# Election Day \[Week\]\[Month\[s\]\] \[Year\] 2020 follow-along thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 3, 2020, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618 "2020-11-03T05:36:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 101
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2003 "2020-11-05T02:13:08Z")
never mind ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2004 "2020-11-05T02:13:42Z")
Georgia is down to a gap of 40K. If you believe the % remaining estimate, there are around 200K votes to go. ---
**Author:** ![Folly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folly/32/3219_2.png) [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2005 "2020-11-05T02:14:20Z")
I was a pollworker yesterday. We had to make it part of our spiel to explain that bleedthrough from the sharpies shouldn’t be a problem when we handed over the ballot pages. Why they gave us sharpies, I have no idea. The ballot scanner uses a visible red light scanner. Any dark ink from any pen other than red ink should work fine. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2006 "2020-11-05T02:16:45Z")
And now AZ is getting scary… ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2007 "2020-11-05T02:18:39Z")
Yup, Maricopa returns were just Trumpy enough to make that call from Fox News seem waaay early. Here we go again… ---
**Author:** ![rocking\_chair](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocking_chair/32/2918_2.png) [@rocking\_chair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rocking_chair)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2008 "2020-11-05T02:20:45Z")
Yes. Steve just did the math and more yoga breaths. ---
**Author:** ![sweepkick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/87869e/32.png) [@sweepkick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweepkick)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2009 "2020-11-05T02:22:23Z")
What is everybody watching that shows Trump making a comeback in AZ? Clearly I’m on the wrong page. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2010 "2020-11-05T02:25:33Z")
It’s not so much a big result, it’s just that a handful of votes from Maricopa County were released. They may be representative of the remaining votes. They went something like 44k/30k to Trump, so +18%-ish. The napkin math on the outstanding vote says that Trump needs to win it about 60/40, so clearly he’s in the ballpark. Pima County wasn’t quite as good for Trump, so we don’t know for sure, but we do know that it didn’t help Biden so probably precludes a call from the networks that haven’t called AZ for Biden yet from doing it tonight (unless some other votes get released). ETA: Nate Cohn’s takeaway is that if you want the race called tonight, you really need PA to come in strong over the next few hours to make it clear that Biden will catch Trump without needing any late arriving (and thus challenged) ballots. ---
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2011 "2020-11-05T02:26:58Z")
Trump can hit 270… (😱😱😱) If he loses 85 pounds. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2012 "2020-11-05T02:27:17Z")
I’m curious about this myself. If CNN’s numbers are to be trusted, there are about 535000 votes left to count in Arizona and Trump would need 57% of them just to catch up. Not impossible, certainly, but so far his support statewide is around 48% and I’m not sure where this additional support would be coming from. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2013 "2020-11-05T02:27:27Z")
Now this is weird. I’m channel surfing. I was watching Rachel Maddow and she thinks Arizona is a real nail-biter…she thinks Trump might come in from behind. It was depressing. I surfed over to Fox. Fox has already called Arizona for Biden and they are really confident. Bill Hemmer, their analyst, defended the decision pretty strongly to Hannity. So MSNBC depressed me and Fox made me feel better? WTF? I turned the channel after Hemmer’s segment though. ---
**Author:** ![ShadowFacts](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shadowfacts/32/2934_2.png) [@ShadowFacts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShadowFacts)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2014 "2020-11-05T02:27:40Z")
> [@Jas09](#): > > Pima County wasn’t quite as good for Trump More on Pima county from 538: “Earlier today, election officials in Pima County, Arizona, said there were between 26,000 and 34,000 early ballots left to count and the county will be updating daily as it makes its way through counting these and verifying an additional 18,300 provisional ballots” and “Pima County is important because, while it doesn’t have nearly as many ballots as Maricopa County, it’s the second-biggest county in the state, and also is more Democratic-leaning than Maricopa. So far, Biden leads by about 5 points in Maricopa but has a 21-point lead in Pima, according to ABC News.” ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2015 "2020-11-05T02:28:11Z")
> [@Wrenching\_Spanners](#): > > I think your view of global politics is based on your view of European politics, and even if Europe those two would be considered strongly left, if not far left. Which is completely irrelevant to the US political election environment. But hey, since it’s a fact, show us that fact. There are 193 countries in the United Nations. Show us a rating of Warren and Ocasio-Cortez’s liberalism, and then compare it to an index of those 193 countries. You’re saying what - about 90 of them will be to the left of those two? I don’t see it. I mean I consider New Zealand to be pretty liberal and the party that just won their last election rejected a wealth tax. When the US physically separates from the rest of the planet is the time to give us our own political spectrum. ---
**Author:** ![sweepkick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/87869e/32.png) [@sweepkick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweepkick)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2016 "2020-11-05T02:28:28Z")
> [@Jas09](#): > > It’s not so much a big result, it’s just that a handful of votes from Maricopa County were released. They may be representative of the remaining votes. They went something like 44k/30k to Trump, so +18%-ish. The napkin math on the outstanding vote says that Trump needs to win it about 60/40, so clearly he’s in the ballpark. > > Pima County wasn’t quite as good for Trump, so we don’t know for sure, but we do know that it didn’t help Biden so probably precludes a call from the networks that haven’t called AZ for Biden yet from doing it tonight (unless some other votes get released). eh, NVM. My reading comprehension isn’t the best tonight. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2017 "2020-11-05T02:28:37Z")
> [@Jas09](#): > > They may be representative of the remaining votes. We have no idea how the remaining votes are being parceled out. No reason to automatically assume they are a monolith. The first 75k votes may well be from redder precincts, unfortunately the county is so big that there could be a lot of variation in each remaining drop. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2018 "2020-11-05T02:32:13Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Trump would need 57% of them just to catch up. Not impossible, certainly, but so far his support statewide is around 48% and I’m not sure where this additional support would be coming from. Well, it’s sort of the opposite of PA. The argument is that Trump’s support state-wide ISN’T 48% - it’s more like 49.5% or whatever. Thus, the remaining vote is Trump-leaning. The support for that would be it’s vote type (late-arriving or drop-off mail-in vote). And the fact that there are a few counties that seem a bit too Biden-friendly right now compared to 2016, even accounting for the swings since then. Maricopa being an obvious one - it was T+2.8 and now it’s running B+5. If it’s really more like B+3 or whatever then that implies the remaining Maricopa vote is Trump friendly. Pima (as mentioned above) could also fall in that bucket. Do we really think it swung 7+ points toward Biden or is it more likely there is some Trump-friendly vote left there. It’s a pretty big county, so if there is then it could make a difference. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2019 "2020-11-05T02:40:07Z")
Updating Jas09’s Pennsylvania data: | Trump Margin | | Percent In | | Reduction Per Percent | | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 458915 | | 80 | | | | | 356423 | | 83 | | 34164 | | | 319876 | | 84 | | 34759.75 | | | 292412 | | 85 | | 33300.6 | | | 265676 | | 86 | | 32206.5 | | | 190984 | | 88 | | 37346 | | So… somewhere around 93-94%, will the Penn need an eraser? ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2020 "2020-11-05T02:40:35Z")
Trump just blasted out emails saying he’s won PA. Funny. (ETA, I get emails from Trump and Biden, both. To see what they’re saying on both sides.) (ETA 2, Biden’s email blast, 30 minutes before Trump’s was a message to keep the faith). From: Joseph R. Biden Jr. [info@joebiden.com](mailto:info@joebiden.com) Date: Wed, Nov 4, 2020 at 5:57 PM Subject: Keep the faith ``` After a long night and day of counting, it is clear we are winning in enough states to reach the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. ``` I am here to report that when the count is finished, I believe I will be the winner. ``` We knew -- because of the unprecedented early vote and the mail-in vote -- that it was going to take a while. We’re going to have to be patient until the hard work of tallying the votes is finished. And it ain’t over until every vote is counted, every ballot is counted. With all the votes counted, we have won Wisconsin by 20,000 votes. In Michigan, we lead by over 70,000 votes, and it’s growing. And I feel very good about Pennsylvania. We flipped Arizona and the second district of Nebraska. Of special significance to me is that we’ve won with the majority of the American people, and every indication is that the majority will grow. As I’ve said all along, it’s not my place or Donald Trump’s place to declare who’s won this election. That’s the decision of the American people. ``` “We the People” will not be silenced. “We the People” will not be bullied. “We the People” will not surrender. That’s why we launched the Biden Fight Fund to count every vote – and why I’m asking if you’ll chip in $25 to fund election protection efforts for our campaign and Democrats up and down the ballot. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2021 "2020-11-05T02:44:45Z")
Not to nitpick your work, and I’m glad you find it useful, but I was actually updating the “percent in” column when I first noticed it tick over. So it went to 88% at a 203781 margin for Trump, which reduces the %-rate to 31892. A bit disappointing that it’s slowing down, but I agree with your conclusion that 94% reported is the sweet spot. There just needs to be enough vote left… and the reporting rate has really slowed down over the last hour… ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2022 "2020-11-05T02:48:18Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > ’m curious about this myself. If CNN’s numbers are to be trusted, there are about 535000 votes left to count in Arizona and Trump would need 57% of them just to catch up. Not impossible, certainly, but so far his support statewide is around 48% and I’m not sure where this additional support would be coming from. The Maricopa votes so far are breaking 59-41 for Trump. These are not mail ins - those were couinted first - so these votes favor him and that’s the pace he must maintain to win. Biden still has votes to get in Pima County but Fox News’s early call for Biden is going to end up looking amazingly stupid or absurdly lucky. Conversely, the news in Georgia keeps getting better but it will take days more. There is still a chance Trump wins. Not one remaining state is certain, and Biden needs one of the non-Nevada ones. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618.md?page=100) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618.md?page=102)