US Election Week 2020

[The Larch]

So, Georgia seems to be the state closest to be called at this moment, with only around 100k votes remaining to be counted. Trump's advantage is 22,567 votes, so if the ones remaining are from such overwhelmingly Biden-voting areas as reported it is feasible that it could go to Biden.

Next one could be North Carolina, with around 350k votes remaining to be counted, and Trump's advantage there is 76,701 votes. No idea how the split could be there in the remaining votes, as I can't see from which counties they are from.

[Threviel]

Why would you take out 15% of the country out of your calculations? 

For dishonest reasons.

Are you talking about me and California? I phrased myself badly, as usual. I was sitting around and thinking that the entire popular vote difference can be explained by California. Horribly enough it actually seems quite even in the rest of the US.

Surely you could also just grab a whole collection of different states to say something similar right for your 2nd sentence? I'm also not sure your third sentence seems accurate.

Here's a list in descending order of Biden states and the gap. I've listed just those with 10% or higher gap (as shown in bold font).

Vermont 66-31 +35
California 65-32 +33
Massachusetts 66-33 +33
Hawaii 64-34 +30
Maryland 63-36 +27
Washington 60-38 +22
Rhode Island 59-39 +20
Delaware 59-40 +19
Oregon 58-40 +18
Conneticut 57-41 +16
NY 55-43 +12
Colorado 55-42 +13
Illinois 55-43 +12
New Mexico 54-43 +11

Popular vote advantage right now for the entire US, from CNN: 3 557 975
Popular vote advantage right now for California, from CNN: 3 912 732

It seems quite even for the US outside of California. That it is possible that other combinations of states has the same effect is neither here nor there.

[Gups]

Dear Americans,

This is what an election count looks like in a mature democracy (nicked from Twitter)

[garbon]

Surely you could also just grab a whole collection of different states to say something similar right for your 2nd sentence? I'm also not sure your third sentence seems accurate.

Here's a list in descending order of Biden states and the gap. I've listed just those with 10% or higher gap (as shown in bold font).

Vermont 66-31 +35
California 65-32 +33
Massachusetts 66-33 +33
Hawaii 64-34 +30
Maryland 63-36 +27
Washington 60-38 +22
Rhode Island 59-39 +20
Delaware 59-40 +19
Oregon 58-40 +18
Conneticut 57-41 +16
NY 55-43 +12
Colorado 55-42 +13
Illinois 55-43 +12
New Mexico 54-43 +11

Popular vote advantage right now for the entire US, from CNN: 3 557 975
Popular vote advantage right now for California, from CNN: 3 912 732

It seems quite even for the US outside of California. That it is possible that other combinations of states has the same effect is neither here nor there.

Sure its neither here nor there if you want to build a misleading narrative. As I demonstrated with my figures there are many states that are clearly not 'even'.

[Threviel]

I had no plans to build a narrative, I just pointed a not-so-interesting thing out.

[garbon]

I had no plans to build a narrative, I just pointed a not-so-interesting thing out.

Okay. Yeah, I'm not sure why it would be interesting to note that removing the most populous Democratic state from the results can change the aggregate results.

[Tamas]

I think if the popular vote advantage is coming from a single state, then it is a valid point to highlight, because otherwise "but we won the popular vote" could hide the fact that the country is very much divided between a reasonable centrist politician, and a rambling demented former reality TV star.

[The Larch]

If we're in the time for making observations, I noticed a couple of funny things going state by state, and it's that some of them can easily be labelled as one party states, given that either Dems or Reps won in every single county. For instance, Hawaii, Massachussets and Rhode Island are 100% Dem states, while West Virginia and Oklahoma are 100% Rep.

A few more states are almost entirely monochromatic as well except for very few counties (New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticutt and Delaware on the Dem side, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, Utah, Wyoming, North Dakota and Idaho on the Rep one).

[Syt]

I'm wondering how much of that might be because of people tending to move to areas with politics they agree with. Anecdotally, my sisters would e.g. never move to the West Coast because the area on the whole is too liberal.

[The Larch]

I'm wondering how much of that might be because of people tending to move to areas with politics they agree with. Anecdotally, my sisters would e.g. never move to the West Coast because the area on the whole is too liberal.

I think that's mostly prejudice rather than fact. Depending on the particular area, even in West Coast states there are sizeable areas (even if sparsely populated ones) that vote Republican, for instance Northern California or the interior of Oregon and Washington. Then again maybe even a West Coast Republican sounds like a Marxist if you're far enough to the right.

On the other hand, even in very "red" states you can find places that vote mostly Dem in urban counties (normally the one or two "blue" counties in some of the almost entirely "red" states), like Louisville and Lexington in Kentucky, or Memphis and Nashville in Tennessee

[DGuller]

I wonder how much a Covid migration would change things.  I imagine that most of it is from deep blue states to red or purple states.

[garbon]

I think if the popular vote advantage is coming from a single state, then it is a valid point to highlight, because otherwise "but we won the popular vote" could hide the fact that the country is very much divided between a reasonable centrist politician, and a rambling demented former reality TV star.

But that's obvious from the fact that so many people will have voted for both candidates. Who is under an illusion that the country isn't divided? Highlighting California specifically and noting it has a large impact on popular vote totals should be obvious given size of its populace and also covers over other states where voters roundly rejected Trump.

[celedhring]

Then again maybe even a West Coast Republican sounds like a Marxist if you're far enough to the right.

Yeah, the GOP in places like CA or the North-East is way more moderate than what you find elsewhere. At least that was the case when I lived there. I presume that the same happens with Dems in places like Alabama.

[The Larch]

I mean, even in New York state most of the counties actually vote Republican, including most of Upstate and even parts of Long Island and NY itself (Staten Island, basically). Out of 62 counties in the whole state "only" 13 had Dem majorities (a handful of places Upstate like the counties where Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Ithaca are located, some counties in the Hudson Valley and most of NY itself.

[Josquius]

I'm wondering how much of that might be because of people tending to move to areas with politics they agree with. Anecdotally, my sisters would e.g. never move to the West Coast because the area on the whole is too liberal.

Less politics itself surely (though perhaps to an extent) and more the associated key factor of education?
If you're an educated person from Wyoming then chances are you won't be staying in your hometown, you'll be heading to a big city for work.