2020 Presidential Election Results & Exit Polls commentary thread

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Yeah Obama won the tipping point state by 5.4%, Biden has won it by just 0.6%. Sadly, in the American system that's what matters.

The fact that in both 2012 and 2008 the tipping point state was Colorado feels very weird looking back at it. Colorado didn’t really feel like a crucial battleground either time, more emphasis was placed on OH, FL, VA and PA.

Both cycles it was considered a tossup though. CO was a relative new swing state; VA and OH were more sensational because they were the larger prizes, same with PA, and VA had gotten a lot of media. CO never really got that.

CO will probably never get that kind of attention. Its days as a swing state are passed.

I think geographic isolation from the rest of the swing states of its era was a big factor.  Colorado had <10 EV and was in a different time zone from every other competitive state.  Consider how national Republicans poured resources into Virginia much longer than they ever should have because it was right next to DC. 

Good point.
It might have been different if NM and AZ were massively up for grabs as well in the 2010s?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Yeah Obama won the tipping point state by 5.4%, Biden has won it by just 0.6%. Sadly, in the American system that's what matters.

The fact that in both 2012 and 2008 the tipping point state was Colorado feels very weird looking back at it. Colorado didn’t really feel like a crucial battleground either time, more emphasis was placed on OH, FL, VA and PA.

Both cycles it was considered a tossup though. CO was a relative new swing state; VA and OH were more sensational because they were the larger prizes, same with PA, and VA had gotten a lot of media. CO never really got that.

CO will probably never get that kind of attention. Its days as a swing state are passed.

I think geographic isolation from the rest of the swing states of its era was a big factor.  Colorado had <10 EV and was in a different time zone from every other competitive state.  Consider how national Republicans poured resources into Virginia much longer than they ever should have because it was right next to DC. 

Good point.
It might have been different if NM and AZ were massively up for grabs as well in the 2010s?

I'm sure it would have been.  Also, thinking about 2020, Biden probably didn't give AZ/NV enough attention for this reason.  He probably hit the saturation point in PA long before election day, and the convenience stops in OH were the Dem version of the 2018 RNC spending in NOVA.   

More generally, the American West had/has a ton of really safe states (UT, MT, WY, ID for Rs; WA, OR, CA, NM for Ds). This can disincentivize a "Western strategy".

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Prediction: this thread probably hits 300 pages and the site will crash multiple times.

This, a thousand times this.

Almost 800...

I am stunned that this site didn't crash on election night.

You can thank Dave Leip and Virginia for the server upgrades and improvements.  Amazing job.

We have the best modadmins, the best modadmins. No crashes on Election night. Imagine that. People go and tell me, "why did Virginia do so well", I say "look, I like the fact you recognize her greatness, but she's sticking with us". This is the best place, the best place to discuss politics online. Just incredible. Nowhere is better than this site. Best modadmins, best modadmins. The userbase is tremendous. So, I say, "Thank you, thank you, you're so kind. Join the site and you'll have Virginia as your modadmin too." This works every time. Remarkable. Just remarkable. Virginia is the best data modadmin God ever created.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1331673992315465728

Third time Ontario County votes D, LBJ in 1964 and Clinton in 1996.

Had a feeling this would flip given that Trump failed to get a majority there in 2016.

Why was this so consistently R over the decades?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1331673992315465728
Third time Ontario County votes D, LBJ in 1964 and Clinton in 1996.

Had a feeling this would flip given that Trump failed to get a majority there in 2016.

Why was this so consistently R over the decades?

Just  rural enough, probably.

I don't think that really suffices for an explanation, since Ds have performed decently well in some major sections in rural Upstate New York.
Perhaps it's the fact it's less rural than some other ones. Parts of Ontario are exurban, and those were among the most reliably R areas in Upstate over the decades? Maybe it's the fact it's in Western NY?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

NY update:

Absentee count:

Biden 573847 (73.5%)
Trump 193539 (24.8%)
Total 780330

Margin of 48.7%, average weighted final eday margin of Trump +2.6%, so average swing of 51.3%.

Statewide total:

Biden 4272479 (57.5%)
Trump 3044309 (40.9%)
Total 7296726

standard map:



swings:

Excellent, thank you!!

Kinda disappointed in the North Country honestly. The Essex swing made me hope that it'd come back as a block or almost, but in the end Biden only won 2 of the 4 core counties and one of them even swung to the right. At least the other 3 clearly trended left. Guess I'll take it.

A Dem assemblywoman in a seat drawn to be safe Dem went down in defeat in 2018, so I guess the result in the counties bordering Quebec this time around isn't entirely shocking.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Does anyone know why Richland county IL swung so much in 2016-2020, is there some specific thing going on in that county.

Trump secured similar swings in other nearby counties in Southern IL. So whatever caused this must not have been Richland-specific.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

NY update:

Absentee count:

Biden 573847 (73.5%)
Trump 193539 (24.8%)
Total 780330

Margin of 48.7%, average weighted final eday margin of Trump +2.6%, so average swing of 51.3%.

Statewide total:

Biden 4272479 (57.5%)
Trump 3044309 (40.9%)
Total 7296726

standard map:

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/519209100177965071/781359852127649852/unknown.png

swings:

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/519209100177965071/781361217067024394/unknown.png

Excellent, thank you!!

Kinda disappointed in the North Country honestly. The Essex swing made me hope that it'd come back as a block or almost, but in the end Biden only won 2 of the 4 core counties and one of them even swung to the right. At least the other 3 clearly trended left. Guess I'll take it.

Do you plan on updating your Redrawn States Project to include the 2020 election, when all of the results have been certified? I'd be interested to see how Biden fared on your map.

Of course! It will probably be sometime next year though, given how long it takes for all these results to come out.

I think I can already eyeball what the map looks like, anyway. Biden has definitely won Adirondack. Clinton only lost it by 2 points, and it looks like the statewide swing will be around 4-5 points. Not sure if Biden flips any other redrawn state, though of course he does flip AZ and GA. Upper Peninsula votes might be just enough to sink him in Wisconsin. South Florida and Rio Grande also definitely swung GOP, though Biden still probably carries them. California was probably pretty stable, meaning Biden wins it by 2-3 points. All in all, that should probably add up to 315 EVs for Biden, with an off-chance of 297 or 325 (depending on SF and WI, probably the closest states).

I'll follow up on the 100 States project as well, which at this point I think is more interesting since it has a lot more detail.

Hillary defeated Trump on your map because of that change...that and the PA split.

Are there any Clinton-Trump states out of this?

I dunno about Antonio's state map, but Rio Grande in my different states thing could have gone Trump.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What's the Atlas consensus on exit polls? Do y'all think AP, Edison, or Navigator was the most accurate? I remember people were saying AP most accurately predicted state results.

Personally I take all exit polls with a huge grain of salt, but judging from the image you attached AP seems likely to be the most accurate.

It's odd how AP had so few Asian voters. They made up only 2% of the national sample, with another 1% being either Native American or Pacific Islander, and 3% being "Other".

Only 2%??? That's fairly shocking.
Does AP have much of a history of underpolling demos in its exit polls?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I actually think Biden exceeded expectations in a lot of states:

Colorado (+14), Minnesota (+7), New Hampshire (+7), Maine (+9), New Mexico (+11), Vermont (+35), Massachusetts (+34), Connecticut (+20), Maryland (+33), Georgia (+.3)

Alaska (-10), Louisiana (-18)

The main ones where he missed just happened to be heavily skewed toward battlegrounds:

Pennsylvania (+1), Wisconsin (+.5), Michigan (+3), Virginia (+10), Nevada (+2)

Florida (-3), Ohio (-8), Iowa (-8), Texas (-5), Montana (-16)

This is a good point.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Something I noticed...look at the results in Collin County, my home county. Republican presidential candidate vote tallies have grown 25-30% since 2012, but for Democrats, it is 115-120%.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/umichvoter99/status/1350619147898679296
You can even see sub racial divides. The extreme south of dallas county is actually upper middle class educated black suburbs, so you can see them swing blue, while the red area above them are poorer less educated black inner city urban areas.

Okay, how the hell are the Park Cities and Preston Hollow still going for Republicans? Weird.

It's hardly weird...

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I apologize for keeping this thread active, but has anyone ever mentioned the fact that Biden and Trump tied in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex? They each got 1,504,789 votes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas–Fort_Worth_metroplex#Politics

That's very interesting. TIL.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Please stop bumping the thread.