Biden is on the road to victory!

November 4, 2020 • 4:16 pm

Yes, I’m premature here, but Biden has now officially taken Michigan and Wisconsin. If he wins Arizona and Nevada, which seems likely, he’ll have 270 Electoral College votes, and that means VICTORY.

Trump, of course, has his lawyers in line demanding recounts, but I’m pretty happy. We’re not going to have the hanging chad issue this year.

The second best thing about this, besides putting us back on the road to being a decent country again, is to watch a raging narcissist face the fact that America rejected him, when it almost always reelects a sitting President. That will be fun. Imagine the tweets between now and January!

178 thoughts on “Biden is on the road to victory!”

  1. My take on what’s going on in PA: First rule of electoral college fight club: “Don’t bring a Giuliani to an Elias fight.”

    1. I’m growing more optimistic but remain sober.

      Trump’s side claims he will win Pennsylvania and Arizona (the latter by Friday). I wonder if

      I’ll believe a Biden victory when it happens. So far, the pollsters were wrong again.

      1. PA will be hard; he needs something like >60% of the uncounted mail-in ballots to win it.

        And NV is just scary. The difference (according to AP) is something like 8,000 votes with a bit less than 400,000 left to count. Whether Biden retains the lead is probably more about where the uncounted votes come from rather than him having the 8k lead right now.

        I certainly feel better than I did at like 9pm last night. But I’m not celebrating yet.

        1. Most of the uncounted ballots in NV are either mail-ins or Clark County, which is Las Vegas. Both groups are heavily Democratic.

          L

        2. PA has not reported the Philadelphia area, city and ‘burbs, and Pittsburgh, both heavily democratic.

          L

        3. Biden has been getting more than 70% of the mail-in votes. because of that the remaining states might still go to Biden. He could still have a substantial majority in the college.

    2. You have Biden officially winning Arizona? The CBC isn’t there yet. I see that Trump’s 213 total has finally gone up — by one. Guess he got the lone Maine elector that was still up for grabs. Damn. Oh well, it’s a crumb and no doubt makes no difference overall.

      By the way, if a mirage is real, doesn’t that mean it wasn’t a mirage at all (there really was an oasis in the desert)? But I know what you’re saying.

        1. Some sources appear to have declared Biden the winner in Arizona, and I guess that’s what Diana was referring to. But the CBC still has Biden at 253.

          3. Yeah, I heard some pissed off lady in the pharmacy today yelling in her cell. “I’m done with Fox” she said, and she repeated a couple times “fuck fox!” Scary woman though, I also heard her say: “Well, that’s what my Ar-15 is for.” WTF? And she mentioned something about our re-elected governor: “They’ll lock up Inslee eventually.” An employee came out and told her to not use profanity. She brushed him off. So I reckon that’s your disgruntled Trump cultist post-election. Perhaps they’re accepting defeat and lashing out. Leaving a cult is hard, even if it’s not based in the supernatural.

          4. Jeez, Mark, is she single? She sounds like a real sweetheart. Hope you got her number. 🙂

          5. “Leaving a cult is hard, even if it’s not based in the supernatural.”

            In this case it’s the subnatural.

          6. Ken, I imagined what it would be like to take her phone away and I was/am in a relatively Bad Mood. People in front of me were bewildered at this woman and even with masks I could tell their expression was: WTF? If I took away her phone, somehow politely, I think I’d have had an ovation by everyone in the room. L’esprit de l’escalier or l’esprit d’escalier. Alas, I rarely resort to getting into peoples’ faces, esp. in person.

          7. I admire Cindy McCain, widow of John McCain, for throwing her support behind Biden. She had even said that she was voting Democrat all the way own the ticket.

          8. I think a lot of AZ citizens were disgusted with Trump’s disdain of McCain. IMO, AZ goes blue because McCain got dissed by Trump. I’m a huge fan of Mark Kelly too. Right on, AZ. Looks like you’re a-flippin’.

          9. John McCain was conservative, sometimes too conservative for my taste.

            But he was also an honest man of integrity. For this reason, he was highly respected by Democrats and Republicans, conservatives, liberals and progressives, US-Americans and Europeans alike. And he was a strong advocate of transatlantic and multilateral conflict resolution, an attitude that I support wholeheartedly.

  4. It’s worse than just Trump demanding recounts — he is trying to stop the ongoing counting process (i.e., the INITIAL counting) of ballots in the states where he’s leading — democracy be damned!

    1. He’s too late in MI. They have already almost finished counting, and it will be done before the courts open in the morning.

      L

    1. Hysteria. SayingThat they wanted to hunt down former Trump voters is just flippin ridiculous. And all the wood crap at it and did they pay attention to who the Democratic candidate was he wasn’t anywhere near being woke it remember that it wasn’t Bernie who won the vote and he’s not even all that woke.

      1. Many centrists continually stress that the reason the election was close was because of identity politics and the woke left. They argue that the mainstream media, dominated by biased leftists, has imposed their narrative on people and people are revolting against it. I am pretty skeptical of this. I will admit that the NY Times op-eds can definitely view the world through a woke lens. Charles Blow’s recent “Exit Polls Point to the Power of White Patriarchy” is an example of this. I do think that Mr. Blow is a decent , compassionate person. It is just the way he views our culture is not as nuanced as it needs to be. That does not mean white supremacy is not a major problem in the US. Trump has certainly emboldened many white, perhaps “shy”, racists.
        The problem with the centrist criticism is that I am not sure to what extent wokeness is turning people away from the Democrats versus wokeness is a good excuse for voting Trump.
        As Diana mentioned, Biden is not woke. Are we supposed to actually believe that many American’s hatred of the woke, the postmodern, the critical race theory domination of America is so bad, that they project all of it onto a man that does not at all represent it? I think the deeper meaning is that a lot Americans actually like the nasty man.

    2. My thought is that it’s beyond depressing that about half my countrymen have enthusiastically supported an ignorant, corrupt, hateful, treasonous, misogynistic, jingoistic, racist, pathological liar and narcissist who is an international embarrassment. And I’m kicking myself for ever thinking the American people were better than that.

      2. They weren’t “..better than that…” in 2016, and the man was very clearly a lying criminal asshole even then, so it’s not surprising to me. The failure of the pollsters by a large margin again is surprising. But Biden will get 4 or 5 million more votes than the mass murderer, whereas it should be 124 or 125 million more, if the number of callous xenophobic USian racists was what one might expect among adults of normal intelligence in any ‘western’ country.

        1. Those that didn’t vote may not have “enthusiastically supported” Trump (per my original comment), but is there statistically any reason to believe that the percentage of NON-VOTERS who wanted Trump as their president would be any different than the percentage of VOTERS who did? Even if that’s not the case, their failure to vote for Biden in this critical election effectively functioned as support for Trump.

    3. Hilarious that it accuses the Democrats of wanting to pack the Supreme Court! Trump would never dream of doing something so egregious as packing SCOTUS with political allies would he now?

    4. I found that piece to be remarkably delisional. In the last twenty or so years, the US invested in wars, military and secret agencies. The courts were packed with conservatives. Homegrown, Republican terrorists have made headlines, as well as Republican-backed school killing sprees. Infrastructure crumbled, labour laws remain an international joke, forcing many Americans to work several jobs. Despite that a majority of Americans want some form of government organized health care solution for everyone, they can only turn to godundme campaigns and donations from compassionate neighbours, including Canadians, to survive.

      And yet such altogether morally depraved conservative elite and opinion leaders get any attention at all with their whining about how any quarter inch of change is already too much to ask; how they are the true heroic underdog, rather than authoritarian bootlickers they are. They elected a serial adulterer, serial divorcee, pussy grabber, as the head of the “traditional family” party, that each time they get the chance, has looted and overdrawn the budgets into massive dept, so “fiscally conservative” they are.

      To be clear, the problem lies not with average Americans who voted Trump (or Republican) for whatever reason, but with conservative opinion leaders and political elites.

  6. Please keep your powder dry. The political power still belongs to republicans in several close states and the barr/tRUMP federal structure…anything can happen for a while. Remember that these guys reject all traditional institutional norms.

  7. And tRump is already trying to burn the house down by delegitimizing the vote counting. Apparently counting votes is “finding” votes in his deranged mind.

    1. From a UK perspective we actually know that there is some fraud in postal voting. The question for the USA is whether or not the fraud in postal voting (and mail in voting) is trivial or significant.

      1. As far as I am aware studies in both the US and the UK have found that the evidence indicates postal vote fraud occurs at extremely low levels. Trump is crying foul here because he thinks he looks like losing not because he actually has evidence of widescale vote fraud.

        Since Trump has taken it to the courts the US will indeed have to answer your question but Trump’s disgraceful attempt to poison the well of American democracy is itself fraudulent in my view. Indeed when he said “This is a fraud on the American public” that was actually true but the fraud that was being committed was his, not the other side’s.

  8. All the Trump leeches are about to lose their IV lines, I bet they’re not happy! Back to earning a living.

    1. That lame duck has 2 1/2 more months and no doubt he intends to do as much damage as he can in that time via executive order. It’s going to be a very unpleasant couple of months.

      1. Pardons for everyone! If you want to commit a crime in the name of conservatism, that would be a good time to do it.

        1. There’ll be pardons for his immediate family and (at least an attempted) one for himself.

          For anyone else, there’ll be a price, either lightly laundered monetary or for future services rendered. No one skates for free in Trumpworld.

          3. Always love your comments, Ken, and I intend to steal that one like a Trump grabbing the silverware on the way out of the W.H.

            No-one skates for free in Trumpworld.

            hahaha

            D.A., NYC

      2. If he loses will he call out for the militias to take to the streets? Will the right-wing Supreme Court invalidate the election in some matter, despite shredding its last remnant of credibility and inciting civil war? These are some of the things I fear. We cannot rest until Biden is sworn in.

        On the other hand, seeing Rudy Giuliani making a fool of himself once more will provide some comic relief.

        1. As far as I can see the SC has ruled 5-3 in favour of allowing votes to be counted up to November 12 in NC, and it ruled that votes received in PA within 3 days after the election should be counted. That is 2 Democratic wins.
          In these cases Justices Roberts and Kavanaugh have voted with the ‘liberal’ Justices. Maybe they do not want to be complicit in stealing elections too blatantly?

    2. Imagine him losing the electoral vote and the popular vote. Not a good look for his giant ego.

        1. Hannibal got to curb the power of the 104 Judges, hitherto appointed for life, but it all came for naught by the third war that the great Carthage fought.

  11. While I’m happy Biden won, American is far from being back on the road to being a decent country again. Decent countries are ones with universal healthcare. America’s health care system and prison system are indecent and noting about these things will change under a Biden presidency, even if he had the senate which he doesn’t. Americans may have not reelected Trump but they did reelect a Republican senate.

    Biden will have to govern by executive order to do anything at all. Republican senate will block any legislation he tries to pass. The affordable care act is doomed in the supreme court. And Trump may be gone but Trumpism is as strong as ever. Trump picked up voters in the black and hispanic communities increasing his share from 2016. That’s a big big deal. Biden will not run again in 2024 and the Democrats will once again misread the public and run a Wall Street centrist again in 2024 who may well lose to Trump or Trump Jr.

    All that being said I am happy Trump is gone for now even though it means I lose $100 to Ken Kukec. Ken, let me know how we should settle. I’m in Canada so a bank transfer is probably too difficult. I can mail you a cheque?

    1. $100 CDN I hope. Sorry Ken, that’s $75 US.

      Back in 1961 I landed in Newark, the bus fare was 18 cents IIRC, I had a dime and nickel US plus big bills. The driver wouldn’t take 3 pennies with Queenie on the back. Can’t remember what happened, but I didn’t get thrown off. Probably wouldn’t have helped if I explained that $CDN was $1.08 US then.

      1. Yes, I remember the few years when $Cdn>$US, including when my dear mother died and the US money I inherited was diminished.

        1. When the Canadian dollar was worth $1.08 back in the 70s, I put some money into a Canadian debenture, whatever that is. The Loonie instantly began to fall, and kept falling. The Canadian PM used to telephone regularly, begging me to sell the debenture.
          But I stolidly held on, renewing it every year with a note to the Vancouver bank that I signed “Debentedly yours”. Finally, I sold
          the note—and the Canadian dollar began to rise again, like the Mary Ellen Carter.

    2. Biden has not won yet. The margin in Nevada is razor-thin, and there was some odd legal manuevering by Republicans last night to EXTEND the voter deadline by one hour.That was quite fishy.

      Unfortunately it looks like I am on the road to win my bet with Jerry, which was that that Trump would take this to the Supreme Court. (He won’t have to pay up though because he figured out a Chicago 7 song).

      1. I wrote you, Lou. Do I still win if Trump wins with, say, NV, AZ, and Wisconsin even if he does take the Pennsylvania issue to the Supremes. In other words, did we bet that the Supreme Court would decide the election or only get involved in it but their judgement didn’t decide it?

        1. I’ve written back. My intent was to say that the Supreme Court would actually decide the election. If either side wins big, a limited Supreme Court intervention would not be decisive and I would lose.

          The song title was “Illegal Smile”

    3. All solid and scary points. Even Susan Collins won. After all this incompetence, corruption and worse – I don’t know who Republicans have to kill before they alienate a clear majority. Their insanity on covid didn’t do it, and taking away Obamacare won’t kill nearly as many. At least not so quickly.

    4. If you’re conceding the bet before the results have been announced as official, Tim, I’ll settle for the $75 US.

      You can donate it to the Freedom From Religion Foundation in my name. You or they can send the confirmation to my gmail account, which is in my name as it appears above, no space between the first and last names.

      This way we all win.

      1. Will do. Happy to donate to a great cause! If Trump somehow pulls it out after I’ve made the donation you can make an equal donation in my name to the same group.

        My cc got compromised and I am just waiting for the replacement to arrive at my bank branch. Should be today or tomorrow.

        1. My card got compromised last week & I just got the new one today. I wonder if there has been a run on that.

  12. People are going to very quickly be disabused of the notion that throwing Trump out was truly the ONLY thing that mattered.

    A Biden Presidency with no ability to pass legislation, no ability to confirm judges, no ability to even appoint permanent cabinet members, and no ability to act via executive order without it immediately being shut down by hostile courts is a recipe for complete electoral reversal in 2022. Not to mention post-census redistricting and how much Republicans will be able to gerrymander the process.

    Biden may be the Last Democratic President.

    1. Worrying about future democratic administrations is a luxury we don’t have right now. We’re in triage mode with the survival of the republic on the line. I wish that was hyperbole.

    3. In 2022, there are 22 Republican Senators up for reelection and only 12 Democratic Senators. I’m not sure of which of those are in unsafe seats, but at least from the numbers, it appears Mitch may not be able to play the spoiler as much as he’d like to.

      Now, I’m sure Mitch would like to block literally everything except perhaps big budgets for DoD, he’s going to have to thread the needle between blocking so much that the public blames the Senate (bad for him; he loses the Senate in 2022), and blocking enough so that the public blames the President (good for him, possibly gets the GOP the House).

    4. … no ability to even appoint permanent cabinet members …

      There are somewhere between 1,200 – 1,400 presidential appointees who require confirmation per the US senate’s “advice and consent” authority. McConnell will block any Biden appointee who carries even the slightest whiff of controversy, or anyone with whom Ol’ Mitch has a personal score to settle.

      But no way will Yertle the Turtle risk shutting down the entire federal bureaucracy. It would jeopardize constituent services for the folks back in his Old Kentucky Home. Bad for bidness.

  14. I heard a rumour that the Donald person has threatened to move to Scotland (for the golf?) if he loses.
    This I find the only saddening thing about the outcome.
    I have friends in Scotland.
    Maybe they could build a wall.

    1. Well, the UK does have an extradition treaty with the US, provided the possibility of capital punishment is ruled out.

          1. Trump is on record as being a cat lover. He once said that he likes “to pick up cats” or something like that. I’m not a hundred percent certain I got the exact words there.

        1. Didn’t Hess have a great admiration for the Scottish, seeing them as fierce warriors?

    4. Like Scotland would accept him. He’s the one that mixed up that they voted to stay during Brexit, probably because he can’t tell the difference between Scotland & England.

  15. I don’t think it actually makes any difference to the possible combinations, but both NYT and WAPO seem to be missing 3 electoral votes in their latest:

    Biden 253 to Drumpf 214 plus undecided

    AZ11+GA16+N.C.15+PA20 + NEV6<–unmentioned

    should be 538, but adds to 535—-otherwise only 268 needed to win, but it's 270.

    Where's the other 3, or the mistake by me?

      1. Might likely be, making Drumpf at 217.
        But it and Hawaii are right there colored red and blue, below and left of the big map.
        A case of what I suspected, looks like 217 is no advantage, but I certainly didn’t try all the permutations carefully.

        1. On the map I’m looking at, Alaska is light red, meaning Trump is winning but has not been officially declared the winner. On the other hand, Arizona is deep blue, meaning Biden has been declared the winner there. That’s not reflected in the 253 total, though. It looks like sometimes different, inconsistent sources are used for totals and maps.

          1. That’s right, now I’m sure. I had failed to distinguish the pale red. For some reason WAPO excluded Nevada from their list of tossup states–and Alaska also though I doubt it’s all that close there.

          2. Makes sense about Arizona. The whole McCain thing and a lot of military there. My dad has a retired military friend who is a life long Republican & he hates Trump so probably voted for Biden.

          2. They are, and it’s odd that the news channels, as opposed to the gnu’s channels, haven’t called it and raised Drumpf from 214 to 217, nor have NYT nor WAPO.

          3. Only 50% reporting in AK as yet, what with Louis DeJoy’s curtailment of the ALPO that powers the Iditarod delivery service.

    2. Are they counting Washington, DC’s three electoral-college votes?

      That’s how we got to the odd number 538 — each state gets an elector for its contingent in the 435-member US House of Representatives, plus two each for the 50 states’ two US senators, and the District of Columbia is guaranteed the same number of electors (three) as the smallest population states (for the 538 total).

  18. 86% of the vote is in, in Arizona and Nevada. I don’t trust that Trump won’t finagle their results.

      1. Trump’s lead down to 54,000. Biden needs 66% of the remaining votes to win and he’s been getting more than that today.

  21. Living in Omaha, it is looking quite possible to me that the single electoral vote from Nebraska’s Second Congressional District could be the difference between a 269 to 269 tie and a Biden 270-268 win. Who would have thought Nebraska could be what put Biden over?

  22. Well there’s a turn-up for the books.

    “Fox News has Biden close to taking presidency

    Who’d have thought that Fox News would be the first to show Joe Biden just a whisker away from becoming America’s 46th president?

    The conservative news network has Biden on 264 electoral votes, just six away from the required 270. Trump, according to Fox, is trailing far behind on 214. Fox has just called Michigan and Wisconsin for Biden, with Nevada trending blue as well.”

    Has Faux News decided to bite the bullet and embrace reality?

    cr

    1. Fox News, as opposed to Opinion, has a numbers person who seems on the ball, not frightened by their lying opinionists nor by Rupert Murdoch, and is even a registered Democrat.

      1. I think Fox is a bit like the Wall Street Journal in that respect: crazy editorial opinions, but somewhat respectable reporting.

      2. Yeah, the Fox News Decision Desk (like its opinion polling) operates entirely autonomously from its other divisions.

        I recall watching Megyn Kelly frog-march Karl Rove down to that Desk when Fox called the 2012 presidential election early in the evening for Obama, while Rove was still balking that Mitt Romney was going to win.

        It was the first time I recall ever seeing her do anything vaguely decent.

  24. Winning the presidency and not taking the Senate could possibly turn out best for the Democrats. Hopefully Biden can remind people what having a sane president is like, while the Senate is going to keep the Ds from doing anything too crazy too fast.

    1. This would be a far from desirable outcome, although this may be the end result. It would mean deadlock just as the case under Obama. Nothing would be accomplished and the faith in the political system would be further eroded. It would be a symbol of the continued polarization of the country. But, I’m sure that Mitch McConnell fanboys would be very happy.

      2. Biden will have to resort to what both Trump and Obama resorted to: executive orders. Hell, Trump couldn’t get a lot of his agenda passed with a Republican Senate, and the same goes for Biden. Trump still got shit done by EO’s and Biden can easily dispose of those orders and write new ones. Also, Trump has been quoted as saying: “Article 2 gives me right to do anything as President.” Why not, Biden? Just kiddin’.

  25. I’m obviously rooting for Biden, but what therefore scares me is that without Covid Trump may have walked this election. What does that say about the mindset of many Americans?

    1. I’m not sure about that. The #1 issue for voters was the economy, and Trump constantly pounded the message that Biden would shut things down. Biden was unskilled in his responses. I think covid scared many voters into voting for Trump.

      1. “Biden was unskilled in his responses. I think covid scared many voters into voting for Trump.”

        Solely due to Biden’s unskilled responses, or at least in part due to Trump’s “skilled” responses?

      2. “I think covid scared many voters into voting for Trump.”

        You may well be correct on that, and if so, it’s pretty depressing.
        Measured in deaths per million, US is worse than Canada by a factor of about 2 1/2.

        Despite having much more time to get together a decent humane policy, it’s about 5 times worse than Germany and 14 times worse than Norway. (So my Canada has got nothing to brag about.) Taking all other ‘western’ countries as a whole, I’d bet it’s 3 or more times worse but don’t know. This is despite it roaring into Italy relatively suddenly, and really mistaken governments in Spain, Belgium and Sweden. I bet the voters in those would toss their governments decisively right now, given the opportunity.

        But not in benighted USian land.

        I don’t expect many to have much sense about numbers, the Dems campaign emphasized Covid but not numbers, but the anti-science and anti-(ever paying attention to and learning from other countries) is almost beyond belief.

        I’d call about ⅔ of US deaths so far, which is almost certainly over 300,000 by this time when measured as excess of statistically expected, as due to Trump. Especially after Woodward’s tape, calling Trump a mass murderer of ¼ million people by Jan.20 is hardly an exaggeration.

        1. And as I predicted many Americans think Trump did the best he could with the virus and that the US is no worse odd than the rest of the world.

          1. It’s the distrust of the news. Trump voters, even those outside his rabid base, believe that both sides have their stories and it is only a matter of which side you believe. They listen to their neighbors and Fox News so, as you say, Trump has been fighting the virus and doing as well as anyone else could have.

            There is also the fact that they are forced to compare the actual history of Trump fighting the virus to the hypothetical outcome of Biden fighting the virus. We would prefer the comparison be made with other countries but we know that most Americans don’t compare themselves to foreigners. (The same is probably true in most countries.) In short, most of his voters see him as against the virus. All the rest is just details and subject to whose truth you believe.

          2. Sorry to say, most countries do compare themselves to other countries. Americans are especially parochial.

          4. “..they are forced to compare the actual history of Trump fighting the virus to the hypothetical outcome of Biden fighting the virus.”

            True no doubt, mainly because of ignorance of humans living elsewhere.

            “..we know that most Americans don’t compare themselves to foreigners. (The same is probably true in most countries.)”

            Not at all true of smaller countries.

            Sticking to larger ‘western’ countries–who knows about China, Russia, India–I doubt it’s true of Germany, France, Italy, Spain, UK. I think BBC has a much larger percent of the audience than PBS does in US, both being reasonably international, PBS of course having to grovel for its tiny budget.

            I’m barely staying under 10% and being a good boy!

  26. I’m obviously rooting for Biden, but what therefore scares me is that without Covid Trump may have walked this election. What does that say about the mindset of many Americans?

  27. I wish I could share your optimism. Trump and his supporters have no limits and laugh at the law. Won’t he destroy whatever he can between now and January?

  29. I am afraid of the sheer number of pardons Trump will be giving out between now and January 20. It will put shock and awe to shame.

  30. Biden and the Dems will have to make a two-pronged attack:

    1. Biden should do everything he reasonably and legally can via Executive Orders, getting the right people back in government, and making government effective again. That’s a lot right there and he doesn’t need Congress to do it.

    2. Develop legislation for health care, infrastructure, etc. and reach across the aisle for support. If the support is there, fine. When McConnell blocks anything (or everything), make sure that the American people know it.

  31. If my arithmetic is correct then its set to be 270-268 to Biden, but PLEASE don’t jump the gnu!

    Looks like its all down to Nevada…..

          1. I actually experienced Flanders & Swan on a London stage, right around this time of year, but the year was 1963. Can’t remember if they did that one. Then had to find my way back to my hotel in an alcoholic haze at about 2 AM.

    3. Some sources (not all) have already declared Biden the winner in Arizona, so he should get those 11 electors. His lead in Nevada is so small that it’s basically a tie with 25% of the votes still to be counted. I’m heartened, though, by the fact that Clinton won Nevada in 2016, as did Obama in his two terms. Nevada’s 6 electors would indeed put Biden at 270. Biden has closed the gap to less than 1% in Georgia but appears to be running out of votes yet to be counted. His overtaking Trump in North Carolina seems possible, but see above under Georgia. Pennsylvania looks like a long shot to me. So 270-268 Biden does indeed appear to be the most likely outcome, but is far from certain.

      1. I’ll hide my embarrassed self-flagellation for having predicted Biden 370-170 roughly in the EC by just having done it in this same nice short sentence and again going out on a limb with Biden winning both PA and Georgia tomorrow so his margin would be 72 at the EC which is pretty close to 200 if you don’t think about it too much. No commas either.

        Actually then the EC vote would be almost identical to 2016 IIRC, but Drumpf at the low end of the seesaw fortunately this time.

        Anyway, Nevada would then lose its fame in this election.

  32. I’m happy with what I see so far, but won’t really celebrate till that 270 electoral vote mark is reached. I’m not happy about the Democrats not retaking control of the Senate, and having less of a House majority though (which is how things look so far). Very, very happy, if it’s true, that Trump is defeated, though.

  33. Looking over the results, the Republicans appear to be gaining in the state legislatures and in the House. They’re holding their own in the Senate. Where they’re losing is tRump. That should tell them something.

  34. Regardless of whether or not Biden wins, there was no repudiation of Trump and Trumpism. This county is in the shitter, and I see no reason to think it will change.

    1. You’re right. The election was no repudiation of Trumpism. Not everyone who voted for Trump is a Trumpist, such as people so easily conned that they believed that Biden was a socialist dedicated to turning the country into another Venezuela or some business interests. But, the heart of Trump’s appeal is that he is a messianic figure, who has about 40% of the population belonging to his cult, consisting of devotion to white identity politics overlapping with Christian nationalism. Demographic change is what they fear most and calling them white supremacists is not inaccurate. As they continue to shrink in proportion to the population, they will become more desperate. Violence may be their ultimate resort, and this makes them very dangerous

  35. This country will change because we have to. Here’s a nice article on why:

    https:// www. noemamag.com/welcome-to-the-turbulent-twenties/?fbclid=IwAR0T2oilAeXSn3zpdF63JHB2I2Yg07S1FAS0EL-Zv0PfxOoJMh8ut-TfYTE

      1. Because I am afraid of posting improperly, I ADDED two extra spaces before and after the “www”.

    2. Thanks for the link, read the article and think it’s important.
      There’s something missing in the final part on how the turnaround came from the 1920s onwards. One of the concessions to popular discontent was the immigration bill of 1924.

  36. As disappointing as it may be for Biden supporters that he may be a lame duck president, even as a Canadian simply having the Orange Goblin out of the white house job will be an incredible relief. Just not having to think about what Trump says anymore, not having to worry about the nuclear button under his finger, not having his insane twitter rants forced in to every day’s news headlines just because he’s The President…exhausting. And not to mention, you’d finally have someone responsible as President for the COVID crises.

    1. If I understand correctly there are two Senators per state irrespective of the population size of the state. In the presidential race Trump has won more individual states but Biden has got many of the heavily populated ones with more EC votes. With many of the small population, rural states being very conservative it is very hard for the Democrats to take the Senate.

      1. Trump was able to get his supporters to vote. I suspect it was because his campaign claims that Biden is a socialist and would destroy the country, amplified by his talking heads on Fox News and conservative radio, got enough of them scared to get out and vote. Most voters vote their party down the ticket. This made it harder for Dems to win the Senate races.

        1. “Trump was able to get his supporters to vote. I suspect it was because his campaign claims that Biden is a socialist and would destroy the country.”

          Last night (I think) in a PBS News Hour segment, several in their twenties stated that they did not vote because the Dems did not offer anything that was in their interest/addressed their needs. I reasonably assume that Bernie being the nominee is what it would have taken to get them to vote. Not one expressed any concern that their not voting could benefit Trump.

          One, currently residing overseas, spoke of it not being worth the effort to board a plane to physically vote in the U.S. Then in the next sentence saying she had waited too long to submit a mail-in absentee ballot. Uttered seemingly without the least embarrassment. If she wasn’t going to vote anyway, then that commentary was just blather, piffle. If she did intend to vote, then the adjectives “lazy,” “trifling,” “irresponsible” come to mind. Many an overseas American somehow manages to mail in a ballot, in a reasonably timely manner.

          1. Proving once again that most voters are low-information voters who follow the opinions of their peers and don’t think for themselves. I suspect those interviewed on PBS were of the Woke variety. The young tend to focus on the bright shiny object of the day and, right now, that is so-called anti-racism and the rest of the Woke agenda. Biden doesn’t give them much to hang their hats on.

  40. I was up all night Tuesday, had to sleep all day Wednesday, and have had a rollercoaster of it- initially I thought Biden would win, then Trump won Ohio so I thought, it’s done. And then Biden started to come back and now it seems likely, but still not certain, that he’ll win. Phew! Let’s keep hoping.

  41. Actually, IF ALL VOTES GET COUNTED it now looks like Biden may well lose in Arizona, but will win relatively comfortably in Pennsylvania. Georgia will be extremely close and I’m quite unsure about Nevada.

  43. I’m keeping my eyes on GA & PA. The spread in GA is just 3.5Kvotes out of 4.9M, and that number just tightened by over 1.2, while in PA Biden keeps closing the % gap. He’s now at 48.9 vs 49.9%, a gain of 0.9% over the day, still with 11% not reporting. If he gains by just 2/3 of today’s gain, he’s ahead!

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