I thought the route to Biden’s victory would involve his taking Nevada and Arizona, which gives him the winning total of 270 Electoral College votes. Perhaps we’ll know the answer at the end of the day. But according to the New York Times, Biden’s lead in Arizona, now 50.5% to 48.1% (1,469,341 votes to 1,400,951), with 86% of the votes counted, is dwindling, as armed Trump supporters are looming around the ballot-counting areas:
In Arizona, where ballots continued to be tallied even as roughly 150 Trump supporters, some armed, surrounded a facility in Phoenix to voice support for President Trump as he continued to chip away at former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s lead in the state.
After 62,000 votes in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, were added to the tally early Thursday, Mr. Biden led Mr. Trump in Arizona by 68,400 votes, or less than three percentage points. But Mr. Trump faced a steep uphill battle to close the gap.
GUNS??? Indeed, for this is America, and the guns are there because the protestors are trying to ensure a “fair count”. I doubt you’ll see Democrats doing this:
(photo from az.central)
In Nevada, Biden leads by a slim 0.6%, with 86% of the votes counted (49.3% to 48.7%, or 588,252 votes to 580,605). The NYT says that the late ballots will be largely Democratic.
That leaves three states. In Pennsylvania, Trump leads 50.7% to 48.1%, but 800,000 votes remain to be tallied—mostly from Democratic areas. Biden has to win 2/3 of these votes to take the state, and so, for my peace of mind, I’ve written it off to Trump, hoping for a reversal but not expecting one.
Georgia seems more of a hope, with Trump leading only 49.6% to 49.2% (an 18,000-vote margin), and about 200,000 votes left to be counted. The remaining votes, however, are from areas favorable to Biden; Uncle Joe must win 60% of them to take the state.
Finally, there’s North Carolina, which I’ve written off. Trump is ahead by only 0.4% (49.6% to 49.2%, also an 18,000 gap margin), but 96% of the vote is in.
My hopes have rested on Nevada and Arizona for the last day, but if Arizona goes for Trump we’ll have to hope for a reversal in either Pennsylvania or Georgia. And, as we see in Arizona, there’s the possibility of violence.
Who would have thought that either Nevada or Arizona might prove so crucial in this election? We may well know the outcome by this evening, but, like so many of you, I’m queasy.
I’m also not a pundit, but feel free to express your fears, your hopes, your predictions.
I think you have PA and GA flipped in your take. PA is going to go Biden, and GA is a coin flip. When PA is called, Biden wins.
Yeah, that’s how I see it, too.
At best, a genuine Biden win means Trump will simply run again in 2023, and over and over.
At worst, a Trump win means we are guaranteed* get this shit out of the way now, efficiently, in four years — instead of Trump throwing his weight around indefinitely.
*unless something outrageous goes down, like some Originalist fixing the decrepit constitution to provide unlimited presidential office terms… but its not like Barr ever argued for some sort of, oh, I don’t know, ummmm… a unitary… theory… of … executive power? Nahhhh, that’s total Fantasyland stuff, Jake!
I believe you are more the pessimist that I. That Trump will return for another try in 4 years is not likely. I can think of only one in the past that made that return, Cleveland I believe and that was kind of an accident. Some who tried never made it, such as Teddy. Besides, I don’t think they let you run from prison and that is more likely where Trump will be if he is still living. That will give his lovely children something to do, bailing dad out and looking for his taxes.
Unless he gets snarled up in tRumpian legal troubles, I suspect we’ll be seeing the hideous visage of Don Jr. in 2024.
:face_vomiting:
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🤮
Thanks!
Can you please share the code without it actually encoding? Or provide a link?
I seem to be on an html code fail run today. The Canada flag one failed as well.
No idea what the code is. Just in my emojis from my keyboard.
Grover Cleveland won the popular vote of a majority of American voters three times running. So far, the Donald is 0-for-2 in this regard.
If this election demonstrates anything, it is that time has come for the nation to abandon its ramshackle, Rube-Goldberg-like system for electing its presidents, starting with 51-separate-presidential-contests required by the electoral college (which, whatever justifications its current proponents may wish to offer on its behalf, plainly no longer functions in anything remotely resembling the original intent of the Constitution’s framers).
IIRC the point was to prevent the littler states (and their constituents’ concerns) from being totally ignored in favor of the bigger centers of population. So if the current EC gets the candidates to stop in Iowa to listen to corn farmers, rather than spending all their time in CA, TX, and big cities, then it’s at least partially functioning like the original intent of the framers.
I also vaguely recall that they were afraid of “geographical demagogues”, i.e. someone who would cater just to one region of the country and win that way. No need to worry about that any more, the national parties killed off the competing idea of having ‘regional’ interest groups a long time ago.
The original intent of the electoral college was that the vox populi couldn’t be trusted to choose the US president, so should select a slate of their betters to deliberate on their own and pick a president for them.
As it functions today, the electoral college system doesn’t ensure that small states get due attention from presidential candidates; it ensures that the candidate’s attention will be focused almost exclusively on a handful of swing states.
Trump won’t run again in 2024 if he loses.
If Trump loses this election, lots of his staff and other hangers on will be looking for things to do. I suspect many of them will occupy their time with “behind the scenes” memoirs of the Trump administration. There will be so much dirt on Trump that, even if he manages to stay out of jail, he’ll probably have to change his identity to avoid getting lynched.
Also, after How Biden has appointed a non corrupt AG, the DoJ will probably find plenty of evidence of corruption and other crimes committed by the Trump administration.
I hope that happens, if only to prove to the Trump voters that their man is the most corrupt human to ever hold the office. That’s my dream but I know that there’s two big things that are going to prevent its realization: Biden is not going to push hard for such prosecutions in order to “heal the country” and, even if Trump was prosecuted, his followers would assume it was partisan and not believe the outcome.
Biden will leave the Justice Department to decide whether to prosecute or not. Republicans politicize Justice. (Nixon had John Mitchell, Reagan had Ed Meese) Biden’s task will be to de-politicize the department, which means leaving prosecutions to them.
Sure, but he gets to choose the AG. While I agree that he won’t try to direct the AG on a case-by-case basis, his opinion on the subject will definitely be known.
He’s already made his opinion clear in public statements, that he will not try to protect tRumpsters from prosecution and will leave it to the Justice Department. Sure, he picks the AG. He’ll choose someone (I predict) who is stable and not perceived to be a political hack.
Yes, but he’s a politician running for office. Although I’m sure Biden doesn’t lie at Trump’s level, he knows enough to stay away from certain subjects BEFORE an election. I agree, he’ll choose someone who is stable and not perceived to be a political hack. In fact, choosing good people will be Biden’s largest contribution to getting us back on track in all areas.
+1 GBJames.
Under longstanding Justice Department norms, a US president has no business expressing opinions as to which individuals should be prosecuted and which should be given a pass. (This is a policy, of course, that Donald Trump repeatedly transgressed.)
Robert Mueller and James Comey, both of whom served as FBI director and held other high-ranking DoJ positions during the Bush and Obama administrations, have stated that they rarely spoke directly with Bush or Obama, and then only to discuss broad policy matters, such as pending anti-crime legislation or anti-terrorism measures.
That’s the way things are supposed to work at Main Justice (and will work once again during a Biden administration) — instead of the la cosa nostra don-consigliere relationship between Donald Trump and William Barr.
As I understand it, in normal times, the DoJ has some independence from the office of the president. I’m hoping it will be up to them who gets prosecuted and not a political decision.
I don’t know why you guys keep telling me this. Of course. My point was that the President gets to pick the AG and during those interviews is the time for a general discussion about priorities. A big one is how hard to pursue the last administration’s potential crimes. The discussion can still be had without implying that anyone be given a pass on crimes or that evidence be ignored. And no investigative body pursues all leads. Priorities matter.
Were Trump to run for president again in 2024, he might be the first person to do so from a prison cell since today’s birthday boy Eugene V. Debs ran for president on the Socialist ticket while an inmate at the federal penitentiary in Atlanta in 1920.
Why should he run when he can just cash in on his fame, an never again have anyone tell him “No.” Softball questions, sleaze and cons. No reason not to return.
I am not too worried but then, there is nothing we can do about it. Amazingly slow process in some states. The states that are use to mailing in votes do it very quickly but others have some work to do. The idea of waiting until election day to start counting is also something that should change. If and when they get rid of this electoral grap we can start counting on the vote of the people and forget this state nonsense. If the republican party is not dead by then they soon will be.
I see nothing in these election results that indicates a near-term death of the Repub party. From my perspective, a Biden victory, coupled with the Rs retaining the senate, gaining in the house, gaining in state legislatures, growth in minority support, and their SCOTUS advantage, suggests just the opposite.
In fact, I’d go so far as to say this may be the best of all possible election results for Rs. They get rid of Trump but make gains almost everywhere else. Almost any future R presidential nominee will look positively presidential by comparison. It seems to me that Rs are pretty well-positioned politically, even as their political positions aren’t pretty.
Their political positions also aren’t popular. Republicans have just lost the popular vote for the US presidency for the seventh time in the last eight elections (the only outlier being George W. Bush’s 2004 win over John Kerry, while Dubya was still riding the post-9/11-attacks wave of popularity that broke on the rocky shoals of his misbegotten 2003 invasion of Iraq, but which had yet to receded fully by the time of the 2004 election).
Republicans remain competitive in the US House of Representatives only because of ruthless gerrymandering of congressional districts done by Republican-controlled state legislatures. And in the other chamber of congress, Democratic US senators routinely represent a far greater portion of the US populace, even though Republicans have controlled the upper house for the majority of the sessions of congress during the last 40 years.
This is sure a strange (and perhaps unsustainable) way in which to run the self-proclaimed “world’s greatest democracy.”
Yes, and in the case of the Senate it’s not a problem they can rig….uhhh, fix with gerrymandering. It’s hard to imagine, for instance, the GOP opposing same sex marriage for more than just a few years more. Once the current 20-somethings become 30-somethings and vote in numbers comparable to the remaining boomers, they could start losing Senators in places like Texas, NC, and Georgia on that issue alone.
Not popular? Seriously? 70-million votes is evidence of unpopularity? Gimme a break. Republican policies are less-popular, by ~2-3% nationally, but “unpopular” does not even come close to describing the circumstance. “Alarmingly popular” or “Disturbingly popular” or, for Repub readers, “Wildly popular” captures the moment better.
You’re right, of course, about gerrymandering but that explanation only explains, in part, why the Rs are well-positioned politically. It does not suggest in the least that their Party is doomed. Indeed it suggests the opposite, which was my point.
Let’s just say GOP policies are more popular than they deserve to be based on their merits. But they are plainly unable to draw the support of a majority of the American people, which is the standard benchmark for success in a two-party democracy.
Republicans have managed such success as they’ve had only because they’re ruthless in grabbing and clinging to political power for power’s sake at any cost, and have become masters at exploiting of anti-democratic features of the American political system.
GOP policies? They exist? Except for packing the courts with religious nut job extremists I can’t think of a single one. (Unless you consider “do nothing” a policy.)
“Do nothing” has been a fundamental Republican Party policy going back to the days of Calvin Coolidge.
I guess it comes down to the word “policy”. I always associated it with a list of things to be accomplished.
“The idea of waiting until election day to start counting is also something that should change.”
Concur. Also, waiting until election day to mail/postmark ones mail-in ballot should be minimized.
Surely few are the reasonable reasons for so waiting. Call me a pessimist, but I speculate that laziness accounts for not a few of these extreme eleventh hour submissions.
I don’t think any comparison to election day voting is warranted. In the latter the “middleman” is bypassed. One can actually witness ones ballot enter the machine’s maw.
I wonder what percent of early voting was voting in person. I, like not a few (and of course not infected by Covid – else, mail-in), voted early in-person to avoid any uncertainty about the mail-in option, seeing little if any difference between in-person voting and going to the grocery store.
(Worth it despite repeated mailings from the “Center for Voter Information” trying to shame/embarrass me for not conforming to their requirement that I vote by mail, making sure to emphasize to me how “disappointed” they’ll be if I don’t vote. As if I somehow owe such an outfit an explanation.)
The voting practices are all governed by state laws, with no prospect of changing that.
Also, the “don’t start counting until Election Day” laws are all, I think, the result of Republican legislatures doing their best to make elections chaotic. They thrive on it.
Trump and his minions, with the full backing of Fox News and his gun toting cult members, continue their despicable ways. Biden will win the popular vote and perhaps the electoral vote, and if that is overturned by the courts, there will be hell to pay.
According to The Guardian, “When Donald Trump supporters gathered outside a vote-counting centre in Phoenix, Arizona, on Wednesday night, they had a simple and perhaps unexpected chant: “Fox News Sucks!” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/05/fox-draws-trump-campaigns-ire-after-early-call-of-arizona-for-biden
“Isn’t it ironic?” 🙂
Nevada: most of the outstanding vote is blue.
Arizona: yes, the lead is getting smaller but one wonders if the remaining vote is sufficiently “Trumpy” for him to catch up; I note that Fox and WSJ are standing by their calls, and they are not liberal news organizations.
Although the Associated Press has called Arizona for Biden, the NYT and WP have not as of yet. I hope the AP call wasn’t premature.
The future is fraught with uncertainty and terror. Among the myriad of choices regarding the dangers the country faces, my number one pick is that the closeness of the race will for half the nation delegitimize its acceptance of the result, whatever it ultimately turns out to be, meaning that the faith in democratic institutions will be shattered. Hundreds, if not thousands, of articles have been written trying to analyze why the country has reached this very sad state. Trump is the proximate although not underlying cause for the current crisis. He is the rallying point for about half the population that sees the nation heading in a direction it views with horror. There are truly two Americas, each with radically different visions of what the country should be. The chasm has been growing for at least 40 years going back to Reagan, although the argument can be made that it started as early as Goldwater in 1964. As with the debate over the “true” date the country was founded, many dates can be identified as to the origin of the crisis. The chasm is now so large that it is difficult to imagine how it can be bridged. The uncertainty of the future has created mass anxiety because the future will be played out beyond anyone’s control. It will generate personal psychological trauma and socially the possibility of mass demonstration, violence, and a permanently broken nation-state. The entire world will suffer because of this.
I believe you are correct the split began back in 80. At that time the republican party totally gave up any effort of working for the common people and never looked back. The democrats put up a phony disingenuous pattern of pretending to be for the working class but did almost nothing to show it. The Clinton era after defeating Bush was just more of the push for the wall street boys and the rich. Even as bad as George Jr. was the democrats continued the phony appeal.
I think the 1964 date is the best one.
My Dad was a founding member of the Minnesota Conservative Union, around 1969 or 1970.
The whole thing is, still, in reaction to FDR, the New Deal, and labor rights gained in the 20th century. And the rights gained in the 1950s and 60s for: Non-whites, women, youth, etc.
The 1950s were so easy for the USA, with the rest of the world trying to rise from their knees after WWII. Things started to kick in in the 60s.
The GOP (truth be old) would like to see all except white men back in their “traditional” (subservient) roles (Lindsay Graham, just the other day).
– No rights for gay people, trans people (there is significant opposition to (very basic) anti-bully rules in schools, just over the county line from us, a very GOP-dominated county; and there’s no doubt this was about gay kids)
– Labor rights negated
– No right to an abortion
– Regressive taxation
– No Social Security
– No Medicare
– Health care: You shall be beholden to your employer
– Religion inserted into government
I am extremely cynical about the GOP. And that cynicism is we supported by their track record.
Yep and having a black president for two terms really annoyed them because….how dare he!
I think we (the world) will be fine. Thanks for your concern though.
Certainly there is already negative impacts on nations beyond the USA. This cannot be doubted, I think.
Sure, you’ll be OK (I’m happy to say/hear). We will too. But somewhat diminished.
Historian didn’t say you’d be destroyed. Only that others would, “suffer”.
I think this is undoubtedly true. Think only of the citizens of N Korea, the COVID victims under Bolsonaro in BZ, and the Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
“Although the Associated Press has called Arizona for Biden, the NYT and WP have not as of yet. I hope the AP call wasn’t premature.”
I too so hope.
A few nights ago on PBS News Hour an AP spokeswoman spoke very confidently of the AP’s ability to correctly project winners. (Of course, what such outfit wouldn’t?) I subjectively perceive that the collective NYT ego does not incline it to play second fiddle to the AP. I wonder what the AP’s special “way of knowing”/model is for projecting winners. May mere mortals be privy to it, or is it a commercial “trade secret”? Otherwise, relying on the AP seems, at least a little, an act of faith.
Arnon Mishkin called Arizona for Biden, on behalf of Fox. The Guardian writes, “Dismissing claims from Trump’s team that they could still edge ahead in the ultra-close race as more votes were counted, a visibly exasperated Mishkin pushed back and said the objections were like talking about what would happen ‘if a frog had wings’.”
“…uncertainty of the future has created mass anxiety”
And in such times people rally to strongmen, as shown by too many countries all over the world. We still don’t know if the US will rise above this tendency.
Yeah, the Goldwaterites laid the groundwork by bringing the Birchers into mainstream politics, and Reagan continued the trend by, among other things, pandering to evangelicals. And, as you say, specific dates are debatable.
But I’d trace the chasm’s founding to Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy,” when the GOP opened its bosom to former George Wallace voters and to southern racists disaffected from the Democratic Party by passage of the landmark 1960s civil-rights legislation. Republicans having been practicing dog-whistle politics ever since, culminating in its nomination to the presidency of the man who got his political toehold as the nation’s Birther-in-Chief, Donald Trump.
“feel free to express your fears, your hopes, your predictions”
I have no hope, only fear.
Hi Mark,
I think it’s too soon to give up hope. Yes, it’s terrible that Darth McConnell will most likely stay in control of the Senate, but it looks like Biden has a decent chance of winning. Even with a Republican Senate, getting rid of Agent Orange will be such a relief.
Thanks, but I’m referring to the future country, not simply this election. Trumpism hasn’t ben repudiated. Fox News is still on the air.
Guns galore! One can be frequently reminded that traits of the far right and far left are not that different.
Toting guns to a protest is virtue signaling.
All the Trump supporters who poo-poo violence and intimidation from the Trump side….what d’ya say now? In the Trump side, they are just as quiet and sweet as lambs.
The most important issue is removing the Orange Abscess from the White House.
Without that, our democracy has no hope.
I continue to be cautiously optimistic.
They in Georgia who do the counting claim that they will finish at noon today. Although Trump is slightly ahead in the count, the remaining ballots are from urban and suburban counties which largely go for Biden.
sub
If Trump picks up either NV or AZ, its over for Biden, unless they suddenly find 500,000 more ballots in Philadelphia.
It is, in my estimation, a long shot as NV uncounted is mail-in, which hasn’t favored Trump (but late mail-in, which might), and there aren’t a lot of votes left in AZ, and they need to break 60/40 Trump at least to carry him to victory. However, victory has always been a long shot for Trump ever since he entered national politics, so he might once again pull off a surprise.
Anyways, here is to hoping for a Biden win. With Biden and McConnell, it promises more stability and consistency from the Presidency, and opportunities for virtue signalling, while McConnell keeps capital gains taxes the same, blocks the Green New Deal, insures no public option, and prevents any judicial nominations.
Is that what they’re saying over on Breitbart?
No, haven’t you heard that Kamala Harris has mind control powers over Joe Biden and is going to embark on a radical socialist agenda with racial reparations, and they are going to pass a bill making it legal for the Mexican cartels to operate legally in the US so long at 10% is kicked back to the Democratic Party.
I’m just channeling JP Morgan.
I thought the plan was mandatory abortions for all Christian mothers and a concerted effort to resurrect Stalin and Mao as some kind of super-powered, ultra-communist hybrid? Guess we’ve been reading different pamphlets.
I really want someone to make a movie based on that last bit.
No need for resurrection. Obama has a time machine, remember? It’s how he’s to blame for all the stuff that happened before he was a politician.
And also weed out anyone who voted for or supported Trump and put them in an internment camp.
Careful. The GOP and particularly tRump fanatics are notable for their complete lack of a sense of humor! 😉
Sadly my little joke is based on what I’ve read them saying online.
I thought that was what Glenn Greenwald said. . .
Obama’s Muslim terrorist army isn’t using their National Park staging area tents any more*, maybe we could use those.
*Having already completed the takeover and installed him as permanent dictator, they went home.
Good idea and cost savings too!
I somewhat disagree with your analysis but that could just be different data sources.
As of my most recent view of AP data, they have NV, GA, NC, PA still to be determined, and if Biden wins any one of them, he wins. He’s ahead in NV, behind in the others, with (as you say) the uncounted ballots being largely if not all mail-in ballots in all four states.
Not a lock, but IMO promising.
… … an early morning posting today upon
his fb – page by my Atlantan – kiddo:
” Eagerly awaiting my assignment from
GA Democrats to help people fix their
rejected absentee ballots. Standing back
and standing by! ”
A friend comments upon it thus:
” I am Proud of you Boy😂 ”
Yeah, guns poised against Democrats’ workers
within Arizona. I warned Georgian – son
to please, please be vigilant. A pacifist
I know that he has no bulletproof vest.
Blue
The guns and military garb at protests tells you a lot about the people sporting them. In particular, it tells you that they are cowardly, puerile humans who mistake dressing up in silly costumes and carrying deadly weapons for patriotism.
In typically incoherent Trumpian fashion, Trump’S supporters in Phoenix are protesting to “COUNT THE BALLOTS!”, while the Trump protestors in Philadelphia are demanding “STOP THE COUNT!”
Were it not for my general eschewal of physical violence, I’d like to give ’em the same type of pimp slaps Jack Nicholson laid on Faye Dunaway in Chinatown:
The difference is that no one is trying to shut down the counting in AZ.
Unhinged fits over imaginary problems are key motivators for Trump voters.
And that eliminates the Trump surrogates’ inconsistency how?
At least the Biden camp has been consistent across the nation: Count all the goddam ballots cast by American voters — help, hurt, or draw. Let the man who got the most votes in a given state win.
I wasn’t suggesting it eliminates an inconsistency. I was pointing out they have a baseless protest. No one in AZ is trying to suppress their vote.
The slap wouldn’t help anyway. Unlike Faye Dunaway’s character, you don’t get the truth out of Trump’s supporters.
Someone should clue Trump’s gun-toting Arizona surrogates who are out there screaming to “COUNT THE BALLOTS!” to read the tweet:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1324353932022480896
Consistency is not one of their hobgoblins.
Seems as though the right hand doesn’t know what the far-right hand is doing.
Nice dexterity.
You were expecting gaucherie?
Gaucherie +1
No no don’t be sinister.
You guys are on a roll. Any “links”? Wish I could work “izquierda” in here somehow. Is skiaired of election results?
We’ll just have to keep ‘Biden’ our time.
Trump that!
As one the signs in our front yard says, “Bye Don, 2020” (Not shown in the photos below — it came later)
http://www.berettaconsulting.com/barbarossa/PandJ-Family/2020/2020-10-24/IMG_1396.jpg
http://www.berettaconsulting.com/barbarossa/PandJ-Family/2020/2020-10-24/IMG_1397.jpg
As you-all know, I am no wokester. But I want to fly the BLM flag to say we support black folk, we want them to be treated equally under the law and in human interactions. We have lots of African American delivery drivers and I like them to see that sign.
The best sign in our neighborhood: “Alexa – change the President”
Oh, I love that! 🙂
“Grab in by the ballot” is one of my faves. I’d love for Kamala Harris to actually say something like that – “well folks, we grabbed him by the ballot” – in their victory speech.
“GUNS??? Indeed, for this is America, and the guns are there because the protestors are trying to ensure a “fair count”. I doubt you’ll see Democrats doing this:”
Yep, nary a mask that I can see.
I imagine my masked self standing next to the armed gentleman, holding up Jacoby’s “The Age of American Unreason” or Hofstadter’s “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life.”
As more than one person has said: Liberals have guns too [in the USA]; but we just don’t masturbate online with them.
Where do we do it then? 😉
Online during a Zoom meeting like a normal person. 😀
+1
😀
I was late on the last post, so I’ll expand my prediction.
Arizona goes narrowly for Trump, maybe 0.2% of the total.
Nevada – not enough information, no prediction.
Pennsylvania’s margin has dropped to about 136,000 for Trump, with perhaps 500,000 to come, which will be 70-80% for Biden. Therefore, PA will go for Biden with a margin of ~150,000 or more votes. Relatively comfortable, actually.
Georgia – very close, slight lean to Biden, but the margin could be less than 10,000 votes for whoever prevails. Recount virtually certain.
North Carolina – still accepting Nov-3rd-postmarked ballots until next week. Biden will have put it away by then.
I was too optimistic about PA – ugh. According to NYT-reporting, “We received more votes from Dauphin County. According to turnout estimates, around 360,000 votes remain in counties won by Hillary Clinton in 2016. Trump 2016 counties have around 180,000 votes left to report.”
It’s gonna be really close.
“Who would have thought that either Nevada or Arizona might prove so crucial in this election?” And Georgia? Now it is ll pm (EST)and Trump’s lead in Georgia has fallen to less than 2000 votes. He is expected be in the loser column by midnight and stay there permanently. Stacy Abrams and her people did this, with a little help from Obama. Hats off to the Georgia Democratic Party.
I love Stacy Abrahms!
Some may think the following is in poor taste, so apologies in advance if you think so.
In my job, and recreationally, we sometimes use so-called “matrix games” to help people “learn by doing” about a certain political situation. The idea is to avoid just BOGSAT (bunch of guys sat around talking).
They are a form of committee game where each player represents a certain faction and in your turn you can do one thing and argue what effect it will have. The other players can argue against it, and various mechanisms can be used to give a probability of success of your action.
Anyway, last night we did this for the US election and I was the Radical Trumpists. This is exactly what I did, calling on armed Trump supporters to “protect” the sites where the ballots were being counted. The Radical Democrats also called people onto the streets and there were armed confrontations, albeit eventually calming down.
The game ended with everything deadlocked in the supreme court.
Interestingly, the Republican Establishment wanted Biden to win so they could get back control of their party, while the Radical Democrats wanted Trump to win so they could radicalise the country and the party even further.
Theres a lot of evidence for Republican Establishment types wanting Biden to win. That’s what the Lincoln Project is all about. They spent huge amounts of money creating the most hard hitting ads of the election.
I don’t see any evidence at all for “Radical Democrats” (who the hell are they, anyway?) wanting tRump to win.
Yes, radical democrats probably wasn’t the right name, in the game the assumption seemed to mean that they meant Antifa, BLM etc.
Again, I don’t know a single supporter of Black Lives Matter that wants a tRump victory. There may be an anarchist type out there who does but even that is a stretch.
Yeah, this sounds silly. Antifa doesn’t even rise to the level of an organized group, and from what I can tell, they are mostly anarchists and highly unlikely to vote. BLM–as an organization–actively works against Trump and his enablers, although they do seem loosely organized and so I’m sure you can find a wide diversity of political views.
Yes, but as far as I know, the Never Trumpers consider themselves Republicans now. They mostly predict that the GOP will remain the party of Trump for the foreseeable future and that it can’t be fixed. They also know that whatever becomes of the GOP, they won’t be welcomed back.
That’s true. They are homeless now. Which leads to the question of who the Republican Establishment are now. Moscow Mitch and Ted Cruz, I suppose.
It will still be Trump according to the Never Trumpers as he will be vocal and voters will still follow his lead. It will be interesting to see how long that lasts though. Although Trumpism won’t die with Trump’s loss, it is doubtful people will listen to him as GOP officeholders will gradually diverge in opinion. Trump is all about Trump and, without him in office, who cares what he thinks? He won’t have most of the tools he currently uses to maintain control. He can’t fire anyone or direct taxpayer money toward or away from companies or individuals. His power will dwindle to that of Rush Limbaugh or Hannity. But will that happen in a month, a year, or four years? We’ll see.
Can we call Ted Cruz “Tiny Hands Ted” now, please? 🙂
I still like “Lyin’ Ted”.
Yeah, that’s good too. One or the other! 🙂
Establishment Republicans never wanted Donald Trump in the first place. Save for then-Alabama senator Jeff Sessions (whom Trump later repaid in spades with public humiliation and disloyalty), not a single sitting Republican US senator endorsed Donald Trump during the 2016 GOP presidential primaries, and several worked (or ran) against him (albeit in skittish, halfhearted manner).
Establishment Republican officeholders have been kept in line behind Trump by their abject fear of his bumptious base (which they need to keep in the Republican fold to stand any chance of winning national elections) and by their (partially fulfilled) hope of wielding Trump as a weapon to push through parts of their policy agenda, such as enacting fat-cat tax cuts, dismantling public healthcare and the welfare state, deregulating worker-safety and environmental standards, and ramming as many reactionary judges as possible onto the federal bench.
One of the primary reasons a clearly unqualified, demagogic character like Donald Trump was able to rise to the top of a national political party is that the party establishment (particularly in the GOP) lost control over the nominating process to mega-rich donors in the wake of SCOTUS’s decision in Citizens United.
Point of information about Arizona: this state is largely rural, has almost no gun-control laws, and allows “Constitutional carry” — which means that any citizen can carry a firearm openly or concealed (with no permit) in public. Effectively, this means that Zonies usually walk around armed all the time, and there’s nothing unusual about it.
There actually were a few incidents of large and hostile-looking Black and Latino characters showing up at the polls, trying to intimidate people into voting Democrat. Zonies don’t take kindly to intimidation, so it’s understandable that some of them would show up at the vote-tallying centers to make sure that those intimidators didn’t try to influence the vote-count.
Sorry are you seriously saying that the armed men surrounding the vote counting centres are not the intimidators but are just there to prevent anyone else from intimidating the count?
These incidents you refer to of black and latino characters intimidating voters – can you provide more detail and evidence? Where and by whom was this reported?
Do you have evidence of this claim that “large and hostile-looking Black and Latino characters” were engaged in voter intimidation? I googled it, but found nothing even suggestive of this claim.
Yup, I came up blank on that one too, so I’d be interested to see a real news report!
Cue up the images of large and hostile-looking Black and Latino characters. I’m sure some can be found somewhere.
Yeah, those Latino men are so well known for being big! 😉
“Zonies” is an appropriate label for people who imagine scary black guys intimidating voters into voting Democrat.
Citations needed.
I doubt that this is what the majority of sensible Arizonans do, and there would be something unusual about it in a sane 21st-century world. Dunno if you’ve noticed, but “Zonies” are no longer traversing Injun Country in Conestoga wagons.
The latest vote tallies and predictions on uncounted ballots can be distilled to the betting markets. Currently, AZ is 3.5-1.29, PA is 5.0-1.14 and GA is 2.25-1.57, all in favor of Biden. So GA is perceived as being the closest. I think there are a few of these betting sights but Betfair is where these figures come from. They have the overall election at 7-1.11 in Biden’s favor.
Thanks, JMark – that’s a really interesting perspective as betting markets are effectively putting their money where their mouth is.
Which makes no sense, unless you think someone’s going to break into the building and steal/destroy some of them.
Let’s call this what it is:
~10% Intimidation
~90% Compensation
My prediction is that Biden will win. I’m not sure how or by how many votes. I think he’ll keep Arizona and pick up one other, but I don’t know what the other will be. I think the best result would be for him to hang on to Arizona and Nevada and lose the others.
The reason is that any reversal from Trump to Biden is going to be hotly contested and he will manage to convince his supporters that it was theft and fraud. This is probably especially true of PA. If Biden ends up winning PA then we are in for it. If they count votes that are arriving several days after the 3rd and that swings it, it will look very bad indeed. I hope if Joe does take PA that it’s only from counting votes that arrived by election day.
Whatever the result with a Biden win, I do not expect that to be the end of it. The results will not be certified for weeks, Trump will call (and already has called) for recounts and he will use every trick in the book, and some that are new to the book, to secure victory. He will do this because losing leaves him exposed, but mostly because he hates losers. If Trump loses narrowly in a couple key states after having led for most of the count, there will be serious unrest. The seeds of doubt he has sown will mean that the 40-45% of the country who support him may never trust the integrity of elections again. Even if Biden wins, we lose.
While I agree that Trump will do all those things, I don’t see them getting much traction. There’s something pure and simple about counting all the votes. People don’t need others to explain the fairness of having one’s vote counted. There are also all the TV images of counters with their heads down tallying votes with lots of watchers all around them that tells the public that it would be hard to cheat. Finally, Trump’s ranting about various election issues for months has forced the election workers at the state and local level to work very hard to get it right, even though state voting laws differ so much.
But Trump is magnificent at disinformation. He has managed to convince more people to vote for him in this election than in the previous election. Sean Hannity will say, if he is not predicting already, that those flipped results are tainted. Trump will be able to convince enough voters that the election was stolen from him in order to seriously damage confidence in free and fair elections. This is what he’s good it. It’s all he does. I would put money on it that he will never concede. He will always maintain that he really won. I really think people are going to get hurt this time.
“He has managed to convince more people to vote for him in this election than in the previous election.”
I think this is simply the result of the increase in turnout rather than any real convincing. I will agree that Trump probably did convince some voters to vote for him by his predictions of doom for the country if Biden wins (socialism, AOC takeover, etc.), These are vague ideas that are much easier for Trump to manipulate than straightforward vote counting. That’s really my point.
As to the rest, we each have our predictions. As Trump likes to say, we’ll see.
Yes regarding turnout. The exit polls showing Trump picking up slightly higher percentages among many voter groups (Black men etc.) are just picking up the signal of higher turnout among all voters, including the small slice of conservatives or reactionaries among all parts of the population.
It’s that same small slice of cryptic Trump supporters that seems to explain the breakdown of opinion polling as a predictor of the actual voting pattern. Pollsters either can’t get those voters to go on the record with their opinion (before the election), or miss those voters in the polling and so fail to accurately predict their votes (after the election). Polling has lots of political effects on policy development, so it really matters that the polling is so bad at predicting electoral outcomes.
All of this is irrelevant though. His persuasiveness shows itself in other ways. His supporters will believe him because they believe him on everything. I asked a Trump supporter why he likes him and the answer was “He’s a straight shooter. He tells it like it is.” Which of course is ridiculous. He spouts falsehoods instinctively without thinking about it. You can’t even call them lies, because he probably believes what he says. This is what makes him so persuasive. So he surely will convince a huge percentage of Americans that the election was stolen from him, and nothing good can come of that.
Which is really a problem with the education and assumptions of our population, IMO. There’s absolutely nothing surprising about a state receiving ballots in on the 5th-6th if it was legal to drop them in the mail box on the 3rd.
It’s probably going to take a couple of cycles for public assumptions to shift, but they’re going to have to shift. With mail-in ballots becoming more the norm, the idea that CBS can tell you who won your state by 10 pm on election day just isn’t realistic any more. If it ever was.
“With mail-in ballots becoming more the norm, the idea that CBS can tell you who won your state by 10 pm on election day just isn’t realistic any more.”
Actually, when states count mail-in ballots when received, rather than starting the count on Election Day, the count should be done faster. I suspect that those states that delay the counting will strongly consider changing their laws before the next election. As happened in the aftermath of the 2000 election, at least in Florida, these complex elections tend to spark needed reform.
You’ll still have to wait for those mailed in on election day. Which, looking at how close the counts are in the current battleground states, is likely going to matter.
Not sure what you mean by “mailed in on election day” but, regardless, they are really no different than in-person votes on Election Day.
They’re different in that you have to wait for them.
Yes, I guess there are states that allow that as long as they get postmarked on Election Day. More stuff that needs fixing in state laws. One of the goals should be to allow states to come up with an accurate total count in a reasonable amount of time. How long that should be is a matter of discussion.
Paul, just looking it up, it appears 20 states + D.C. allow votes to come in after election day, as long as they are post marked on election day or earlier. Utah also allows ballots to come in after election day, but they have to be postmarked the day before election day to count.
So yes, at least in this cycle, the number of ballots that could show up several days after election day, and still count, could be very significant.
The Constitution gives the country almost 3 months between election day and when the President takes his/her oath of office. The only people negatively affected by a week of ballot counting are going to be TV hosts who might see a drop in ratings one Tuesday night every four years.
Imagine there is deadlock
Its easy if you try
Its hell for those below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the workers, starving for today
Imagine there’s no twitters
It isn’t hard to do
Third world to kill or die for
and no religion too
Imagine all the yuppies living life in peace, you
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And your world will be as fun. . .
Just officially became a Canuck citizen this morning. Good timing, huh? (I still don’t say eh).
Neither do most Canucks (say “eh”).
I know🇨🇦
Well, the ones I speak to must be putting me on then! 🙂 🇨
They most likely are.
Congrats!
Well done.
Oh Canada …
Thanks!
Welcome aboard!
Thanks, Dean😻
Welcome eh?
Thanks, Mike.
In a civilized, rational, educated country, Trump would be a 2% to 3% fringe candidate joke.
I simply adore Freedom FROM Religion
Foundation women’s chant of ” Nothing
Fails Like Prayer ” in order for them
to put onto this other woman … …
THE successful H E X that it .always.always. is !
http://www.newsweek.com/paula-white-donald-trump-election-prayer-1545028?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR0z6XrIGcjrvRyyeyb98v7OsOiguDWro6rwcwcPwgZTQajx0N5MIzpDwOE#Echobox=1604570243.
.heh.heh.
Blue