Anecdotal Evidence Thread

[Del Tachi]

Voted in New Orleans around 8:30 this morning. No line/wait. I was the 35th person to vote in my precinct. This is an overwhelmingly White precinct.

[wbrocks67]

The PA ground game is insane. The field office today was insanely packed, there is just so much energy and the amount of volunteers canvassing is wild. Everyone is truly leaving it all on the table.

Which field office are you working out of?  It's been wild up here north of Scranton; my tiny little rural county party has contacted every Democrat in the county multiple times via mail, phone, and door knock, and we've also contacted every female Independent, plus Republican women with high pro-choice scores.  We've raised tens of thousands of dollars this cycle, and have had our field office open since June.  And the past week we've had volunteers FLOODING south over the border from Upstate NY to come help us canvass.  I am floored by the amount of support and the amount of voter contact we've been able to get done.

Out of Norristown in Montco - and we've seen pretty much the same thing - we had people bussed in this past weekend from out of state to help, and from what I can tell from the MiniVan app, we have also contacted some of these people like 10-15x over with phone, text, in person lol

This stuff makes me really believe in the polling miss in favor of Harris. The most active campaign I've ever been in was Bernie 2016 in Anderson County, and that was a sparsely-staffed one fueled entirely by pizza delivery or my mom's cooking. Bernie did several points better in the counties we canvassed than elsewhere in the state. That one was headed by Canyon Woodward (who I know is mildly well known for writing a couple books on revitalizing rural democrats)

Yeah, it's what's keeping me optimistic - the energy and volunteer effort is like nothing I've seen before- if she loses, it wont be for a lack of trying lol

[Jumped off the American Sinking Ship]

Also, I checked and Anderson County got my ballot like a week ago (postal service is really working well here compared to previous years), compare this to 2022 when I got it 2 days earlier than I did this year, but despite sending it out the same day it got there a week after election day.

[有爭議嘅領土 of The Figgis Agency]

Look at my Discord posts about Philly.

I agree. Discord is largely a Republican sport on Talk Elections and, in any event, there are some people here like me who want absolutely nothing to do with that gamer-oriented hellscape.

I got the impression that a lot of left-leaning Leipverse activity from before 2022 has migrated off the forum proper (and AAD) and onto various Discord servers. The one I’m currently most active in collectively shares my optimism on Harris’s odds in NV (i.e. well more than half thinks she will win the state.)

[Darthpi - Crush the Oligarchy]

My polling place was a normal level of busy for a presidential election when I went, but for whatever it's worth (not much tbh) there were definitely more women than men voting in the five or so minutes I was there.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Uncle is a Biden Voter and huge Elon musk fanboy. Refusing to vote for either candidate.

Guessing IBNU's uncle lives in Texas?

Connecticut

[Upstater]

Went to vote before noon on my college campus and had to wait around 20-25 minutes. Poll workers said turnout was pretty high throughout the day.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

My polling place was much, much lighter than 2016 (didn't vote in person in 2020). It looked like a standard off-year election. I was in and out in ten minutes, only longer because one old person in front of me had an issue with a mail-in ballot already being issued in their name so they had to do a provisional ballot. I was the only person there under 70, although this is a little hard to gauge as a full picture because I was off work today for the election and this was definitely off-hours.

[GeorgiaModerate]

I just ran an errand and saw my first and only Kennedy 2024 bumper sticker! I also happened to pass by a polling place in western Forsyth County. The parking lot was nearly empty, but it's not my precinct (and I don't usually vote on ED anyway) so I have no idea if that's typical for that precinct at this time of day.

[West_Midlander]

Healthy amount of Trump signs around but my area, and my precinct especially, is very red. Pretty low turnout this morning at a local polling station in town this morning from like 8-11 am.

[RBH]

the polling place at the library was packed but it took me less than 10 minutes to get in and out (I also didn't vote on a bunch of judicial retentions)

[wbrocks67]

Yet another J6 Republican voter for Harris

https://twitter.com/KamalaHQ/status/1853871284800696790

[NerdyBohemian]

Just voted about an hour ago. My precinct is notoriously low turn out and every time I’ve been it’s always been mostly 60+ year old white people. Today was the first time I ever waited in line and there was a much more diverse crowd.

[wbrocks67]

https://twitter.com/AndrewSeidman/status/1853865031156351173

[有爭議嘅領土 of The Figgis Agency]

I recently did a Instagram poll on my personal account on who people think will win the election. Response rate was just over 10%. All but one of the respondents live in the US, all but one are 18-35, and all but one are POC (or would be considered such here).

The tally was 3 Harris - 4 Trump, or a 3-3 tie if we ignore the international observer. All of the US respondents are based in the Pacific time zone.

I'm extremely confident all 3 Harris respondents want Harris to win, even if not all of them actually vote for her in the end. However, I don't think all 3 (US) respondents who think Trump will win are rooting for him to win- although it wouldn't surprise me that much if at least one of them did end up voting for him, assuming they vote at all.

In 2020 I met a middle-aged biracial woman (Black + Non-Hispanic White) from a local Facebook group who graduated from a HBCU, converted to Islam at some point before marrying a Moroccan immigrant, and has two children with him. She's almost certainly older than JD Vance but also younger than my parents, judging by how old all her kids are. I carpooled with them on a post-Election Week hike, and also carpooled with the woman a few more times after that. The HBCU alumna is also a community organizer for Muslim women in the Portland area, and she frequently posts activist type content on Facebook.

I won't go into too much detail on this here, but her husband seems like your typical semi-cranky, small-c conservative adult immigrant from a non-WEIRD society who would definitely lean R were it not for educational/occupational polarization and general xenophobia/implicit white nationalism from the GOP. He's repeatedly admonished her for her loud online and offline activism, asking her "not to rock the boat" and what not. In the wake of George Floyd and Trump's 1st term, I felt like I saw more eye to eye with her activist leanings. But as time went on, and the vibes divide between the activist-media industrial complex and actual BIPOC voters became more apparent, and Gaza/MENA foreign policy became more salient, and I saw more of her Facebook posts on Gaza- I started wondering if her husband was onto something. Like I anonymously reported some stuff she (re)posted about Bibi- a politician who I am not particularly fond of- because it felt very blatantly false and I didn't want to be a bystander to fake news proliferation on social media.

She seems like exactly the kind of person who'd vote for Jill Stein over disagreement with the Biden-Harris's stance on Israel/Palestine- especially since she lives in a Safe D state. But this morning, she posted a Facebook status about deciding not to vote this year- the first presidential election she was eligible to vote for that she decided to sit out. Thought it was noteworthy that she chose to abstain altogether instead of voting third party or downballot.

[Crumpets]

I don't think anyone in the government knows anything more than any of the rest of us, barring maybe some non-public polling, but I just talked to someone at DoD who told me they're expecting we won't know the winner tonight. Take of that what you will.

[wbrocks67]

I don't think anyone in the government knows anything more than any of the rest of us, barring maybe some non-public polling, but I just talked to someone at DoD who told me they're expecting we won't know the winner tonight. Take of that what you will.

Honestly most of the people in my life that I've talked to about the election of all stripes are expecting we won't know so I feel like it's just an across the board thought at this point lol

[Pyro]

Voted after getting out of work. Light crowds in my tilt D precinct.
There were a few first time voters in line though, which is nice to see.

[Crumpets]

Re: Trump improving with urban black men, I was just walking back from the grocery store (wearing my Harris shirt) and a police car and paddy wagon drove by. An older black man turns to me and says "I hope that's Donald Trump!" I say "Well, if tonight goes well, this might be the last day we will ever have to care about Donald Trump." He says "You know, you have this guy who has all these stolen documents, who has his people attack the Capitol. And there might have been a few black folks there, but if I had done any of that, I know where I'd be going."

[bagelman]

The one totally useless anecdote I have that I will remember for the rest of my life, regardless of who wins tonight, was all the way back in June before Biden dropped out. I was at work and a woman made a reference to that "old pervert" and I couldn't tell which candidate she was talking about.

[Donald Trump’s Toupée]

Betting market just surged for DJT. Looking good.

[EastOfEden]

Later, we'll have to analyze why anecdotals were wrong, when they would have pointed you to the winner in 2016.

My current thinking (subject to change) is the saddest possibility - it's that actually, the perceived vibes were right. Harris's late momentum was real. And without it, this would have been an absolute bloodbath. Like, 57 Senate seats bloodbath.

[angus]

Later, we'll have to analyze why anecdotals were wrong, when they would have pointed you to the winner in 2016.

The ones I have read do not strike me as wrong at all. 

Also, my anecdotal evidence today was one of eerie quiet.  Granted, I work with mostly white-collar progressives.  No mention of the election.  People chatted and joked about other things.  Not once did any of my colleagues mention the election. 

I did see one guy walking around all in black--black shirt, black shoes, black belt, black pants--except his necktie, which was an American flag.  Black with a spot of color.  I assume that his blackshirt attire was an endorsement of the Trump victory, although I did not ask. 

On a brighter note:  I had exactly one spam flyer in my mailbox today.  It was from a company selling snowblowers.  Oddly, it was 80°F here today.  A record high, probably.  Climate policy will be not likely be a high priority for the next congress, and snowblower vendors are probably getting nervous.

[EastOfEden]

Later, we'll have to analyze why anecdotals were wrong, when they would have pointed you to the winner in 2016.

The ones I have read do not strike me as wrong at all. 

Also, my anecdotal evidence today was one of eerie quiet.  Granted, I work with mostly white-collar progressives.  No mention of the election.  People chatted and joked about other things.  Not once did any of my colleagues mention the election. 

I did see one guy walking around all in black--black shirt, black shoes, black belt, black pants--except his necktie, which was an American flag.  Black with a spot of color.  I assume that his blackshirt attire was an endorsement of the Trump victory, although I did not ask. 

On a brighter note:  I had exactly one spam flyer in my mailbox today.  It was from a company selling snowblowers.  Oddly, it was 80°F here today.  A record high, probably.  Climate policy will be not likely be a high priority for the next congress, and snowblower vendors are probably getting nervous.

Same experience here. Complete silence. Even more silent than the days of uncertainty in 2020 - at least then there were conversations about it, about the numbers and about states being slow to count. Today, absolutely nothing.

For context, I'm a school lunch person at a school for kids with special needs (so lots more adults around than a typical school - most of the kids have their own paras, classes are small, etc)

[100% pro-life no matter what]

I sometimes play pickleball in a very wealthy neighborhood in Williamson County where people drive around in golf carts.  I was over there today, and there was a golf cart Trump parade going by that seemed to culminate in a giant rally with hundreds of people and several speeches.  Its precinct was already among the most Republican in Williamson County (excluding rural areas on the edge of the county), but that was certainly interesting to see (and vaguely hear while playing pickleball).

The precinct of that neighborhood voted 71% for Trump.