Because the most likely tipping-point state is PA. And PA has a law that they can’t even start opening mail-in ballots until today. PA state election officials have very clearly said they will not be able to count all of the votes in PA for a few days.
It is rather difficult to get to a scenario where Trump wins just with states that are “quick counters”. It would require shock wins in MI or WI (and even that may not be sufficient depending on AZ).
The converse is not true. There are many ways that it could be called for Biden tonight (FL, NC, GA, TX, AZ+MI+WI+ME-2). There are also ways Biden could win but it NOT be called tonight (largely PA, where the mail-in votes could overcome a large Trump lead in in-person voting today).
I half-expect Trump to claim, at some point in the night, that Biden has called and conceded the election to Trump, even if it’s still too close to call.
With apologies to The Princess Bride, here is my prediction:
"I’ll explain, and I’ll use small words so that you’ll be sure to understand, you warthog-faced buffoon. ‘To the pain’ means the first thing you lose will be Wisconsin, then Florida, pig. Next, Michigan. The next thing you lose will be Arizona, followed by North Carolina. You will lose, you miserable, vomitous mass, and I’ll tell you why: We will vote, and we will vote in such overwhelming numbers that your cheating, intimidation, voter suppression and bullshit lawsuits will not be enough. And after this election, the laughing shriek of every child at seeing your piteousness will be yours to cherish. Every person that guffaws at your approach, every citizen who cries out, ‘Dear God, look at that loser!’ will echo in your ears. That is what ‘to the pain’ means. It means we leave you in an anguish of failure, wallowing in freakish misery forever. "
Not to mention a blast of explosive Twitterrhea from the White House (now surrounded by extra security fencing and guards – I guess he wanted to get accustomed to his future domicile in advance), albeit with the majority of it partially or fully blocked by content warnings.
Nobody but hardcore MAGAtroids will believe Trump’s claim that he won (though the claim might be given very superficial plausibility by the “red mirage” effect whereby sparsely-populated red-leaning jurisdictions tend to finish their vote-counting and report in earlier than heavily-populated blue-leaning ones). The problem is that Trump has been practicing a campaign of stochastic terrorism designed to trigger violent outbursts from the MAGAtroids in response to the so-called “robbery”.
I almost forgot, I recorded this yesterday. Why are some of us anxious today? Don’t you know Newt Gingrich has essentially called it for Trump already?
there are 7 counties in pa that will not start processing mail in ballots until tomorrow. that will hold things up in pa as those are republican majority counties.
Any data on how many votes are there, such that a reasonable guess might be made as to whether there could be enough to give Trump the state? I understand that PA won’t be called definitively, most likely, btw…
One thing I noticed this month - by 538 tracking polls, he had similar/slightly higher approval ratings to Carter, Bush 41, and Truman just before election. However, Trump’s disapproval rating is notably higher than any of them.
A few might go off the twist and run around shooting up things/people. But my hope is that law enforcement might just realize that this is not a good thing and step in to stop them.
