2020 Presidential Election Results & Exit Polls commentary thread

[Statilius the Epicurean]

We don't know how independents will split or how many crossover R/D voters there will be, so I'm trying not to read anything into these numbers.

[Splash]

The unknown variable here is the amount of absentee ballots that have been dropped off today.

https://twitter.com/RalstonReports/status/1323717333655846912

https://twitter.com/jmartNYT/status/1323717102184878081

[RI]

Guam update (61% partially reporting, 14k total votes): margin stays pretty consistent since last update at Biden 55.7, Trump 41.5.

Guam update (73% partially reporting, 19k total votes): marginal improvement for Biden to 55.8, Trump at 41.4.

Guam update (82% partially reporting, 22.5k total votes): Trump slightly improves. Biden at 55.35, Trump at 41.97. Results seem pretty stable.

[GeorgiaModerate]

We don't know how independents will split or how many crossover R/D voters there will be, so I'm trying not to read anything into these numbers.

No, but we can make some educated guesses based on polling.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

For those who are interested, I finally took a close look at the early vote data from Texas.

The TLDR is that even with making some pretty conservative assumptions, it seems extremely easy to get to a narrow Biden win scenario if you start off from the 2020 turnout by county data and the 2018 Beto-Cruz results. In fact, it is sort of hard to not come out with Biden ahead unless you are really straining things and trying to strain the available data to interpret it as much in Trump's favor as possible. For one thing, the turnout in a lot of white rural heavily GOP counties seems to have lagged pretty hard during the early vote period behind the larger urban/suburban counties.

I wrote a longer post in the Final prediction: Who will win TX? thread here describing how I came up with this in detail: https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=410006.msg7722991#msg7722991

This is enough for me to push TX to (very narrowly) tilt Biden. It just seems more plausible that Biden will win TX than that he will lose it - which is saying something for a state that has been as strongly R as Texas.

But here is my little scenario/benchmarks for what is required for a narrow Biden win for the largest counties that you can compare to the results on election night.



If Biden is generally hitting these sorts of numbers, then he could win Texas (but is not guaranteed if he is only barely hitting them). One interesting thing to note is that the Biden margin from Harris + Dallas + Travis counties here adds up to almost exactly 1 million.

As a quick shorthand, you can look at those 3 counties, and if Biden's margin from those 3 counties is more than 1 million, then he has a shot of narrowly winning Texas and perhaps may even be favored to do so.

Another interesting thing about this scenario is it does not even require Biden to win Collin or Denton counties to win statewide. That is a direct result of the assumptions that went into it, however. I deliberately did not assume any sort of extra suburban swing to Dems beyond what we already saw in 2018, and only assumed that the surge voters would be, in each county, slightly more Dem than the non-surge voters. Basically, in this scenario, the swings to Biden are larger in counties where there are lots of surge voters, and lower in counties where there are not many surge voters, due to the deliberately cautious and conservative assumption that the only thing Biden has going for him are the surge voters being (slightly) more Dem. In reality, I would expect any swing to Biden to be a bit more concentrated in the urban/suburban counties than here. If Biden does a bit better in counties like Collin/Denton, then that would give him a little bit of cushion against some possible slippage in some rural counties.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

We don't know how independents will split or how many crossover R/D voters there will be, so I'm trying not to read anything into these numbers.

No, but we can make some educated guesses based on polling.

The official slogan of Atlas!

[Statilius the Epicurean]

We don't know how independents will split or how many crossover R/D voters there will be, so I'm trying not to read anything into these numbers.

No, but we can make some educated guesses based on polling.

I suppose, but the polling subsamples we're talking about have high MOE so it's difficult. The difference between say Biden in FL winning 11% of Rs vs 9% of Rs could be the state.

[Holmes]

Tick tock. Not much time left for Trump to get to 400,000.

Or even 300k.

To clarify, Trump doesn't necessarily need +300k or +400k to win FL; he could win it with fewer. Failing to reach those targets makes the road much more difficult and likely makes him the underdog, however.

Oh I agree, this is just like when people were saying “Dems need to win the early vote and VBM in Florida by 600k to win!” which was... dumb lol.

But the trend seems to be that ED voting is becoming less R as the day progresses, and this is a bad trend for Republicans.

[brucejoel99]

Only 4 hours left until the first polls close!

3 hours! Some KY & IN polls close at 6pm EST (though whole states won't be closed 'til 7pm, as usual).

[whale]

I voted a few hours ago in a Biden-friendly Philly neighborhood. There was no line, I was able to go immediately in and out.

[Inmate Trump]

After 27 pages or so, what’s the gist of how Election Day voting is looking for Biden?  Any reason for me to doom, or is it looking good for us?

[Bootes Void]

First batch of exit polls come at 5, so look out for that

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

After 27 pages or so, what’s the gist of how Election Day voting is looking for Biden?  Any reason for me to doom, or is it looking good for us?

I'll give you the standard answer:  it depends on who you ask and what sources you're viewing. 

[EJ24]

After 27 pages or so, what’s the gist of how Election Day voting is looking for Biden?  Any reason for me to doom, or is it looking good for us?

It's looking good and there are reports that the Trump Inner Circle is dooming right now.

[Non Swing Voter]

Tick tock. Not much time left for Trump to get to 400,000.

Or even 300k.

To clarify, Trump doesn't necessarily need +300k or +400k to win FL; he could win it with fewer. Failing to reach those targets makes the road much more difficult and likely makes him the underdog, however.

He's definitely not making it to either of those numbers IMO.  Unless the updates aren't close to current.

[OBD]

First batch of exit polls come at 5, so look out for that

What timezone is this?

[Ferguson97]

GOP Florida Turnout advantage at the end of early voting was around -129,000

2:41 Pm update: +133,11 (not including a few counties that manually report including Miami-Dade
In Miami, Dems entered today with 40.7% of votes cast being Democrats, 30.7% Republicans.
Today, 35% Dems, 31% republicans.

GOP outperforming 2016 turnout in wwc areas and latinx areas and Dems doing well in Suburbia, especially Seminole.

Florida is an enigma. No matter what, a candidate makes gains with one group and loses ground in another. It's astonishing. It's like the people of Florida have some unspoken agreement to make every race under 2%.

[Dereich]

After 27 pages or so, what’s the gist of how Election Day voting is looking for Biden?  Any reason for me to doom, or is it looking good for us?

There is, as always, plenty of evidence for any interpretation you want. The AG quote in my sig is evergreen.

[NYSforKennedy2024]

After 27 pages or so, what’s the gist of how Election Day voting is looking for Biden?  Any reason for me to doom, or is it looking good for us?

TX - GOP has expressed worry, early #s look better than Beto's in '18
PA - GOP has expressed worry
Otherwise - GOP turnout not reaching the point where it needs to be to make a Trump win even probable.

Exit polls may indicate a nail in the coffin.

[Non Swing Voter]

After 27 pages or so, what’s the gist of how Election Day voting is looking for Biden?  Any reason for me to doom, or is it looking good for us?

It's looking good and there are reports that the Trump Inner Circle is dooming right now.

what states are they dooming about?  Pennsylvania?  

[Hope For A New Era]

First batch of exit polls come at 5, so look out for that

What timezone is this?

Eastern. Times are always Eastern here it seems.

[cp]

GOP Florida Turnout advantage at the end of early voting was around -129,000

2:41 Pm update: +133,11 (not including a few counties that manually report including Miami-Dade
In Miami, Dems entered today with 40.7% of votes cast being Democrats, 30.7% Republicans.
Today, 35% Dems, 31% republicans.

GOP outperforming 2016 turnout in wwc areas and latinx areas and Dems doing well in Suburbia, especially Seminole.

Florida is an enigma. No matter what, a candidate makes gains with one group and loses ground in another. It's astonishing. It's like the people of Florida have some unspoken agreement to make every race under 2%.

 ... concealed in a mystery, hidden in a riddle, ... chugged by a dude.

[Person Man]

Tick tock. Not much time left for Trump to get to 400,000.

Or even 300k.

To clarify, Trump doesn't necessarily need +300k or +400k to win FL; he could win it with fewer. Failing to reach those targets makes the road much more difficult and likely makes him the underdog, however.

He's definitely not making it to either of those numbers IMO.  Unless the updates aren't close to current.

And how many raw votes are there? There were 9.4 in 16 and 8 and change in 18. We are getting just south of 11 now. A 400k deficit probably matters even less now.

[YE]

After 27 pages or so, what’s the gist of how Election Day voting is looking for Biden?  Any reason for me to doom, or is it looking good for us?

TX - GOP has expressed worry, early #s look better than Beto's in '18
PA - GOP has expressed worry
Otherwise - GOP turnout not reaching the point where it needs to be to make a Trump win even probable.

Exit polls may indicate a nail in the coffin.

The final results will. Everything before, at least for the most part, only means so much

[Person Man]

GOP Florida Turnout advantage at the end of early voting was around -129,000

2:41 Pm update: +133,11 (not including a few counties that manually report including Miami-Dade
In Miami, Dems entered today with 40.7% of votes cast being Democrats, 30.7% Republicans.
Today, 35% Dems, 31% republicans.

GOP outperforming 2016 turnout in wwc areas and latinx areas and Dems doing well in Suburbia, especially Seminole.

Florida is an enigma. No matter what, a candidate makes gains with one group and loses ground in another. It's astonishing. It's like the people of Florida have some unspoken agreement to make every race under 2%.

 ... concealed in a mystery, hidden in a riddle, ... chugged Smoked by  the dude.