US Election Week 2020

[Razgovory]

Trump keeps tweeting out "Stop the Count".  He does know that if the count stops right now he loses, right?

[alfred russel]

I get the map is tough, but it'll be mid-terms and chance are Biden will be leading a country (in a world) that is recovering from covid and it's economic impact. And Republicans will have pivoted to deep concern about the astronomical level of debt the US now has and the deficit - it's certainly what I'd do if I was in their shoes. I feel like Republicans or any other opposition party doesn't necessarily need to be that popular to do well in that context.

And that's one thing I wonder if we need to re-evaluate, after the dust has settled. Was 2018 the strong blue wave disapproval of Trump that we thought it was, or was it just a typical mid-term result when the governing party's big attraction isn't at the top of the ticket?

If the question is, "will republicans take the house in 2022?" I think that is a good possibility. But for the Senate, you can see the map here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_Senate_elections

The democrats have no seats in red states and the only purplish ones are Arizona (probably, depending on the current election), Nevada, Colorado, and New Hampshire.

Republicans are defending a zillion.

[FunkMonk]

The Democratic Super PAC in charge of House races is going to face serious questions about how it lost seats when projected to pick them up.

House Majority PAC's president is Robby Mook.

https://twitter.com/ryangrim/status/1324376902241603590

Robby Mook is infamous for being Hillary's campaign manager in 2016. 

[OttoVonBismarck]

I am not so sure on GOP taking the House in 2022 fwiw. They may, they are in position to. But as we've started to do an analysis on the electorate Trump brought together, he really did do what a lot of people doubted--generate low propensity voter registrations and turnout for whites who just don't regularly vote. His messaging and strategy targeting black men and Hispanics really worked too, but the reason he didn't get flooded by the huge turnout for Biden is he actually did get more of those "base type" voters who had previously sat out of the political process out for him.

Now the issue is, these are very low propensity voters. These are the voters who love Trump, love that he's not a politician etc. They are also people in their 40s-60s who in all their lives had probably never voted before. What is the likelihood they stick around to vote in the 2022 midterms when their cult leader isn't on the ballot? We know they didn't bother to vote in 2018. We also know the last time we had a really "charismatic" candidate who mobilized a lot of low propensity voters, his voters didn't come out when he wasn't on the ballot either--talking about Obama here, Dems just couldn't get those voters out in 2010, 2014, and it cost them, they didn't come back for Hillary in 2016 either.

So with that being said I'm not convinced 2022 doesn't revert back to the demographic/turnout norm for the GOP, which is de facto worse for them. At the same time, the Dems obviously have gotten motivated to dump out Trump as well, so some of that will be gone. Additionally some of the suburban white vote may go back home to the GOP. But I think it's too early to tell, the suburban white vote seems a lot more interested in process issues and other things where the GOP has sucked ass for a real long time. I'm not convinced the GOP easily gets back some of these suburban voters, there's historical precedent for voters like that shifting away due to an unpalatable candidate and never really shifting back--it happened in several other "wave" elections in the 20th century.

I would also say it's worth remembering the Dems did almost none of their traditional registration drives or GOTV efforts because of Covid, and the GOP did all of theirs. I would hope by 2022 the Dems are back to doing that stuff. How much does that stuff affect an election? I think it's hard to say, but I have to think it at least moves the needle. The best way to find low propensity voters is to go to their homes and ask them to vote, the fact that they are low propensity means it's harder to find them other ways. They're less likely to follow political news etc.

[alfred russel]

But what do you think it's for? What's McConnell's goal there?

When I see McConnell indicating he is going to be 100% unreasonable and basically dictate cabinet positions to Biden, I read that as him saying he thinks Biden won and is not going to support Trump barricading himself in the White House.

I also read that as a way to keep republicans possibly prone to man Trump's barricades to consider, "wait, all is not lost. We can almost control the country with the senate."

McConnell probably will be historically uncooperative with the Biden administration, but that doesn't mean posturing today should be taken at face value. That is an issue for January.

[Sheilbh]

https://alex.github.io/nyt-2020-election-scraper/battleground-state-changes.html

This scraper is live sraping every voting block that comes in and reporting the results.

Super-interesting - thanks

[Sheilbh]

The Democratic Super PAC in charge of House races is going to face serious questions about how it lost seats when projected to pick them up.

House Majority PAC's president is Robby Mook.

https://twitter.com/ryangrim/status/1324376902241603590

Robby Mook is infamous for being Hillary's campaign manager in 2016. 

Christ

Surprised they didn't get Mark Penn in (I know the more recent issues)

[alfred russel]

I am not so sure on GOP taking the House in 2022 fwiw. They may, they are in position to. But as we've started to do an analysis on the electorate Trump brought together, he really did do what a lot of people doubted--generate low propensity voter registrations and turnout for whites who just don't regularly vote. His messaging and strategy targeting black men and Hispanics really worked too, but the reason he didn't get flooded by the huge turnout for Biden is he actually did get more of those "base type" voters who had previously sat out of the political process out for him.

I know the republicans are euphoric that they got a bunch of minorities to vote for them, but I wonder if the reality isn't that they are losing the educated party of the population and much of the working class (which includes minorities) is terrified they are going to get put out of work if democrats take over and we go into lockdown. When covid goes away, the minorities go back to the democrats and republicans are back to being the uneducated white guy party.

[The Larch]

Allegheny County, PA (where Pittsbrugh is located and where Biden defeats Trump 60-40) still has 35,413 uncounted mail-in ballots, but elections staff is taking today off for "administrative work" and will not resume count until Friday.

(...)

Allegheny County counting update

Most 35k mail-ins to be counted are the 29k ballots that can't be legally counted until Friday. No mail-in ballot counting today.

So, Pennsylvania probably won't be called today and we'll have to wait at least until tomorrow.

[Maladict]

Trump keeps tweeting out "Stop the Count".  He does know that if the count stops right now he loses, right?

Probably not.

[HisMajestyBOB]

The Democratic Super PAC in charge of House races is going to face serious questions about how it lost seats when projected to pick them up.

House Majority PAC's president is Robby Mook.

https://twitter.com/ryangrim/status/1324376902241603590

Robby Mook is infamous for being Hillary's campaign manager in 2016. 

Christ

Surprised they didn't get Mark Penn in (I know the more recent issues)

Robby Mook will now be in charge of the Dems Senate PAC in 2022. The GOP will hold all seats and the Dems will lose NH and NV.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I will say with minority vote, while I kind of casually just chalked up a lot of the Obama coalition to his charisma, it should be noted Obama had the largest scale, most pervasive, community level GOTV effort in high minority % urban areas. Hillary didn't bother to even try replicating it, and Biden's team basically said because of Covid they don't need to do that sort of thing.

We probably shouldn't assume that it's smart to just never even try again to replicate some of the Obama "magic." But the Dems have to actually think this way, so far they haven't.

[crazy canuck]

I will say with minority vote, while I kind of casually just chalked up a lot of the Obama coalition to his charisma, it should be noted Obama had the largest scale, most pervasive, community level GOTV effort in high minority % urban areas. Hillary didn't bother to even try replicating it, and Biden's team basically said because of Covid they don't need to do that sort of thing.

We probably shouldn't assume that it's smart to just never even try again to replicate some of the Obama "magic." But the Dems have to actually think this way, so far they haven't.

Yeah, political campaign 101 stuff.  Rule 1 get out your vote.  Rule 2 everything is subordinate to Rule 1.  Rule 3 there are no other Rules.

[Sheilbh]

When I see McConnell indicating he is going to be 100% unreasonable and basically dictate cabinet positions to Biden, I read that as him saying he thinks Biden won and is not going to support Trump barricading himself in the White House.

I also read that as a way to keep republicans possibly prone to man Trump's barricades to consider, "wait, all is not lost. We can almost control the country with the senate."

McConnell probably will be historically uncooperative with the Biden administration, but that doesn't mean posturing today should be taken at face value. That is an issue for January.

Yeah - so I don't disagree with any of that. I think the establishment GOP thinks Trump has lost and are fine with that and will just move on pretty quickly/not get distracted.

But I think their priority will be to win and for Biden to lose - but I think the work for that starts now, not in January. If they aren't wargaming how they're going to damage the new administration then they're in the wrong job. I don't think at this stage they particularly care about Trump, or even his supporters, because the election's over - it's just counting now (though they might do some "don't let them steal this one" GOTV stuff in Georgia for the Senate races).

And I think the best strategy to that is to be obstructive and low profile - which McConnell's great at, pivot to the national debt and attack big spending plans by Biden-Pelosi, but stop just short of shut-down. I think people will blame the President because he's higher profile and Pelosi because she showboats more than McConnell.

I think McConnell's an interesting politician because a lot of the time you can take what he says at face value, because he's normally saying they will get x thing done or they will stop y thing and he's very good at keeping his caucus together and delivering on that.

I'm not convinced the GOP easily gets back some of these suburban voters, there's historical precedent for voters like that shifting away due to an unpalatable candidate and never really shifting back--it happened in several other "wave" elections in the 20th century.

Yeah and there's a trend in other democracies for those type of voters to move to the party of the left. We've seen it at a very rapid pace in the UK where class is no longer the best predictor of how you'll vote, it's education.

I know the republicans are euphoric that they got a bunch of minorities to vote for them, but I wonder if the reality isn't that they are losing the educated party of the population and much of the working class (which includes minorities) is terrified they are going to get put out of work if democrats take over and we go into lockdown. When covid goes away, the minorities go back to the democrats and republicans are back to being the uneducated white guy party.

How much of the stuff around minorities and working class voters is based on exit polling on election day? Does it take into account the number of early and mail-in voters this year? I ask because I remember there being a number of surprises in the 2016 exit polls that then became a lot less surprising when Pew did some follow up deeper analysis of voters.

Totally agree on the education angle.

[alfred russel]

Georgia counties just sent results to the secretary of state. Fulton County (the big Atlanta one) said their uncounted ballots are down to 2k.

Trump's lead: 17k.

Heart sinks.

Georgia's Secretary of State says that several counties forgot to click "upload results" in the system and they don't have in the 11am reporting. He sent a reminder that they need to click that button.

Fulton County didn't report. This is my county. This is my state. This is how we operate when the eyes of the world are on us, normally we are a bit more dysfunctional.