2020 Presidential Election Results & Exit Polls commentary thread

[Crumpets]

Source: NYTimes Swing Map

Oh look, it’s East River vs West River in South Dakota! Any South Dakota posters know why East River swung towards Trump, while West River swung towards Biden?

Hasn't this been happening in the primaries (at least for the Dems) as well, where east and west vote differently?

I know it happened in 2016 on the Dem side. West River went to Sanders and East River went to Clinton.

This is true. Hillary Clinton seems to have some bizzare, unreplicable appeal in East River South Dakota. She did quite well in both primaries despite doing poorly in similar states and it trended much less against her in the general than North Dakota, Iowa, and rural Minnesota.

 . . . How the hell does that work?

Seriously, i can't figure that one out.

Total speculation on my part, but in the last couple weeks of the 2008 primaries, Clinton basically lived in South Dakota to try to run up as high of a score there as possible. And unlike a place like West Virginia which clearly just voted against Obama in 2008 to give Clinton a big margin there, I think it's reasonable that plenty of South Dakotans genuinely voted for Hillary and not just against Obama. She then had a high floor to work with in the state in 2016. Combine that with several bordering states being caucus states and South Dakota being a primary state, it's easy to see why it sticks out on a map. No idea about the east-west divide, though.

[MillennialModerate]

1) Why is Arizona being so slow to count?

2) Why hasn't Arizona been called?

1) Arizona isn't being that slow.

IN WHAT WORLD is this true. It’s been 7 days!

This is insane

[John JJ]

1) Why is Arizona being so slow to count?

2) Why hasn't Arizona been called?

1) Arizona isn't being that slow.

IN WHAT WORLD is this true. It’s been 7 days!

This is insane

Coronavirus  mail in voting    Coronavirus  mail in voting    Coronavirus  mail in voting   Coronavirus    mail in voting    Coronavirus     mail in voting    Coronavirus     mail in voting
Coronavirus     mail in voting      Coronavirus     mail in voting....

[wbrocks67]

Like, if normal House Dems got tied to AOC, "defund the police", etc, why are ALL local Republicans not being tied to this anti-democracy sh*t?!!

That's the double standard. Voters give their local Republican candidates way more benefit of the doubt than they do for Democrats.

https://twitter.com/AndrewFeinberg/status/1325991007876509696

[BlueSwan]

Like, if normal House Dems got tied to AOC, "defund the police", etc, why are ALL local Republicans not being tied to this anti-democracy sh*t?!!

That's the double standard. Voters give their local Republican candidates way more benefit of the doubt than they do for Democrats.

https://twitter.com/AndrewFeinberg/status/1325991007876509696

Stuff like that makes me mad with rage given how the system favours republicans at every level. Dems have to win landslide victories to gain power.

[tjstarling]

CNN exit poll seems to have been adjusted. Trump had 50% approval apparently and still lost. Did any pollster this year give him 50% approval except Rasmussen? That baffles me.

[wbrocks67]

CNN exit poll seems to have been adjusted. Trump had 50% approval apparently and still lost. Did any pollster this year give him 50% approval except Rasmussen? That baffles me.

Wait, it's 50%? Wasn't it 47/51 at the start? That seems like quite the adjustment when Trump is going to lose the popular vote probably by at least 51-47.

FOX/AP still have it at 47/53, which seems more likely given the ultimate outcome

[tjstarling]

CNN exit poll seems to have been adjusted. Trump had 50% approval apparently and still lost. Did any pollster this year give him 50% approval except Rasmussen? That baffles me.

Wait, it's 50%? Wasn't it 47/51 at the start? That seems like quite the adjustment when Trump is going to lose the popular vote probably by at least 51-47.

FOX/AP still have it at 47/53, which seems more likely given the ultimate outcome

Yep, 50-49 now. Fox’s numbers look more “normal” though.

http://https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/exit-polls/president/national-results

[wbrocks67]

It appears PA has given up on doing any votes... Philly/Allegheny still have a nice chunk out (and the state has at least 55K+ out)

[tjstarling]

Also, I may be making a mistake by delving too much into error prone exit polling, but there’s a meaningful difference between Trump getting 12% (Fox) of black men versus 18% (CNN). Especially since there’s been a lot of talk about how he’s done the best with black voters of any Pub since Nixon. But, his 8% of the vote in Fox (CNN says it’s 12%) is not the best - W got 11% in ‘04. This stuff matters as the media tries to shape a narrative.

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/AndrewFeinberg/status/1325991007876509696

I guess the 2000 presidential election is too far in the past for Lindsey to remember.

[Annatar]

The Edison exit poll that CNN uses is not reliable, its numbers in the states do not match up with the actual results, if you take the Florida exit poll and look at the white and non-white vote result and share, Trump should only be up 1%, he is going to win by 3.4%, in Arizona the vote by race suggests a 2.8% Biden win but he is only going to win by 0.5% or less. In Iowa the exit poll suggests a 6% win, not a 8% one.

[Hnv1]

It appears PA has given up on doing any votes... Philly/Allegheny still have a nice chunk out (and the state has at least 55K+ out)

I think they’re waiting for the court decision about those votes?

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

As the New Jersey updates its vote counts, two counties stick out to me:  Hunterdon and Monmouth.  Though Biden likely won't win these traditionally Republican strongholds and the gaps will probably grow slightly, he's running pretty even with Obama's 2008 numbers in Monmouth (47.5 - 51.2).  In addition, he could potentially represent the best Democratic performance in Hunterdon without a strong third-party influence since 1964 (LBJ won 59.7 - 40.2).  

--


Hunterdon County, NJ (2016)

Donald J. Trump (R):  54.0%
Hillary R. Clinton (D):  40.3%

Hunterdon County, NJ (2020) ~ 96% votes counted

Donald J. Trump (R):  50.3% (-3.7)
Joseph R. Biden (D):  47.3% (+7.0)

--

Monmouth County, NJ (2016)

Donald J. Trump (R):  52.5%
Hillary R. Clinton (D):  43.2%

Monmouth County, NJ (2020) ~ 96% votes counted

Donald J. Trump (R):  50.3% (-1.2)
Joseph R. Biden (D):  48.3% (+5.1)

--

Elsewhere in other northern New Jersey Republican-strongholds of Sussex and Warren (though they still have ten and eighteen percent outstanding votes, respectively), Biden is running at least six to ten points ahead of where Hillary was in 2016.  

[Annatar]

Regarding changing demographics I would make a point that for whatever reason, the share of white evangelicals is not falling in exit polls despite the falling share of the white vote overall, maybe the exit polls are oversampling this group. Below is the share of white evangelicals per year in the exit polls on the left and the overall white share on the right.

2004: 23/77
2008: 26/74
2012: 26/72
2016: 26/71
2020: 28/67

[Roll Roons]

As the New Jersey updates its vote counts, two counties stick out to me:  Hunterdon and Monmouth.  Though Biden likely won't win these traditionally Republican strongholds and the gaps will probably grow slightly, he's running pretty even with Obama's 2008 numbers in Monmouth (47.5 - 51.2).  In addition, he could potentially represent the best Democratic performance in Hunterdon without a strong third-party influence since 1964 (LBJ won 59.7 - 40.2). 

--


Hunterdon County, NJ (2016)

Donald J. Trump (R):  54.0%
Hillary R. Clinton (D):  40.3%

Hunterdon County, NJ (2020) ~ 96% votes counted

Donald J. Trump (R):  50.3% (-3.7)
Joseph R. Biden (D):  47.3% (+7.0)

--

Monmouth County, NJ (2016)

Donald J. Trump (R):  52.5%
Hillary R. Clinton (D):  43.2%

Monmouth County, NJ (2020) ~ 96% votes counted

Donald J. Trump (R):  50.3% (-1.2)
Joseph R. Biden (D):  48.3% (+5.1)

--

Elsewhere in other northern New Jersey Republican-strongholds of Sussex and Warren (though they still have ten and eighteen percent outstanding votes, respectively), Biden is running at least six to ten points ahead of where Hillary was in 2016. 

I imagine the swing towards Biden in Northwest Jersey happened because he advertised heavily in Eastern Pennsylvania, and it likely had a spillover effect. Bucks went from Hillary +1 to Biden +4, Northampton from Trump +4 to Biden +1, Monroe from Hillary +1 to Biden +6, Pike from Trump +26 to Trump +19 and Wayne from Trump +39 to Trump +33.

[SInNYC]

Source: NYTimes Swing Map

Oh look, it’s East River vs West River in South Dakota! Any South Dakota posters know why East River swung towards Trump, while West River swung towards Biden?

Hasn't this been happening in the primaries (at least for the Dems) as well, where east and west vote differently?

I know it happened in 2016 on the Dem side. West River went to Sanders and East River went to Clinton.

This is true. Hillary Clinton seems to have some bizzare, unreplicable appeal in East River South Dakota. She did quite well in both primaries despite doing poorly in similar states and it trended much less against her in the general than North Dakota, Iowa, and rural Minnesota.

 . . . How the hell does that work?

Seriously, i can't figure that one out.

Total speculation on my part, but in the last couple weeks of the 2008 primaries, Clinton basically lived in South Dakota to try to run up as high of a score there as possible. And unlike a place like West Virginia which clearly just voted against Obama in 2008 to give Clinton a big margin there, I think it's reasonable that plenty of South Dakotans genuinely voted for Hillary and not just against Obama. She then had a high floor to work with in the state in 2016. Combine that with several bordering states being caucus states and South Dakota being a primary state, it's easy to see why it sick s out on a map. No idea about the east-west divide, though.

Its total speculation on my part too, but I suspect its not really about local effects of Hillary's campaign. If you look at the NYT shift map, western CO swung even harder D. Pretty much everywhere in the northern midwest and the rural west swung D (UT and adjacent parts of ID/WY didnt but thats the McMullin effect). Eastern SD and adjacent parts of MN are the exception.

So, I'd say either Hillary was a bad fit or Biden was a good fit for rural places with a tradition of prairie populism.

[Ferguson97]

Like, if normal House Dems got tied to AOC, "defund the police", etc, why are ALL local Republicans not being tied to this anti-democracy sh*t?!!

That's the double standard. Voters give their local Republican candidates way more benefit of the doubt than they do for Democrats.

https://twitter.com/AndrewFeinberg/status/1325991007876509696

It’s so damn infuriating when Republicans say stuff like this because it’s the exact opposite of the truth 

[wbrocks67]

Also, I may be making a mistake by delving too much into error prone exit polling, but there’s a meaningful difference between Trump getting 12% (Fox) of black men versus 18% (CNN). Especially since there’s been a lot of talk about how he’s done the best with black voters of any Pub since Nixon. But, his 8% of the vote in Fox (CNN says it’s 12%) is not the best - W got 11% in ‘04. This stuff matters as the media tries to shape a narrative.

Fox also only has Trump getting 8% nationwide too overall of the black vote, versus CNN's 12%

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

As the New Jersey updates its vote counts, two counties stick out to me:  Hunterdon and Monmouth.  Though Biden likely won't win these traditionally Republican strongholds and the gaps will probably grow slightly, he's running pretty even with Obama's 2008 numbers in Monmouth (47.5 - 51.2).  In addition, he could potentially represent the best Democratic performance in Hunterdon without a strong third-party influence since 1964 (LBJ won 59.7 - 40.2).  

--


Hunterdon County, NJ (2016)

Donald J. Trump (R):  54.0%
Hillary R. Clinton (D):  40.3%

Hunterdon County, NJ (2020) ~ 96% votes counted

Donald J. Trump (R):  50.3% (-3.7)
Joseph R. Biden (D):  47.3% (+7.0)

--

Monmouth County, NJ (2016)

Donald J. Trump (R):  52.5%
Hillary R. Clinton (D):  43.2%

Monmouth County, NJ (2020) ~ 96% votes counted

Donald J. Trump (R):  50.3% (-1.2)
Joseph R. Biden (D):  48.3% (+5.1)

--

Elsewhere in other northern New Jersey Republican-strongholds of Sussex and Warren (though they still have ten and eighteen percent outstanding votes, respectively), Biden is running at least six to ten points ahead of where Hillary was in 2016.  

I imagine the swing towards Biden in Northwest Jersey happened because he advertised heavily in Eastern Pennsylvania, and it likely had a spillover effect. Bucks went from Hillary +1 to Biden +4, Northampton from Trump +4 to Biden +1, Monroe from Hillary +1 to Biden +6, Pike from Trump +26 to Trump +19 and Wayne from Trump +39 to Trump +33.

South Jersey (particularly coastal South Jersey) seems to have been much more resistant to these swings.

Atlantic County, NJ (2016)

Hillary R. Clinton (D):  51.6%
Donald J. Trump (R):  44.6%

Atlantic County, NJ (2020) ~ 98% votes counted

Joseph R. Biden (D):  52.3% (+0.7)
Donald J. Trump (R):  46.2% (+1.6)

--

Cape May County, NJ (2016)

Donald J. Trump (R):  57.8%
Hillary R. Clinton (D):  38.1%

Cape May County, NJ (2020) ~ 98% votes counted

Donald J. Trump (R):  57.3% (-0.5)
Joseph R. Biden (D):  41.3% (+3.2)

--

Ocean County, NJ (2016)

Donald J. Trump (R):  64.7%
Hillary R. Clinton (D):  31.5%

Ocean County, NJ (2020) >98% votes counted

Donald J. Trump (R):  63.2% (-1.5)
Joseph R. Biden (D):  35.2% (+3.7)

[wbrocks67]

Philly had a very minor vote dump, but it raised Biden's lead from +45,296 to +46,256.

The new vote dump was Biden 1,080 and Trump 160. 87%-13%.

[philly09]

Philly had a very minor vote dump, but it raised Biden's lead from +45,296 to +46,256.

The new vote dump was Biden 1,080 and Trump 160. 87%-13%.

Looks like Trump may fall short of breaking W's 2004 vote total record.

[DaleCooper]

I'm suspecting that the Fox exit polling is better than CNN's

[Non Swing Voter]

Does anyone know how many votes are left in Pennsylvania? 

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Also worth noting that Kent County, MD (the sister MD county of neighboring bellwether Kent County, DE) just flipped blue on NYT's map.  With 11% of the vote still left to count, I'd say it's unlikely that Biden holds onto his 14-vote lead here (4,914 - 4,900 : 49.1% - 48.9%).  

It's still worth noting that Eastern Shore county wins for the Democrats have been quite rare since 1968.  Through the ensuing twelve Presidential elections and taking into account the nine counties that make up the region, Democrats are 12 for 126 (~9.5%).  

Kent County, itself, has gone for a Democrat in four of the last twelve election cycles (1976, 1980, 1996, 2008).  

Kent County, MD (2016)

Donald J. Trump (R):  48.7%
Hillary R. Clinton (D):  45.7%

Kent County, MD (2020) ~ 89% votes counted

Joseph R. Biden (D):  49.1%
Donald J. Trump (R):  48.9%