.

So if that's the first drop from Pima, and Trump only "stayed on track", then that's good for Biden.  But if that was all the Pima votes, then it's a good result for Trump.

[GeneralMacArthur]

From 538 blog:


NATE SILVER
NOV. 5, 8:42 PM
This is interesting. The Democratic Senate candidate in Alaska, Al Gross, is claiming he’ll win once all ballots are counted. (He currently trails by 31 points.) I’m not sure I buy that but … if no mail votes have been counted in Alaska yet, the results we do have so far could be significantly more friendly to Republicans than the final result. If so, that would presumably also affect the race for the presidency (where Biden trails by a similar margin to Gross) and the House (where Alyse Galvin is running a little better than Biden or Gross). It’s a long shot, but you might not want to totally sleep on this race.

Yeah and Doug Jones said he was only behind by 2.

[GeneralMacArthur]

So Trump needed to win these 60-40 and he won them 57-43.  That's a 6% underperformance, definitely not trivial.

And these were the early ballots that were supposed to be better for Trump.