When Election Night comes around, how do you usually follow it?
Do you watch it alone or with family in your living room? Go to a large gathering of political like-minded folks to watch it in a big party? Just follow the results on the Internet?
I usually cannot stand to watch television coverage of an election on election night, at least with most elections, so I just hover anxiously over the computer and keep hitting “refresh” while tabbing back and forth between 3-4 different websites.
With some elections that left me anxious, I just went to bed bracing myself for the morning’s results, what they may be.
I watch the Presidential election the same way a lot of folks watch the Super Bowl. With beer and lots of tasty food.
I belong to a Facebook group that’s about 70% Republican and 30% Dem. We love to debate politics, and lots of times we love to snark on each other.
Last election, we had a bit of a watching party online.
Not American, but: I work for a political party, so I spend election day with my colleagues in our HQ. During the day, while polling stations are open, we’re frantically busy dealing with problems. Then we stay up most of the night to watch the results come in and try to predict the outcome. Last time, I spent 22 hours awake, then got about 4 hours of fitful sleep before heading back to the office.
2016 I spent mostly on-line refreshing the NY Times vote reporting and visiting the Dope and Facebook. Much preferred to the talking heads on TV, IMHO.
During the U.K. election, I had BBC news streaming on YouTube live, I was checking the Guardian’s website, and I was logged into work watching the financial markets.
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For 2016, I made a list of states listed in order of likelihood of voting for Clinton (or for Trump, if you read it from the other direction), so I could keep a running count of the “expected” results as the states were called; the same went with Senate races, to count the seat changes. As for how I watched it; mainly on CNN.
The next day, I checked the California Secretary of State’s website to see how the state propositions did, as well as my county’s website to check on the local races.
In 2008, I watched it mostly online and also on CNN. In 2012 I went out to a bar, had a few too many, and came back and trolled some of my right wing Facebook friends online. In 2016, I watched at home with nervous anticipation which quickly turned into gasps of despair.
I do both, refreshing results online and enjoying the commentary on TV. ALthough I don’t like the idea of elections being like a sport, once the votes are cast and being counted I do treat it that way. I just wish the campaign wasn’t conducted that way.
For Presidential election nights, we throw a big party for 50-75 carefully vetted liberal fellow travellers. The high point is smashing the elephant-shaped pinata. Obviously, we have the TV on, but I usually don’t have the patience to listen to the natterers, so I talk to my friends and keep an eye on 538 for analysis as the evening unfolds.
Lessons I have learned are not to start drinking until the outcome is known, because I will likely behave quite badly if I’m already drunk when I get bad news, and not to plan on going to work the next day, because I will certainly be severely hung over and possibly catastrophically depressed as well.
The first elections I watched were in the 50s and the coverage was good. I loved to see those vote count displays as they went back and forth between the presidential vote, senate votes, and HR votes. I loved watching those counters scroll. As the years rolled by, this gave way to talking heads, which I can certainly live without–and did. I would check in occasionally to see results. Then in recent years I started just signing on to some election site and updating regularly. The one exception was in 2012 when Jon Stewart teamed up with (Damn, I can’t remember his name–his opposite number on Comedy) to host the election night broadcast. They had maps of every state, divided into counties and comparing the incoming votes with how the same county had voted in 2008. Last year, I flipped the channels and, finding no show that interested me, I went back to the internet. When it was clear that Penna had flipped, I went to bed.
