U.S. Presidential Election 2020

I wasn’t actually making a joke or calling him a you-know-what

Damn.. perhaps I’ve now outed myself as the only one making an inappropriate joke. Sorry again 5thElefant! I’d like to now pretend that I was making the same sensible valid point as grum. Thanks.

Is this the one in the basement of the pizza restaurant?

It’s all a conspiracy… the Democrats even went to the bother of filling that basement in, and getting the plans changed to pretend that there was never a basement there. Fake news!

So to clarify where we sit now…

Biden (by BBC) is on 224, assuming AZ (11), WI (10), MI (16) and ME (3 – 1 to Trump) that puts him at 264. His best chance at the moment of getting to 270 is with NV (6) who won’t give another update untill 18:00 GMT tomorrow?

He’s even on film being very inappropriate with children (repeatedly).

Nah, there is some nicely doctored and edited footage where simple human empathy and warmth is made to look seedy or dirty by implication. Not seen anything that actually concerns me when considered objectively.

Trump on the other hand:
– openly bragged about sexually assaulting women
– described going backstage at his beauty pageants to spy on naked girls (some of whom were underage)
– was besties with Epstein and threw him an exclusive party with his beauty pageant contestants
– joked about wanting to “date” his own daughter
– paid off a porn star who he slept with while his third wife was pregnant

So yeah…

Nevada are saying they’re not going to release anymore numbers until noon tomorrow, about 18:00 our time I think.

They specifically allow for late ballots to come in for I think the next week. So they have counted everything they have and are now waiting for tomorrows postbag.

I literally haven’t seen any of what you refer to.  At all. And I’ve been watching all sides of the reporting press

I think this may have been social meedya rather than ‘press’ and possibly targeted according to political affiliations and viewpoints expressed previously by the recipient.

😉

They specifically allow for late ballots to come in for I think the next week. So they have counted everything they have and are now waiting for tomorrows postbag.

Oooh ok great! so it seems improbable postal votes are going to change NV from blue to red surely?

So to clarify where we sit now…

Biden (by BBC) is on 224, assuming AZ (11), WI (10), MI (16) and ME (3 – 1 to Trump) that puts him at 264. His best chance at the moment of getting to 270 is with NV (6) who won’t give another update untill 18:00 GMT tomorrow?

They specifically allow for late ballots to come in for I think the next week. So they have counted everything they have and are now waiting for tomorrows postbag.

Agree with both, if Mich stays blue and everything says as it is now, Biden will scrape it 270-269.

The fall out will be massive and nasty, but… so far as least there doesn’t seem to be any really, really close results in individual states that would call for a legitimate recount, apart from Mich potentially.

Good Tweet this one

A key takeaway. Trump polled at least 3 million more votes in 2020 than 2016. His vote share has increased. Time to bury the idea his 2016 victory was a historical accident. A large swathe of the USA has read the fine print & clicked on the terms and conditions of his presidency.

— Nick Bryant (@NickBryantNY) November 4, 2020

Oooh ok great! so it seems improbable postal votes are going to change NV from blue to red surely?

They say postal votes favour Biden because Republicans are less Covid conscious…

But Biden has a 8k vote lead, with 165.6K votes left to be counted and he NEEDS to win NV unless there’s a major upset in the East Coast.

it seems likely that the republicans are going to retain control of the Senate, so even if Biden wins, he’ll be hamstrung

It looks to me like there’s a good chance that the Senate will end up 50-50, so Kamala Harris will have the deciding vote. On top of that, if Trump isn’t in the White House, there will be a lot more leeway for Senators to be more bipartisan. If Susan Collins survives, she will have to work cooperatively with Biden because she’s in a purple state and needs to show that she’s not a wingnutter. I think Mitt Romney is a fairly honest guy, I don’t agree with a lot of his views, but I think he would work with Biden in good faith.

I think there’s a good possibility that Biden could work a closely tied Senate to his advantage. It give him cover to reject the crazier ideas from the left (abolish ICE, defund the police are never going to appeal to mainstream voters), but work on alternatives that moderates will endorse (reform immigration, reform policing).

We used to have to reply on Zulu to inform us of what they were saying on Breitbart, Stormfront etc. Nice that someone else has decided to continue the service.

With regard to the polls and shy Trump supporters, heres the difference between some of the polls and the actual vote

And now a look at how much Trump overperfomed the 538 averages in swing states:

OH: +7
WI: +8
IA: +7
TX: +5
FL: +6
NC: +3
GA: +3
MN: +2
AZ: -1

A really rough night for polls and a disastrous night for certain pollsters such as Quinnipiac who showed Biden doing so much better.

— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) November 4, 2020

Someones not happy 😀

How come every time they count Mail-In ballot dumps they are so devastating in their percentage and power of destruction?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 2020

I get the idea of shy voter. There’s also the possibility that having called it so in favour of biden the pollsters did his job in rallying his base, who might not otherwise have stirred from their sloth.

270-269 then – gotta love the single vote Biden took in Nebraska!

having called it so in favour of biden the pollsters did his job in rallying his base

There might be a bit of that… but we need to accept one thing… Trump is BRILLIANT at rallying his base to vote… no one can take that away from him. Y… M C A !

What do they do about this then?

?BREAKING: New USPS data appears to show a failure to deliver mail ballots from voters across the country on Election Day. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan will hold a noon hearing over USPS' non-compliance with his order yesterday to rush deliver all remaining mail ballots pic.twitter.com/Zc8J5PEmPf

— John Kruzel (@johnkruzel) November 4, 2020

Trump is BRILLIANT at rallying his base to vote

Unfortunately this also means that he’s brilliant at rallying his base to believe that he’s been cheated out of a second term.
He’s started doubling down on the tweets already.

He is. And he has. And Twitter are trying to keep on top of his misinformation. Good luck to them…

There is a light.

My youngest son had a US Election at school yesterday.

Turnout was 100%. Votes were counted overnight and result was announced today.

Biden 56 votes
Trump 1 vote.

There are no absentee votes still to be counted.

I believe that children are the future, teach them well and let them lead the way.

Pollsters are data analysts, they great at taking information, collating it and producing a predicted result.

I don’t know whether it’s harder to predict results in this new polarised politics, or they didn’t get enough data from “shy voters”, if I had to guess it’s the record turnout that caused the errors. There were 136m votes cast in 2016, there was 100m early votes this time alone and polling stations were reporting 2 hour queues in places, which may have down to covid but still. It’s a lot.

What is even the point of pollsters? Who pays for them? Why not just wait a day or two and know what the ACTUAL result is? Who benefits from MAYBE knowing the result slightly earlier (but probably getting it wrong!)?

100m early votes this time alone and polling stations were reporting 2 hour queues in places

There were 11 hour queues for early voting in some places. 😳

(which cynical people might consider a form of voter suppression)

NYT predicting Biden mjght take Pennsylvania as there is around an 80:20 share of the mail-in ballots persistently for him so far. Might be even more as last areas to report heavily favour the democrats.

What is even the point of pollsters? Who pays for them? Why not just wait a day or two and know what the ACTUAL result is? Who benefits from MAYBE knowing the result slightly earlier (but probably getting it wrong!)?

This guy would have benefitted by knowing who was going to win…
He must be feeling pretty uncomfortable at the moment…

And Twitter are trying to keep on top of his misinformation. Good luck to them…

Let’s hope Twitter have a plan to keep on top of ignorant rednecks with assault rifles.

What is even the point of pollsters? Who pays for them? Why not just wait a day or two and know what the ACTUAL result is? Who benefits from MAYBE knowing the result slightly earlier (but probably getting it wrong!)?

The point varies, for Political Parties it allows them to tailor policy to what Voters are after, they’re working constantly, not just for elections. Other organisations like City types want to know the way the wind is blowing etc. In this case, mostly it’s for news agencies to create news.

They all pay the polling firms for the right to use their information.

I don’t know why they’ve been off in the last few years, but I’m sure they’re trying to figure it out themselves.

So from here on in it seems like:

1) It’s clear that Biden’s probably going to win
2) It’s still getting less clear that Biden’s probably going to win though
3) And at the start of the night it was totally clear that Biden was going to win so probably being clear that Biden’s probably going to win is less useful than you’d like1

4) It’s a perfect storm for endless court challenges, conspiracy theories, and “he stole the election, right up until the next one
5) After teh last 24 hours people will probably take any victory no matter how phyrric and that’ll all become part of the new normal too.
6) The fact that it’s this close makes me want to drop nucerlar devices on much of ameria.
7) the last couple of times I’ve called a result correctly, it was brexit and the indy ref and both times I said “The side I want to win, will lose, but it’ll be close enough to be endlessly acrimonious and nobody’ll be happy”.

GrahamS
Full Member

There were 11 hour queues for early voting in some places. 😳

This is one of the weird random things that give me hope- people take days off work to vote, they stand in the cold and rain or occasionally insane heat for 12 hours to vote- no matter how hard you try and suppress those voters, they don’t take it. It shouldn’t ever happen but it does and it works out kind of amazing. You do wonder what’d happen if that was normalised across the whole country- all those militia cosplayers and southers who’re definitely going to rise again real soon, how many of those would queue for 12 hours?

In all my life I think that combined, I’ve had to spend about 10 minutes waiting to vote.

What is even the point of pollsters?

Pretty long history of using oracle, fortune tellers, and soothsayers.
Pollsters are just the modern equivalent and often as accurate.

This guy would have benefitted by knowing who was going to win…

Ooooft… wonder if it was Farage?

Mind you I guess similar bets are made on the stock market all the time during an election.

NYT predicting Biden mjght take Pennsylvania as there is around an 80:20 share of the mail-in ballots persistently for him so far. 

To be fair, the Biden postal votes are likely to be easier to count due to literacy considerations.

I believe that children are the future, teach them well and let them lead the way

Very much this

Any reports of voting irregularities, overt intimidation, “poll checkers” etc? Not seen anything in the mainstream media, though I’ve only been skimming it as I’m obviously beavering away WFH today

Any reports of voting irregularities, overt intimidation, “poll checkers” etc?

Yes, but there always is. Trump has started court procedures. But that’s normal.

What is even the point of pollsters? Who pays for them? Why not just wait a day or two and know what the ACTUAL result is? Who benefits from MAYBE knowing the result slightly earlier (but probably getting it wrong!)?

Traders on various markets, because having the info ahead of time allows them to try to make money.

The candidates and campaigns want it so they know where to go and what to say. The last few weeks of this campaign was entirely built on polls showing what states they had a chance of flipping, and what to do to get it flipped. Do they need to talk to women, men, urban, suburban, white, not white, young old etc.

These guys use social media scrapers and have been more accurate than traditional polls recently. Fun map to play with too.

https://advancedsymbolics.com/us-election-2/

To be fair, the Biden postal votes are likely to be easier to count due to literacy considerations.

How do you spell that X you put by your choices’s name?
Or is it more complex in Pennsylvania?

Some result that are in.

California Proposition 16:
Repeals a constitutional provision that made it unlawful for California’s state and local governments to discriminate against or grant preferential treatment to people based on race, ethnicity, national origin or sex.

The vote was No (not to repeal).

Which is nice.

Trump is BRILLIANT at rallying his base to vote

That’s actually his problem. He won a very narrow victory last time. Any smart candidate would have concluded that he needed to appeal to voters outside his base. Trump did the opposite and doubled down on his base, which repelled the swing voters that he needed. So, the result is that he did worse this election by narrowly rallying his base and offending everyone else.

So how long before reports come in of militias/police burning down sorting offices/wherever else they think sacks of postal ballots are located?

So from here on in it seems like:

1) It’s clear that Biden’s probably going to win
2) It’s still getting less clear that Biden’s probably going to win though
3) And at the start of the night it was totally clear that Biden was going to win

4) It’s a perfect storm for endless court challenges, conspiracy theories, and “he stole the election, right up until the next one
5) After teh last 24 hours people will probably take any victory no matter how phyrric and that’ll all become part of the new normal too.
6) The fact that it’s this close makes me want to drop nuclear devices on much of america.

1) Not really, he’s got a chance to win that’s slightly improving as more votes are counted, he could well lose.

2) Depends on your time-frame, it was looking like Biden was going to lose only a few hours ago, now he has the slimmest of leads in what’s probably going to be the most important state, Michigan, there’s rumour there’s a huge pile of uncounted Biden votes in Pennsylvania, but they’re probably a pile of sealed envelops at the moment. It’s only a theory that more Democrats voted by post at the moment.

3) only in Polls, not in votes.

4) The only way that was potentially going to be avoided is if Trump won comfortably, even if Biden won by Landslide, Trump was going to cry foul. Even if he wins, he’ll cry Foul. If Biden ‘wins’ in the next few days it’ll be a fun pantomime to watch as an old Orange man throws his toys around, until he decides to mobilise the Good old Boys or whatever they’re called and the bullets will fly.

5) Yep, at this point if Biden wins but ends up a “lame duck” Democrats will be dancing in the streets, if they were told the same news yesterday, they’ll be sick at the thought. It’s been a bad night for them really.

6) I don’t much in for Genocide, but I will say that in the UK were fed a more sensational version of US politics than they have at home. It’s not exaggerated as such, but we don’t see the boring parts. To us it’s all Pussy Grabs, Twitter Tantrums and meetings with Kanye, in the US Trump isn’t quite the Clown we see here, even the Democratic News Agencies respect the Office, if not the Man and they’ve had a long time to normalise him.

Ooooft… wonder if it was Farage?

Farage admitted to putting 10 grand on him during the Piers Morgan show yesterday. I’m hoping it’s Arron Banks (OK, not a former banker as far as I know).

So how long before reports come in of militias/police burning down sorting offices/wherever else they think sacks of postal ballots are located?

The right will shrug and go to work.

The real question is will the riots planned for Trump’s victory go ahead anyway. There are only 51 looting days left until Christmas.