American Politics Thread

[Gengarzilla]

There's a real sense of "you made your bed, now lie in it" with the write-in votes. If Trump hadn't been so recklessly dismissive of the Coronavirus outbreak then we'd see something more mixed instead of a separate "red mirage" and "blue wave". He's got nobody to blame but himself for encouraging the physical vote, honestly.

 

[Blockhead Pippi]

According to the map from The Associated Press (it's what Google is pulling up), Biden has won Arizona and has 264 electorates. It's so close now...he just needs to win Nevada.

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

Trump's lead in Pennsylvania is getting narrower and narrower. Its about 239K right now. If it keeps up, Biden has an even safer victory path. Right now, I'm optimistic, but still very worried about Arizona. I haven't seen NBC or anyone else confirm it yet.

 

[Aulos]

Trump's lead in Pennsylvania is getting narrower and narrower. Its about 239K right now. If it keeps up, Biden has an even safer victory path. Right now, I'm optimistic, but still very worried about Arizona. I haven't seen NBC or anyone else confirm it yet.

They're being careful with AZ because there are still around 600K votes that are said to be coming in. They do think that it will stick with Biden given the math (the bulk of the votes being in a blue area, and the the votes being mail-in), but with 600K you must at least wait, even if things are looking good.

Plus, AZ has been a red state for a very long time, even during the Obama years. So this is a huge deal and it has to be handled carefully.

 

[indigohex3]

Its looking good...for the world's sanity. As mentioned earlier, Biden is 6 electoral college votes away from the White House. What I don't get is why they are declaring Michigan for Biden, yet it looks like Trump is in the lead. Can someone explain that.

And while elections are held on a Tuesday in the United States of America, if you want to maximise votes, then have it on a Saturday (like we do here in Australia) and have an actual postal vote or pre-poll that won't be stuffed up by political parties. I think having it on a Tuesday discourages workers from voting in elections. And stop this raising money in which the person who can raise the most money gets in (I know the candidate in Congressional elections raised the most money didn't get in), and have a fixed amount for all candidates and they are not allowed to raise more money, like in several countries. And have an independent umpire run elections instead of the major parties.

 

[Blockhead Pippi]

Unless I'm mistaken, Nevada has been giving mixed messages of holding off counting ballots until tomorrow. As if this suspense weren't bad already.

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

This seriously is the most anxiety inducing election ever. We are teetering on the edge of Joe Biden victory. He's up in the two states he needs, but there's still votes to be counted and its got me worrying that Trump has time to catch up.

 

[omahanime]

ABC said the votes in Arizona to be counted are in the county Phoenix is in. An urban Democratic county.

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

If its just the Phoenix area, that's a good sign. Also, it seems Biden is just under 40k votes in Georgia, and there's about 122k that need to be counted.

 

[Aulos]

Biden's lead in the important AZ county narrowed a little bit, which is a little scary. However, I don't think it is narrowing enough for a change. I hope not, anyway.

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

I am really scared about Arizona...Please, just pleaseclet it go to Biden!

 

[Aulos]

I saw on one of the channels that the narrowing lead still isn't super concerning at this point because according to these votes the rate of Trump increase just isn't enough for him to take the lead. The remaining votes will have to be a substantial surge for Trump for him to take the lead that isn't lining up with the votes so far.

Another thing I saw showed Trump did really well in those recent votes and it is a little scary. We'll just have to cross our fingers that he won't get enough. Although I would still say it's far from being too worrisome at this very moment.

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

The longer this goes on, the more afraid I am that Biden won't be able to hold his leads. This is the most anxiety inducing election ever.

 

[wanderist]

Yeaaah trying not to worry too much, but watching Nevada just has me a bit nervous because it seems so close. The gap in PA is definitely narrowing a good bit but I don't know if it'll be enough to win it. Georgia is practically tied at the moment but I'm not really optimistic there either. I'm just not gonna be able to relax until I see that 270 votes. I think it's still somehow so hard to believe that this nightmare of a presidency might actually be over that I'm just waiting for something to go wrong and crush my spirit. lol

The total vote count sure is nice to look at though.

 

[Blockhead Pippi]

I almost want to say that the delays are being done on purpose as a form of voter suppression, but that would also be ignoring the unfortunate reality of tracking and counting all the mailed-in ballots. I too just want this suspense to end already and it frustrates me that we have to wait until tomorrow or possibly even the day after for the final results.

Makes me all the more glad then that Canada avoided going into another election this year, cause we really don't need that right now with Covid making things so hard.

 

[swiftgallade46]

And while elections are held on a Tuesday in the United States of America, if you want to maximise votes, then have it on a Saturday (like we do here in Australia) and have an actual postal vote or pre-poll that won't be stuffed up by political parties. I think having it on a Tuesday discourages workers from voting in elections.

Or, you know, just make it a national holiday so people get off work anyway. Having it on a Saturday would increase numbers, sure, but many people still work on Saturdays.

The longer this goes on, the more afraid I am that Biden won't be able to hold his leads. This is the most anxiety inducing election ever.

What makes you say this? I am all for being cautious and not getting hopes up, but most models seem to suggest that Biden will be narrowing gaps extending his lead. Many remaining counties in Arizona, PA, and Georgia are typically very blue and we still have a lot of mail-in votes to tally in all remaining states. I saw a metric recently that stated around 72% of mail-ins have been D so far, but I’ll try and find the article. Stay positive! =]


On a more...sad note, though, we are probably not flipping the Senate which really concerns me especially with SCOTUS being very conservative. At least they’ll be up for re-election again in 2 years, I guess.

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

What makes you say this? I am all for being cautious and not getting hopes up, but most models seem to suggest that Biden will be narrowing gaps extending his lead. Many remaining counties in Arizona, PA, and Georgia are typically very blue and we still have a lot of mail-in votes to tally in all remaining states. I saw a metric recently that stated around 72% of mail-ins have been D so far, but I’ll try and find the article. Stay positive!

Trump keeps SOMEHOW cutting into Biden's lead in Arizona. I thought the mail in ballots were heavily favoring Biden? Somehow I see Trump is now only 13K behind. And Maricopa leans Democrat pretty heavily. Biden isn't extending any leads and I'm terrified this will ruin our chances at defeating him and ending this nightmare.

 

[swiftgallade46]

Trump keeps SOMEHOW cutting into Biden's lead in Arizona. I thought the mail in ballots were heavily favoring Biden? Somehow I see Trump is now only 13K behind. And Maricopa leans Democrat pretty heavily. Biden isn't extending any leads and I'm terrified this will ruin our chances at defeating him and ending this nightmare.

It’s going to fluctuate. There’s still ~%14 of the votes left to be counted and Arizona is traditionally a very red state. We don’t know when they’ll be reporting mail-ins and when they’ll be reporting in-person polling locations. I do think Trump has a not-terrible chance at taking Arizona, but I’m not feeling too pessimistic about it. I’m more concerned about Nevada and Georgia. NC I’m sure is going red and PA I legit have no idea.

 

[indigohex3]

Or, you know, just make it a national holiday so people get off work anyway. Having it on a Saturday would increase numbers, sure, but many people still work on Saturdays.

I think your idea is even better than mine. While it is true that many people still work on a Saturday, we do allow postal votes here in Australia, and we didn't have any issues with it. In fact, we had postal voting in our recent council elections here in Victoria. But I do like your idea of having a national holiday for voting, and while it won't probably work for a Saturday here in Australia (public holidays can only be Monday to Friday, and if a national holiday falls on a weekend, it will be marked on the following Monday), a national holiday to mark an election will actually work in the United States of America as elections are on a Tuesday.

 

[Aulos]

Arizona is looking a slight bit more worrisome.

But... BUT look at Pennsylvania. Trump's lead has been cut into massively and there is still 11% of votes left to be counted. Philadelphia's county is still at 70% of votes. Philadelphia's county is almost guaranteed to be a massive amount of Democrat/Biden votes.

I'm going to say this: Pennsylvania is looking more likely to flip for Biden right now than Arizona is looking to flip to Trump. And in all honesty, I don't think we'll see any kind of scenario where the latter happens but the former doesn't. And if Biden takes Pennsylvania he hits 270 with that alone.