US Election Week 2020

[The Minsky Moment]

I've read the Michigan complaint.  Comments:

1) it is not the finest legal filing I've ever read, but its not grade school scribbling either.
2) There is a glaring absence of any concrete facts being alleged
3) Counsel is a small firm specializing in 5th amendment property cases. But the lead counsel was an elections law counsel for GWB.  So far from an elections law A team, but perhaps a C team with arguments to be a B team.
4) The complaint is that GOP observers were not present when certain absentee ballots were being counted. However, no instance or evidence of this happening is supplied.
5) The complaint also says that Michigan failed to provide video surveillance of drop boxes which it claims is required under Michigan law.

The real head scratcher is assuming this is all true what is the remedy? The lawsuit asks that counting of absentee ballots "stop" and that drop box ballots be segregated.  My understanding is that the count is done and the ballots can't be unscrambled now.

Tellingly, the plaintiff has not asked for a TRO (temporary order) that would be needed assuming the relief they sought was even possible.  Instead they have asked for a declaratory judgment - basically a declaration from the court that Michigan didn't follow the law.  However, that really doesn't do anything to change the results.

Seems to me the best possible outcome for Trump legally here would be an order for a statewide recount with GOP observers present but that obviously won't help Trump.

The other possibility is that this is a purely political ploy and the intent is to convince the Michigan legislature to toss the whole count.  I don't see that happening either.

[Sheilbh]

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.

"We are thrilled to welcome back Joe Trippi as our campaign manager for the 2024 Biden/Harris Campaign"

[Sheilbh]

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.

One other factor is maybe Howard Dean? Because I read a lot about him being quite effective at building up the party's infrastructure and his strategy feeding into victories in 2006 and 2008, while I've not read anything similar about recent DNC Chairs.

[Valmy]

I'm imagining Donald Trump sitting in the White House watching his margin in PA decrease by the hour. He must be fuming.

This election outcome and aftermath is a disaster. Pretty much the worst case scenario.

I can think of many cases worse than this

It actually may not be a bad thing to have everybody cooling their heels for a few days before the results are discovered. Last time we had Hillary supporters protesting because everything happened so fast and shocked the system. Now everybody might be too bored to start protesting.

[FunkMonk]

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.

"We are thrilled to welcome back Joe Trippi as our campaign manager for the 2024 Biden/Harris Campaign"

I need a career where I repeatedly fail spectacularly but people keep giving me tons of responsibility and a huge paycheck.

Well I guess that is government

[Sheilbh]

The real head scratcher is assuming this is all true what is the remedy? The lawsuit asks that counting of absentee ballots "stop" and that drop box ballots be segregated.  My understanding is that the count is done and the ballots can't be unscrambled now.

Tellingly, the plaintiff has not asked for a TRO (temporary order) that would be needed assuming the relief they sought was even possible.  Instead they have asked for a declaratory judgment - basically a declaration from the court that Michigan didn't follow the law.  However, that really doesn't do anything to change the results.

That feels like you've got a client who wants you to "do something" but legally, there's not much you can actually do. Is that unfair?

[merithyn]

I'm imagining Donald Trump sitting in the White House watching his margin in PA decrease by the hour. He must be fuming.

This image makes me so happy.

[alfred russel]

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.

For hispanics it is identifiable in returns in districts with large hispanic populations. For example, in one district in Texas, there is a 96% hispanic population. The democratic margins were cut by 55% versus 2016. As in, they won the county by 60 points in 2016 and only 5 in 2020, which is obviously insane. I've seen analysis showing shifts in hispanic significant districts in Florida and Colorado as well, so it isn't just a Texas phenomena.

On the one hand, I was arguing before the election that this would happen longer term (Catholics in general used to be super democrats, such as in the era of kennedy, but not anymore). But the abruptness of the shift is causing me to toss out my covid theory, without any evidence and probably because it aligns with what I think about covid.

[katmai]

Nevada; Biden lead expanded by 5k with first 15k ballots added today

[Sheilbh]

For hispanics it is identifiable in returns in districts with large hispanic populations. For example, in one district in Texas, there is a 96% hispanic population. The democratic margins were cut by 55% versus 2016. As in, they won the county by 60 points in 2016 and only 5 in 2020, which is obviously insane. I've seen analysis showing shifts in hispanic significant districts in Florida and Colorado as well, so it isn't just a Texas phenomena.

Fair. But I think it will take a lot of unpacking given that there don't seem to be those types of swings in Arizona (yet). Latino and hispanic are incredibly broad terms.

On the one hand, I was arguing before the election that this would happen longer term (Catholics in general used to be super democrats, such as in the era of kennedy, but not anymore). But the abruptness of the shift is causing me to toss out my covid theory, without any evidence and probably because it aligns with what I think about covid.

I don't know if it's to do with Catholicism. From the early polls on this (), Catholics went for Biden and he did a lot better than Clinton.

In terms of religion I wonder if the growing evangelical protestant churches in Latino communities (and Latin America) may be part of it?

[Josquius]

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

This is good.
I am curious how everyone has called arizona already. Things aren't looking good there.

[Maladict]

I am curious how everyone has called arizona already. Things aren't looking good there.

That Fox guy must be shitting himself, even though it wasn't his fault.

[Valmy]

Nevada; Biden lead expanded by 5k with first 15k ballots added today

In years past I think Pennsylvania and Nevada would already be called for Joe Biden and North Carolina and Alaska for Donald Trump. Everybody is so damn conservative this year...well except for Fox and Arizona.

[Josephus]

What legal argument did Trump win re:Pennsylvania. I see him tweeting some shit about that.

[celedhring]

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.

I'm not sure you can point at lack of GOTV efforts when Biden's on track to get the largest number of votes of any presidential election. Yes, the Dems didn't seem to bother much with it, but I think they correctly assumed that Trump was doing their job for them. I think the problem lies elsewhere, like culture wars preventing them from being more effective with rural voters, and what I perceive (maybe wrongly, I live in Europe afterall) as lack of interest in turning that constituency.