2020 US Presidential Election

[Whistler40145]

Donald Trump suits his surname, full of wind

 

[edwin_m]

I do find it funny that Trump isn’t disputing the states he won. Nor is Biden disputing the states he lost.

BBC 6pm news nailed it with a cut from Trump supporters in one state chanting "stop the count" to others in a different state chanting "count the votes".

 

[Ianno87]

Even I doubt that Trump would refuse to leave the Whitehouse if he loses, although he might only go ‘under protest’ after making a series of rabble-rousing speeches (or tweets); probably mixed in with playground-style ‘I’ll get you’ style threats. I am more worried about what havoc he might wreak between being declared the loser and January 20.

I understand that outgoint presidents have a right to continue to recieve secret service security briefings after leaving office. Most choose not to exercise this right, but I fear the carnage if Trump does...

 

[Whistler40145]

BBC 6pm news nailed it with a cut from Trump supporters in one state chanting "stop the count" to others in a different state chanting "count the votes".

It's getting like an episode of The Magic Roundabout

 

[Bantamzen]

I wonder how the seemingly ever-unfolding final throes of that election is being viewed by the higher population echelons in China, North Korea and Iran?

I'm sure I can hear the laughing from here...

 

[Cowley]

I'm sure I can hear the laughing from here...

“Look that’s the democratic process in action right there. Why on earth would you want to live in a world like that when our system is so much better..?”

 

[DelW]

BBC 6pm news nailed it with a cut from Trump supporters in one state chanting "stop the count" to others in a different state chanting "count the votes".

Armed Trump supporters outside counting centres trying to stop the counts where he's ahead, and other armed Trump supporters demanding the counts continue where he's behind. A presidency whose hallmark has been hypocrisy ends in hypocrisy. But no doubt threatening and intimidating for election officials and vote counters.
Trump is even more dangerous when he's on the ropes, he'll try and drag anything and everything down with him. Once he realises he's finally lost, I wouldn't put it past him to try and get his more fanatical supporters out on the streets in armed insurrection.

 

[Whistler40145]

Armed Trump supporters outside counting centres trying to stop the counts where he's ahead, and other armed Trump supporters demanding the counts continue where he's behind. A presidency whose hallmark has been hypocrisy ends in hypocrisy. But no doubt threatening and intimidating for election officials and vote counters.
Trump is even more dangerous when he's on the ropes, he'll try and drag anything and everything down with him. Once he realises he's finally lost, I wouldn't put it past him to try and get his more fanatical supporters out on the streets in armed insurrection.

Looked like a load of thuggish yobs

 

[birchesgreen]

Interesting that the Murdoch media in the US seems to be turning on him, they know its over. No need to keep kissing the backside of the ex-boss after all.

 

[AM9]

Interesting that the Murdoch media in the US seems to be turning on him, they know its over. No need to keep kissing the backside of the ex-boss after all.

During the press conference last night, every one of the main TV networks dropped out from his words for a few moments the point out and correct the untruths that he was spouting. Yes, even Fox News! I guess the they don't want to start from a negative position with the Biden administration.

 

[nlogax]

Georgia has just gone blue. Quite amazing.

 

[WesternLancer]

Interesting that the Murdoch media in the US seems to be turning on him, they know its over. No need to keep kissing the backside of the ex-boss after all.

Murdoch media are quite good at backing the winner when the chips are down - happened in UK when they lined up behind Blair. They could see the writing on the wall. They like their own politics, yes, but they like to sell news too I guess.

 

[jfollows]

Georgia has just gone blue. Quite amazing.

Just keeping an occasional tally on this, between 17:30 5/11 and 09:30 6/11 (UK time) Biden won 69% of the votes processed (27,579 out of 40,141).
Some 10,000 votes remain to be processed (my estimate, could be wrong). If so, and if Biden continues to win 69% of them, his majority will increase from 917 (now) to 4,700 or so. (69% of vote won => (69-31)%=38% of vote increased majority, 38% of 10,000 ~= 3,800 added to ~900 current lead)

EDIT - earlier CNN was at pains to observe that these aren't "late" votes which are now being counted, in fact they're probably "early" votes in that they were mainly posted prior to Tuesday. It's just that the majority of people using the postal vote tend towards Democrat, even in Republican counties, hence the inexorable "late" rise in Biden's vote which is mis-named.

EDIT - if my calculations turn out right (who knows?) then it'd be a majority of around 5,000 with about 5,000,000 votes cast. This margin will be significantly less than the 0.5% of the total votes cast (25,000) meaning that the loser (Trump) can and probably will request a recount. I don't believe it's mandatory to recount in Georgia if not requested, but I don't seriously think that it wouldn't be.

 

[ainsworth74]

EDIT - earlier CNN was at pains to observe that these aren't "late" votes which are now being counted, in fact they're probably "early" votes in that they were mainly posted prior to Tuesday. It's just that the majority of people using the postal vote tend towards Democrat, even in Republican counties, hence the inexorable "late" rise in Biden's vote which is mis-named.

And of course that trend has been made even more acute this year as Trump has spent so long rubbishing postal voting and telling people to vote in person. Of course grasping that the reason so many postal votes are coming out Democrat might be due, in part (as it's always a trend that Dems vote by post more than Republicans), to his own bloviating is far beyond him.

 

[RichT54]

Donald Trump's version of the prayer quoted by Thatcher:

Where there is harmony, may we bring discord.
Where there is truth, may we bring lies.
Where there is faith, may we bring doubt.
And where there is hope, may we bring despair.

 

[SuspectUsual]

And of course that trend has been made even more acute this year as Trump has spent so long rubbishing postal voting and telling people to vote in person. Of course grasping that the reason so many postal votes are coming out Democrat might be due, in part (as it's always a trend that Dems vote by post more than Republicans), to his own bloviating is far beyond him.

I think this is all a deliberate strategy on the part of Trump and (more likely) his handlers. Spend ages rubbishing the postal vote system, dismiss it as open to fraud, discourage his supporters from using it, then when the going gets tough he can seek to have what he knows will be a disproportionate share of Democrat votes disallowed. Let’s hope the courts don’t allow it

 

[jfollows]

Pennsylvania analysis: Biden has won 73% of the 211,290 votes recorded between 17:30 5/11 and 09:30 6/11 UK time.
CNN just estimated 160,000 more votes to be counted.
46% of this number (73% - 27%) could represent the increase in votes for Biden over Trump, or 73,600.
Add this to the existing deficit (-18,229) and the end result is a margin for Biden over Trump of around 55,000 votes. Out of a total number of votes about 6,500,000. This would exceed the 0.5% mandatory recount (32,500) figure which applies under Pennsylvania state law I believe. Otherwise Trump can request and pay for a recount by filing an affidavit alleging errors within five days of the election.

EDIT - CNN just contradicted their earlier statement to the effect that "only" 100,000 votes remain to be counted. This would result in a margin of just under 28,000 in Biden's favour using a similar calculation and - presumably - a mandatory recount.

EDIT - And someone else on CNN just said there are 163,000 ballots yet to be counted. Who knows, therefore, what the actual number is, or if the three different figures refer to slightly different things? Taking the range, that would anticipate a winning margin for Biden of between 28,000 and 75,000 (the latter figure based on the largest number of outstanding ballots and Biden winning 79% of them, another figure thrown out just now by CNN, the usual "unedited rushes" we come to expect from them, but at least their self-contradictions make things interesting!)

 

[nlogax]

EDIT - And someone else on CNN just said there are 163,000 ballots yet to be counted.

..is the correct answer. This will give you the best view from PA's myriad ballot counts.

https://www.votespa.com/About-Elections/Pages/Counting-Dashboard.aspx

The information below shows unofficial reports from counties on the total number of mail ballots that have been cast and counted. The dashboard also displays the number and percentage of precincts for which polling place voting results have been reported by the counties. In the days after the election, data on provisional ballot counts will be available.

 

[jfollows]

..is the correct answer. This will give you the best view from PA's myriad ballot counts.

https://www.votespa.com/About-Elections/Pages/Counting-Dashboard.aspx

Thank you for that, it's a good source.

The Guardian is apparently using it too, and has a report (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...esult-latest-who-is-winning-live-2020-updates):

Its important point is that "early voting in person" wasn't an option in Pennsylvania, so anyone wanting to vote in person had to do it last Tuesday, otherwise their votes had to be mailed in in advance. A lot of states had the extra option of early voting in person, but not Pennsylvania, hence even more mailed-in votes than in other states.

Steve Kornacki has just given this update on the count in Pennsylvania, and a bit of useful background on why the numbers are falling as they are.

First of all, on the count, he says there are about 160,000 uncounted mail ballots in the entire state of Pennsylvania. On average Biden is winning about 75% of that mail vote. Donald Trump leads by 18,000. So, if Biden is on course to get 120,000 of those remaining votes, which would see him win the state.

Why? Kornacki explains:

In Pennsylvania, you had two options. If you wanted to vote, you could vote by mail or you could go in and vote in person on election day. They didn’t have the early voting centres in Pennsylvania.

He then went on to say that before the election, asking voters in Pennsylvania if they were intending to vote early, 79% of those who were said they would vote Biden. The people who voted on Election Day, he said, were ‘disproportionately Republicans’. Those in-person votes were counted first, now they are counting the mail-in votes.

 

[Busaholic]

I understand that outgoint presidents have a right to continue to recieve secret service security briefings after leaving office. Most choose not to exercise this right, but I fear the carnage if Trump does...

But then have we ever had an immediate ex-president incarcerated in either a prison or a high security mental institution, either of which are highly possible in the next few weeks and months: alternatively, do secret service briefings extend to occupants of safe houses in Russia?

 

[RichT54]

The idiot Trump Jr has been encouraging his father to “go to total war”

President Donald Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, is facing backlash after urging his father to “go to total war” over the incoming results of the 2020 election.
With Mr Trump facing the possibility of being a one-term president in his knife-edge race against Democratic challenger Joe Biden, his son pressed his father to take action in a tweet, while also repeating the president’s baseless claims of election fraud.
“The best thing for America’s future is for Donald Trump to go to total war over this election to expose all of the fraud, cheating, dead/no longer in state voters, that has been going on for far too long,” Mr Trump Jr said in a tweet.

The post was quickly hidden by Twitter, which warned that “some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process”.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...0/trump-jr-election-results-war-b1634841.html

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

Other than all the guff about mail in ballots being in some way fraudulent, given there is undeniably a sizeable ’silent Republican’ vote that has boosted Trumps numbers considerably compared to the polling indications, why is it that such a high proportion of early mailed ballots are supporting Biden? Is it because for the silent Republican vote, many of them were actually undecided until they entered the voting booth. Either the majority of Trump voters are rabidly following his exhortations or they aren’t - you can’t have it both ways.

 

[Darandio]

There's a word for the whole situation currently in play over there and it contains cluster, unfortunately the whole word isn't suitable for forum viewing.

Biden's security detail has also now been upgraded, secret service protection has now effectively moved from 'Candidate' to 'President-Elect'. The net is closing fast.

 

[SuspectUsual]

why is it that such a high proportion of early mailed ballots are supporting Biden? Is it because for the silent Republican vote, many of them were actually undecided until they entered the voting booth

Possibly. But for me more fundamentally, Trump repeatedly criticised postal voting, which will have served to discourage his supporters from using mail in ballots and conversely probably encouraged Democrats to. Similarly Biden encouraged postal voting.

There’s also a view that those most fearful of coronavirus voted by mail, and I believe there’s a strong correlation between disbelieving the risk of the virus and supporting Trump. Again, his words (“we’re turning the corner” being the latest version) will have resonated far more with his support than Democrats

 

[nlogax]

Is it because for the silent Republican vote, many of them were actually undecided until they entered the voting booth. Either the majority of Trump voters are rabidly following his exhortations or they aren’t - you can’t have it both ways.

Two factors in play.

1 - Trump persuaded the bulk of his supporters to physically go to the polling booth - to ignore Covid concerns (see his rallies) and go physically stand in line and vote. His criticism of mail-in voting has been long standing. Meanwhile, Dems voted early to both to avoid health risks and avoid potential postal hold-ups which were warned about for some time. Biden encouraged it.

2 - Most metro areas are traditionally Democrat. Therefore their numbers are going naturally to be higher.

 

[SouthEastBuses]

Looks like Biden will become president lol, seeing that he is ahead of Trump in Georgia and Nevada. And that is 22 electoral votes, and with Biden having 264 electoral votes (Trump has 214 currently), 264 + 22 = 286. And that will mean Biden will definetly win against Trump

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

CNN now reporting that PA has flipped blue.

 

[Domh245]

Correct, the latest tranche of counted mail-in votes were 87% in biden's favour and he now has a 5000 odd vote lead. DecisionDesk (one of several different groups) has now called the election for Biden, and I'd expect the others to follow soon (although the writing has been on the wall for a while now)

 

[jfollows]

...of the new 31,182 votes recorded in Pennsylvania, 88% of them (27,408) were for Biden. So even more than the 73% or 75% mentioned up-thread.
(Duplicates post by Domh245 immediately above!)

 

[Trackman]

CNN now reporting that PA has flipped blue.

So are Sky news- Biden ahead with about 6,000 votes now