# Election results today **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 7, 2020, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-results-today/924977 "2020-11-07T14:39:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![sbright33](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e8cbc/32.png) [@sbright33](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbright33)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2020, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-results-today/924977/1 "2020-11-07T14:39:31Z")
Can someone please help me with specific numbers or ideas why the election may not be called today? Has a presidential election ever been called on a weekend? During a popular football game? Do any of these issues matter at all? Clearly it can’t be JUST math. PA in particular. The 0.5 comes into play to avoid a recount. Seems that the remaining votes must be less than what is needed to go back below 0.5 with some finite margin of certainty? Opinion, math, facts, history please. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2020, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-results-today/924977/2 "2020-11-07T14:48:49Z")
Moved from GQ to IMHO for opinions. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2020, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-results-today/924977/3 "2020-11-07T16:44:59Z")
NBC, the Associated Press, and CNN are now calling Pennsylvania for Biden and reporting that he is the President-elect. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2020, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-results-today/924977/4 "2020-11-07T19:22:10Z")
I asked this last time, and was answered… But I don’t know how to calculate this for myself… Did the “Senatorial” electors make a difference? If states had electors solely by population, without the two extras guaranteed by the constitution – Wyoming only gets one, not three – what would the result have been? ---
**Author:** ![whitetho](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whitetho/32/1059_2.png) [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2020, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-results-today/924977/5 "2020-11-07T19:31:50Z")
Based on Politico’s predictions: [https://www.politico.com/](https://www.politico.com/) It is likely that Biden and Trump will each win 25 states, thus both will get 50 “senatorial” electoral votes. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2020, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-results-today/924977/6 "2020-11-07T21:06:47Z")
Thank’ee kindly. Duh on me; I didn’t grok how easy it should have been to calculate. I was thinking I’d have to set up a state/population spreadsheet. Overthinking it a tad, ayup! ---
**Author:** ![Paintcharge](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paintcharge/32/7946_2.png) [@Paintcharge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paintcharge)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2020, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-results-today/924977/7 "2020-11-07T21:27:33Z")
I really like [this](http://www.toffeemilkshake.co.uk/electoral-college-clusters/) map. I can’t find if they’ve done one for this year yet. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2020, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-results-today/924977/8 "2020-11-08T01:04:45Z")
> [@whitetho](#): > > It is likely that Biden and Trump will each win 25 states, thus both will get 50 “senatorial” electoral votes. Presumably if there were no Senatorial electoral votes, DC would only get 1 rather than 3. In that case there would be 436 electoral votes (538 - 102). So it would require 219 for election. Right now Biden has 306 giving him GA. Without Senatorial electoral votes he’d have 52 fewer (25 sates + DC0 or 254. He could lose the 18 from PA and the 14 from GA giving him 222 (so 3 to spare). ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2020, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-results-today/924977/9 "2020-11-08T01:13:13Z")
Bear in mind that nothing has been _ **officially** _ called today. Election results won’t be certified for a couple of weeks, I don’t think, and some states are still tabulating a few more ballots (mostly provisional ballots, at this point). Also, it appears that there will be recounts in at least two states (GA and WI). What happened today is that enough of the votes have been tabulated in the close states (PA, in particular) for the various news agencies to “call” the election. All that means is that the analysts at the AP, NYT, ABC, Fox, etc., believe that it’s exceptionally unlikely, given where the vote count now stands, that Trump has any path to 270 electoral votes. And, though WI and GA are looking at recounts, historically, recounts have only resulted in the change of a few hundred votes, at most – as Biden’s margin in those states is 20,000 and 19,000, respectively, it is very unlikely that recounts will change the outcome in those states. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2020, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-results-today/924977/10 "2020-11-08T01:50:21Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > And, though WI and GA are looking at recounts, historically, recounts have only resulted in the change of a few hundred votes, at most – as Biden’s margin in those states is 20,000 and 19,000, respectively, it is very unlikely that recounts will change the outcome in those states. I committed a math error there – Biden’s lead in Georgia is currently just over 9,000, not 19,000. The point still holds – that margin is one that a recount is highly unlikely to reverse. ---
**Author:** ![Mallard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Mallard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mallard)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2020, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-results-today/924977/11 "2020-11-10T19:12:09Z")
FWIW, the AP election map now shows Biden ahead in Georgia by just a bit of 12,000 votes as of 110 pm CST, Nov 10.