2020 Presidential Election Results & Exit Polls commentary thread

[ultraviolet]

This whole thread is just incredible...

https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1324445099430940673?s=20

DMP was in tears during the call.

https://twitter.com/kirk_bado/status/1324445867663908870?s=20

I'm not sure about generally blaming the "liberal wing" of the party, but you have to admit their branding is God-awful. Progressives talk about how popular their ideas are, but progressives are often the ones that come up with these awful catchphrases. "Defund the police" is a guaranteed vote-loser, even if police reform is popular. Calling themselves "Democratic socialists" is a vote-loser, even if progressivism can be popular. I don't even understand that one, seeing as how they are social democrats at their leftmost.

This is clearly a problem with the Democratic Party in general, judging by the Florida minimum wage thing. The party needs rebranding before 2022/2024 (and this is coming from a moderate establishment™ dem who loves Pelosi)

Eh, I think there's nuance though. Joe Biden way end up winning 300 EVs in the highest turnout in decades. There *are* issues but it looks like Biden also ended up doing a lot of things right.

It’s clear that most liberal policies have the support of a large majority of the people, but the messaging from the party is pretty bad. Something needs to change. For the record, I’m definitely not saying that we should hand over the party to AOC, just switch up the leadership within.

[Alben Barkley]

This whole thread is just incredible...

https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1324445099430940673?s=20

DMP was in tears during the call.

https://twitter.com/kirk_bado/status/1324445867663908870?s=20

I'm not sure about generally blaming the "liberal wing" of the party, but you have to admit their branding is God-awful. Progressives talk about how popular their ideas are, but progressives are often the ones that come up with these awful catchphrases. "Defund the police" is a guaranteed vote-loser, even if police reform is popular. Calling themselves "Democratic socialists" is a vote-loser, even if progressivism can be popular. I don't even understand that one, seeing as how they are social democrats at their leftmost.

I've been saying it for a while, but "ACAB" is such a failure of messaging. The sentiment behind it (even good people who are cops are part of an inherently racist system in need of reforming) is reasonable, but the phrase itself is just awful.

In fairness to the left-wing of the party, you don't really see many Democratic candidates chanting ACAB. If a group of protestors is doing that, there's really nothing you can do to stop it.

I agree though, there was a big messaging failure on police reform, even if the issue unquestionably favored Democrats.

The left completely blew all the post-Floyd momentum on criminal justice/police brutality. I was stunned at all the people who were ready to listen on that stuff but then all they ended up hearing was "abolish the police"  and people defending looters and arsonists. The cultural left completely wasted on opportunity to get a majority of people on board with sensible reforms.

Sadly agree. There was an opportunity for a real conversation and change. Instead, BLM went less MLK and more Malcolm X to their own detriment.

[BudgieForce]

A few of the freshmen democrats losing is understandable given Trump was at the top of the ticket. Donna Shalala and Mucarsel-Powell however had no business losing. Democrats need to get some strong candidates and get these seats back in 2022. Even in a Biden mid-term, they'll be able to pick them back up.

I mean, their districts may have shifted from D+5 to R+5 when the Cubans decided to all vote R? And neither of them are Cuban? Not sure they could have avoided defeat in that environment. It's not their fault the "Biden is a socialist" messaging worked.

It's still southeast Florida though. Democrats can easily get back to 2018 levels and win back both seats if they run the right message. And the cloud of socialism hanging over Biden's head down here will be gone when Biden actually governs like a normal center-left democrat.

[lfromnj]

Also if the Senate doesn't flip it looks really bad for D's to not have taken the compromise bill.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

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?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/rickeybevington/status/1324417497450323968

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

AMELIA THOMSON-DEVEAUX
NOV. 5, 3:32 PM
A couple of updates on the legal front. First, the Trump campaign prevailed in its lawsuit against the Philadelphia County Board of Elections at the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, as the court found that the Trump campaign’s observer was unable to “actually observe the canvassing processes in any meaningful way.”

In a separate case involving the Pennsylvania deadline for verifying mail-in voters’ identification, a state court also issued an order telling election boards to temporarily segregate mail-in ballots where proof of identification is received between Nov. 10-12, pending further orders from the court. (It’s unclear how many ballots we’re talking about here, and it may not matter unless the margin is extremely close.)

Finally, Republicans withdrew their motion for a temporary restraining order involving ballots that were corrected or “cured” in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania (there’s another lawsuit that addresses ballot curing pending, and the judge in this case seemed pretty skeptical of the claims).

[ProgressiveModerate]

This whole thread is just incredible...

https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1324445099430940673?s=20

DMP was in tears during the call.

https://twitter.com/kirk_bado/status/1324445867663908870?s=20

I'm not sure about generally blaming the "liberal wing" of the party, but you have to admit their branding is God-awful. Progressives talk about how popular their ideas are, but progressives are often the ones that come up with these awful catchphrases. "Defund the police" is a guaranteed vote-loser, even if police reform is popular. Calling themselves "Democratic socialists" is a vote-loser, even if progressivism can be popular. I don't even understand that one, seeing as how they are social democrats at their leftmost.

This is clearly a problem with the Democratic Party in general, judging by the Florida minimum wage thing. The party needs rebranding before 2022/2024 (and this is coming from a moderate establishment™ dem who loves Pelosi)

Eh, I think there's nuance though. Joe Biden way end up winning 300 EVs in the highest turnout in decades. There *are* issues but it looks like Biden also ended up doing a lot of things right.

It’s clear that most liberal policies have the support of a large majority of the people, but the messaging from the party is pretty bad. Something needs to change. For the record, I’m definitely not saying that we should hand over the party to AOC, just switch up the leadership within.

I also think many Democrats with progressive policies come off as aggressive sometimes, even if they don't mean to be.

[Non Swing Voter]

2024 pls!!!!
https://twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/1324448622658965505?s=20

Nobody in any blue state that's gonna deliver the WH to Biden is going to vote for that disingenuous loser.

[wbrocks67]

I also have now idea if the PA DOS is correct in how many mail ballots have been returned. In Philly, they say 434K were requested but only 357k returned. I highly doubt ~75K were not returned.

[Crumpets]

This whole thread is just incredible...

https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1324445099430940673?s=20

DMP was in tears during the call.

https://twitter.com/kirk_bado/status/1324445867663908870?s=20

I'm not sure about generally blaming the "liberal wing" of the party, but you have to admit their branding is God-awful. Progressives talk about how popular their ideas are, but progressives are often the ones that come up with these awful catchphrases. "Defund the police" is a guaranteed vote-loser, even if police reform is popular. Calling themselves "Democratic socialists" is a vote-loser, even if progressivism can be popular. I don't even understand that one, seeing as how they are social democrats at their leftmost.

This is clearly a problem with the Democratic Party in general, judging by the Florida minimum wage thing. The party needs rebranding before 2022/2024 (and this is coming from a moderate establishment™ dem who loves Pelosi)

Eh, I think there's nuance though. Joe Biden way end up winning 300 EVs in the highest turnout in decades. There *are* issues but it looks like Biden also ended up doing a lot of things right.

It’s clear that most liberal policies have the support of a large majority of the people, but the messaging from the party is pretty bad. Something needs to change. For the record, I’m definitely not saying that we should hand over the party to AOC, just switch up the leadership within.

I think part of it is that the Democratic leadership feels beholden enough to their base that they feel they need to copy their language word-for-word or they'll lose that relationship. It's really easy to communicate you believe black lives matter without using those exact words which will inevitably be used in an attack against you. Republicans are masters of the "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" dog whistling that lets them say whatever they want to their supporters and then just deny any of it was nefarious when questioned about it.

[BudgieForce]

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?

I get what your saying, but as someone who has had to live through many many many commercials with Hispanic business owners fearing "Joe Biden's socialism and tax increases", I'm not entirely convinced it didn't hurt him.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Judas Van Drew winning is probably the single most disappointing/infuriating result of the entire election. Against a Kennedy, too. MillennialModerate will REALLY be in shambles if that happens AND Georgia goes for Joe though.

Why do you believe Van Drew won his race?  He's up 4 points with only 75% of the vote counted, and we already know how VBMs shift the race.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Secret Service and FAA know who the next POTUS is:

https://twitter.com/SenWhitehouse/status/1324431035606700033?s=20

President-elect Joe Biden. God, I love that.

Do you really? Or do you just like that the democrats will be back in the white house?

Most democrats I know, all agree that Biden is an awful candidate on the basis that after 47 years he's still achieved nothing in politics, is likely taking corrupt money from foreign governments and changes his positions on core policies to suit the mood.

I like Biden for Biden.  He's a class act, a decent man, a "good" politician, willing to work across the aisle, recognizes the power of bipartisanship, and has a strong desire to restore decency and respect to the Oval Office.

Your guy is the most horrid person ever to be president of this country.

Fair enough. I respect your opinion.

Out of genuine curiosity - do you have any curiosity or wonderment for Hunter Biden and James Biden having a track record over decades for coincidentally earnings contracts in countries where Joe Biden had responsibility for U.S foreign policy, despite both James and Hunter having no experience in those industries and no experience doing business in those countries?

Just to respond here, Hunter Biden was a consul for the legal firm that represented Bursima and was brought in and given a seat in the board to align them with western corporate governance best practices. It’s basically standard practice for firms operating from nations with poorly thought of legal/political systems to bring in Western lawyers to do this in order to reassure foreign investors. And, yes, it probably helped him get the job that his name was Biden, because that’s how these kind of assignments work, they bring in someone from a white-shoe firm with a big name to give themselves more credibility. This isn’t a great practice all around, but it’s overwhelmingly common and doesn’t imply any wrong doing on Hunter or his father’s part.
The rest of the Ukraine and especially the China stuff is just inane conspiracy mongering.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter though because Joe Biden isn’t going to be making nuclear family members close parts of his administration.

I do have to ask you though, how can you be asking this in anything approaching good faith when your preferred candidate just delegated major chunks of his administration, including his initial response to a pandemic whose mishandling has killed more than 200,000 Americans, to his son in law? Without even getting into the naked profiteering by his three eldest children and his own failure to divest from his personal business interests while in office.

[wbrocks67]

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?

It's all about the trade. In that sense, sure maybe. But Harris also seemed to help turbocharge turnout in the cities and with black voters.

[Crumpets]

Nate Cohn: Why has The Times not called Arizona? The main reason: We do not believe there’s solid enough data on the votes that remain to be counted after Election Day.

[wbrocks67]

Judas Van Drew winning is probably the single most disappointing/infuriating result of the entire election. Against a Kennedy, too. MillennialModerate will REALLY be in shambles if that happens AND Georgia goes for Joe though.

That race hasn't been called though. NJ said 4M+ voted. 3M have been counted.

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

This whole thread is just incredible...

https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1324445099430940673?s=20

DMP was in tears during the call.

https://twitter.com/kirk_bado/status/1324445867663908870?s=20

I'm not sure about generally blaming the "liberal wing" of the party, but you have to admit their branding is God-awful. Progressives talk about how popular their ideas are, but progressives are often the ones that come up with these awful catchphrases. "Defund the police" is a guaranteed vote-loser, even if police reform is popular. Calling themselves "Democratic socialists" is a vote-loser, even if progressivism can be popular. I don't even understand that one, seeing as how they are social democrats at their leftmost.

This is clearly a problem with the Democratic Party in general, judging by the Florida minimum wage thing. The party needs rebranding before 2022/2024 (and this is coming from a moderate establishment™ dem who loves Pelosi)

Eh, I think there's nuance though. Joe Biden way end up winning 300 EVs in the highest turnout in decades. There *are* issues but it looks like Biden also ended up doing a lot of things right.

It’s clear that most liberal policies have the support of a large majority of the people, but the messaging from the party is pretty bad. Something needs to change. For the record, I’m definitely not saying that we should hand over the party to AOC, just switch up the leadership within.

I think part of it is that the Democratic leadership feels beholden enough to their base that they feel they need to copy their language word-for-word or they'll lose that relationship. It's really easy to communicate you believe black lives matter without using those exact words which will inevitably be used in an attack against you. Republicans are masters of the "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" dog whistling that lets them say whatever they want to their supporters and then just deny any of it was nefarious when questioned about it.

I think that the fact that saying something like that turns into dog whistling is a cancer. I know that it's the reality, but my God what is wrong with us that it is?

[GP270watch]

I also have now idea if the PA DOS is correct in how many mail ballots have been returned. In Philly, they say 434K were requested but only 357k returned. I highly doubt ~75K were not returned.

That's common. A large number of VBM ballots are never returned.

[Rep Jessica]

Well, I'm heavily disappointed in Trump's near-certain loss but I'm already looking ahead to 2022 and 2024.

I suspect we'll probably flip the House in 2022 and pick up a senate seat or two. This will lay the groundwork for our eventual nominee to be in a great position to defeat Biden or Harris in 2024.

Not likely.  You'd need to start cutting deep into the suburban districts that are trending away from the GOP to win back the house.  And the senate map looks awful for Republicans.

It's far from impossible that the suburbs bounce back with Trump out of office.

We need to work with hispanics that are pro-family, pro-law and pro-work and I believe we could get 35-40% of them. They're the fastest growing population group in the country and will be at least 30% within the next 15-20 years. The democrats on the otherhand are going to focus on a certain group that aint going to grow and hasn't grown in 50 years. That is a recipe for failure! The republican party can be the party of success with our friends the hispanics!

[Roblox]

Apparently Robby Mook ran the DCCC this cycle lol.

Wait, did he really?

Actually House Majority Pac, sorry lol, hard to tell these apart. But yes. Gotta love that consultant culture!

[Ye We Can]

Judas Van Drew winning is probably the single most disappointing/infuriating result of the entire election. Against a Kennedy, too. MillennialModerate will REALLY be in shambles if that happens AND Georgia goes for Joe though.

Why do you believe Van Drew won his race?  He's up 4 points with only 75% of the vote counted, and we already know how VBMs shift the race.

I think they counted most of the VBMs there already, I was under the impression they were waiting to count the election day/absentees for some God forsaken reason?

I don't really know though.

[Roll Roons]

Judas Van Drew winning is probably the single most disappointing/infuriating result of the entire election. Against a Kennedy, too. MillennialModerate will REALLY be in shambles if that happens AND Georgia goes for Joe though.

Why do you believe Van Drew won his race?  He's up 4 points with only 75% of the vote counted, and we already know how VBMs shift the race.

Jersey was mostly VBM this year, with in-person ballots being considered provisional and not being counted until next week, so they're actually more likely to have a red shift.

[roxas11]

People are talking About biden underperformance with some hispanic voters but here is something to remember

yes trump did better hispanics in 2020 and Hillary did even better with them in 2016 but look at where that got them in the end.....


The fact is Biden built a more broad coalition that was getting a good chuck of votes form ever ethnicity instead of just relying on 1.He many not have dominated with that group like Hillary did but he did not have to since unlike Hillary he was doing better among almost every other group of voters.

The big leason here for both Dems and the GOP is make the effort to win over every American instead of simply just relying on 1 group of voter to help you get the to the white house.

They do need to improve their outreach among Hispanics specifically because this cycle it was just atrocious.

The only group Biden did better among than Hillary was Whites. If there's 1 group that matters the most it's Whites.

I agree they should improve their outreach among Hispanics
but lets be very clear about something this election hopefully showed both the Dems and the GOP
that hispanics are not some monolithic voting group

The reality is some Hispanic voters are simply way more Conservative than others and they really like the GOP platform. There are some who are more willing to buy the idea that the Dems are all socialist and no amount of outreach is going to change that

having said that their are many hispanic voters who are willing to give them a chance and hopefully Biden and Harris can win them back since many are still not happy with Obama record as the deporter in chief when he was in office....

[Bootes Void]

2024 pls!!!!
https://twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/1324448622658965505?s=20

he sounds like a sore loser. Anyway does anyone think Hawley can reach trump's appeal? or is trump a unique character in reaching out to the working class voters. Im not sure if other republicans can replicate trump's success but im not sure