US Election Week 2020

[merithyn]

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

I assure you that the Republicans out here are far and away more extreme right than I remember them being in Illinois. They're certainly more in our face about their rhetoric.

[merithyn]

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.

Not my experience in Oregon. May also just be that everyone is more extreme now than even 10-12 years ago.

[The Larch]

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.

Not my experience in Oregon. May also just be that everyone is more extreme now than even 10-12 years ago.

Yeah, I guess that one of the effects of Trump (and the Tea Partiers that paved the way for him) is that he has basically bulldozed the traditional "families" within the Republican party and nowadays his brand of in-your-face loud mouthness is the default GOP position for new politicians, as many of the younger and new candidates that have appeared lately. How the Republicans move for a post-Trump stage will be interesting to see. Will they stay in the grips of Trumpism or will that be slowly discarded and they'll be back to a more traditional mould?

[Sheilbh]

I feel like California Republicans are also infamously crazy - and I think something similar's happened with the Virginia party since they lost power.

I think there's definitely something about ideological sorting geographically, but also the nationalisation of politics which is quite new.

[The Larch]

I feel like California Republicans are also infamously crazy - and I think something similar's happened with the Virginia party since they lost power.

I think there's definitely something about ideological sorting geographically, but also the nationalisation of politics which is quite new.

Well, right now the most prominent California Republican might be Devin Nunes, so that doesn't really speak highly of them at the moment. 

In contrast there are plenty of prominent California Democrats at the moment, with Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi in the forefront.

[Maladict]

Also this is the perfect result for McConnell and the establishment GOP: Trump lost, they kept the Senate and they've got 6-3 on the Supreme Court. It was all worth it.

Yeah, that's what hurts most. The damage is permanent.

[DGuller]

The number that gives me heartburn is the 70% reported number in Philadelphia.  So much seems to hinge on that number.  It seems a strangely low number by this stage, what if it's an error? 

[Sheilbh]

The number that gives me heartburn is the 70% reported number in Philadelphia.  So much seems to hinge on that number.  It seems a strangely low number by this stage, what if it's an error? 

NYT has it at 89%.

If it helps - I find this dashboard pretty impressive which makes me think that, despite the (lack of) speed, they're on top of counting and reporting etc:
https://www.votespa.com/About-Elections/Pages/Counting-Dashboard.aspx

[Syt]

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/11/trumps-legal-filings-are-trash-and-read-like-an-elementary-school-student-wrote-it-msnbcs-legal-experts/

Trump's legal filings are 'trash' and read 'like an elementary school student' wrote it: MSNBC's legal experts

MSNBC hosts Nicolle Wallace and Rachel Maddow are hearings from legal analysts that President Donald Trump's campaign's filings are "trash" and poorly written.

"I'll add this about the recounts," Wallace began, "I just hung up with a Trump adviser who says that these legal efforts do not really have the imprimatur of the late Warren Christopher and the James Baker sort of statesmen arriving on the ground in Florida the morning after the election there. That these do not seem like the kinds of legal fights that are attracting talent beyond people with the last name Trump and one Rudy Giuliani, who showed up in the state of Pennsylvania. So, just a little bit of evidence about the view even from inside Trump's side about the caliber of legal talent and legal arguments being made in lawsuits that were described to me as very much driven by the client himself without a lot of basis in any sort of consistent legal philosophy or argument at this point."

Maddow noted that legal advice to a president or a presidential campaign is generally considered prestigious, but in Trump's case, that is not happening.

"I asked a lawyer associated with us here at MSNBC today, not an on-air person but some who works off-air, to have a look at the complaint the Trump campaign filed in Michigan to try to stop the vote in Michigan. And that lawyer described it as something that looked like it was written by an elementary school student and something that did not actually have any of the predicates of a basic legal document, including the who, what, where, why, when of what they were alleging was the reason the court should step in and do something."

Maddow called it an "interesting" factoid in terms of what campaigns are bringing to the fight. Biden's team had thousands of lawyers lined up to take on whatever the Trump team could throw at them. The Trump campaign appears only to have Attorney General Bill Barr and Rudy Giuliani.

"It also makes me wonder if Republicans are so confident now — that there are so many conservative judges now that they have done such a good job in the federal courts stacking it with ideological, very right-wing, in some cases very young partisan-minded federal judges, that they've got a path even if what they're filing is just trash," Maddow questioned.

Wallace agreed that the question was an interesting one, noting that it's a conversation that should be had after the election. She wondered the degree to which "the courts are so contaminated by what Trump has said out loud he wants them to do" that they can't make a legally sound ruling.

"Trump said last night he's waiting to get this to the United States Supreme Court," Wallace continued. "No matter what they do, I think they are forever tainted by the notion that Donald Trump, who picked three of them, believes that they are sitting there waiting until one of these ludicrous, as you said, juvenile lawsuits makes its way to them. Whether they act on that or not doesn't matter. That is how Donald Trump described them, not just to his supporters but to the world. That is how he sees the United States Supreme Court."

She explained that it remains clear that Trump's own legal team can't come up with a legal theory as to why the vote-counting should stop in states like Arizona, much less what Trump wants to happen in Michigan and Wisconsin. The president simply wants counting to stop.

"So, there isn't a legal argument," Wallace said. "There isn't a legal through-line. So, even if you were sort of at the ready for Trump, a willing appointee waiting to do his political bidding, which I think is a reach even for the kinds of folks that he's put on the court, it's not clear what the philosophical, legal case is that's being made in the courts."

https://youtu.be/IT6IydWb2-o

[DGuller]

The number that gives me heartburn is the 70% reported number in Philadelphia.  So much seems to hinge on that number.  It seems a strangely low number by this stage, what if it's an error? 

NYT has it at 89%.

If it helps - I find this dashboard pretty impressive which makes me think that, despite the (lack of) speed, they're on top of counting and reporting etc:
https://www.votespa.com/About-Elections/Pages/Counting-Dashboard.aspx

:confused: I still have Philadelphia County at 70% on NYT.  Am I having some cache issues?

[Sheilbh]

Sorry, you're quite right - I misread.

[alfred russel]

.  Georgia

According to CNN:

-Approx. 99,000 votes to go.
-Biden needs around 55% of those.
-Biden's average for the votes that have been coming in tonight is around 70%.

And this is another exhibit of why CNN is trash. Last evening the vote count had Trump up 32k. If there are 99k of ballots remaining and Biden got 55%, Trump would win by 22k. It wouldn't even be close.

[celedhring]

.  Georgia

According to CNN:

-Approx. 99,000 votes to go.
-Biden needs around 55% of those.
-Biden's average for the votes that have been coming in tonight is around 70%.

And this is another exhibit of why CNN is trash. Last evening the vote count had Trump up 32k. If there are 99k of ballots remaining and Biden got 55%, Trump would win by 22k. It wouldn't even be close.

Current count is Trump up 18k. CNN's math would still not work, though.

[alfred russel]

The very latest numbers from the Georgia Secretary of State (updated 13 minutes ago) have Trump up just over 18k.

In Fulton County, the largest metro Atlanta county, they only have 10k ballots left to process and say they will be done by 11am. The late counted votes there are going to Biden at about an 80% clip. This was updated at 7:27 am from an interview with the Fulton elections chief by the AJC.

This is from last night from data I pulled together from the AJC (at least one place was counting until 4am so a lot was counted since then--at the time Trump's lead was ~31k):

About 90k votes are uncounted. Of those,

32k are from Fulton County (metro atlanta), that went for Biden 72-26.
16k are from Chatham County (savannah), that went for Biden 58-41.
7k are from Clayton County (gone with the wind location outside atlanta), that went for Biden 85-14.
5k are from DeKalb County (metro atlanta), that went for Biden 83-16.

Honestly, if there really are only 10k ballots left in Fulton, I'm not optimistic.

The betting odds however favor Biden in Georgia by 64%.

I'd dig more into the numbers of where the votes are still outstanding - and how many - but it makes me too apprehensive. Hopefully it is done soon.

Hopefully Pennsylvania holds up...

[Josephus]

In that MSNBC article the worrisome part is this:

"It also makes me wonder if Republicans are so confident now — that there are so many conservative judges now that they have done such a good job in the federal courts stacking it with ideological, very right-wing, in some cases very young partisan-minded federal judges, that they've got a path even if what they're filing is just trash," Maddow questioned.

It doesn't matter how poorly the legal arguments are if the judiciary is tainted. I trust, hopefully, that they'll vote based on jurisprudence and not on their ideology, but these days, in the USA, it's really hard to be certain.