I’m on the verge of an anxiety attack here; not really the news I hoped to wake up to. Still, it seems as if most commentators still see Biden comfortably in the lead—but I confess I’m having trouble understanding that. The AP results at Google right now don’t seem too encouraging; the current tally is Biden 224, Trump 213, with Trump leading in many of the contested states. Is there an expectation that votes yet to be counted will overwhelmingly favor Biden?
Also, it seems that no matter how this goes, the predictions severely underestimated Trump. Over at the NYT, Trump looks like he’s got all of the states where a narrow win for him was expected in the bag, has won or is favored in all tossup states, and looks a serious contender for three of the states Biden was expected to win narrowly.
I guess the next states to be called seem to be North Carolina and Georgia. Biden seems to be catching up in Georgia, but to me, it looks like little more than a coin toss.
Anybody have some grounds for optimism to share with this anxious German watching from the sidelines?
That’s actually not terrible, although obviously way too close for comfort. If the 100,000 you don’t account for break at exactly 50/50, Trump would need almost 65% of all of those 500,000 to overtake. Do you know if those counties voted for Trump that heavily in 2016?
If I plug the current situation, with AZ and Nebraska to Biden, into Nate Silver’s doohickey, with unknowns on the unknowns, it gives Biden a 97% chance currently.
The question with all of these states is whether in-person voting was counted and reported before mail-in or early voting, or the other way around. (Also unclear to me whether the “percent reporting” means “percent of possible votes” or “percent of counties” or “percent of in-person counties” or what. But none of the people who know more than we do seem to be making a big deal about it… On 538 they just pointed out that Biden is winning MN by 8%, polling said 9%. So that’s a very good sign that polling in the upper midwest is accurate).
I don’t know what to tell you, but Nathaniel Rakich on 538 said this along with that quote, about an hour ago: “We don’t have a projection for these states yet, but at this point, I’d rather be Biden in Pennsylvania and, as Geoffrey said earlier, Wisconsin.” So I’m going to be optimistic until I’m not.
I don’t see Biden pulling this off unless the numbers in and around Atlanta have more votes remaining that estimated. Remember, a few votes will still trickle in from rural areas.
And this just now from Nate Silver: " One thing to keep in mind about Pennsylvania is that the mail votes were VERY blue there — Democrats led 66 percent to 23 percent on them by party registration. So although Trump’s lead is larger there than in Wisconsin or Michigan, Biden should also get a stronger blue shift there."