I take it that the following states are undecided:
Pennsylvania
Georgia
Michigan
North Carolina
Wisconsin
Nevada
By my calculations, this election is a tie if Trump wins (precisely) any of the following three subsets:
A = {Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan}
B = {Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, Nevada}
C= {Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada}
It is a Trump victory if Trump wins any of the following:
1) Any superset of A, B or C.
2) Any superset of {Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin}
3) Any superset of {Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada}
I went to bed believing that 98 – 47 = 41, and therefore had this all wrong, but I think it’s right now. Does anyone want to check my arithmetic?
I haven’t checked the math, but I can make one prediction: whoever wins (presidency, house senate) will claim its a mandate. It clearly is not.
You left out Maine, which splits allocation of their 4 electors. Current forecast is that Biden gets 3, Trump gets 1, and your ties are broken.
I actually had already counted Maine as 3 for Biden, 1 for Trump–as well as 1 in Nebraska for Biden.
The math does not check out for me, but I have Alaska as still undecided.
Here’s some morning-after thoughts for you:
Trump’s position within the Republican Party is now MUCH stronger than it was 24 hours ago.
He did way better than projected and got a lot more Congress critters and Senators over the finish line than anyone expected.
Who’s going to challenge him now within the GOP?
You can already see how Republicans are falling in line in how they’re completely failing to speak out against Trump’s lies and baseless attacks on the vote-counting process.
It’ll be very interesting to see what happens if/when Trump gets prosecuted, for example for tax evasion in New York.
But really, the Republican Party is now thoroughly trumpified. This election was its last shot to break out from that mold.
If Trump doesn’t run in 2024, the primary is likely going to be a “who is the trumpiest” contest.
Unless, I suppose, Trump leaves the country for fear of prosecution.
@Advo #5
See David Friedman’s short-but-interesting post about what happens to the Republican Party if Trump fails of reelection.
https://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2020/10/if-trump-loses-what-happens-to.html
@1: ha. I was thinking of that to. Every election it’s a “mandate” when nearly half the country disagrees…
Advo:
You can already see how Republicans are falling in line in how they’re completely failing to speak out against Trump’s lies and baseless attacks on the vote-counting process.
Is Mitch McConnell not a Republican? Is Chris Christie not a Republican? What about Mike DeWine? Adam Kinzinger? Marco Rubio? Larry Hogan? Mike Lee? Spencer Cox? Scott Walker? Rick Santorum? Doug Ducey? Mike Huckabee? Who is a Republican in your book?
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/some-republicans-break-trump-say-take-time-count-all-votes-n1246420
Re Friedmans post, if Tri
Trump loses option 1 is he stays in control. What does that look like? He would have no actual position. I can’t see him running an opposition as the loser.
How about Arizona? That still seems to be undecided.
There is a small but definite chance that the later disputed ballots in Pennsylvania will be the deciding factor. This would lead to the very unfortunate result that the SC decides the winner. If it comes to that, I think they will decide to reject the ballots, based on the previously deadlocked 4-4 non ruling.
I fear this would be very bad for USA.
@Steve,
I hadn’t seen those comments from McConnell etc. at the time I posted that.
Trump tweeted “STOP THE COUNT!”
Ironically, if the count were stopped now Biden would win the election as he is ahead in Arizona and Nevada.
my prediction: if biden ends up winning, trump will run again (amd win) in 2024, holding rallies every week during biden’s presidency!
my editorial comment: can the Libertarian Party recruit a celebrity candidate next time around? (I voted for Jorgenson, but she received three million less votes than Johnson-Weld in 2016.)
>>> my prediction: if biden ends up winning, trump will run again (and win) in 2024, holding rallies every week during biden’s presidency!
Have you not noticed how much Trump has declined cognitively in the last 4 years?
His debates in 2016 were nothing to write home about, but this time it was just gibberish, mostly.
And his rallies are also not as fun anymore.
It’s his personal grievances, his personal grievances, and then his personal grievances some more.
You think people are going to want to hear that for 4 years?
Given the prosecution for tax fraud that is likely coming his way, I’m not even sure that Trump will still be in the country come February.
Advo: “… Republicans are falling in line in how they’re completely failing to speak out against Trump’s lies and baseless attacks on the vote-counting process.”
NY Times, 2006:
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/11/opinion/11hasen.html
“Fraud problems would not go away if we switched to vote by mail.
Such voting — let’s call it mandatory absentee balloting — takes
the voter out of the polling booth and puts him at home or
elsewhere, someplace where votes could be sold to the highest
bidder. Most of the documented cases of voting fraud in the United
States in recent years involve absentee ballots.”
It looks like Trump is going to lose, but by a relatively slim margin in the swing states.
The Republicans can see the writing on the wall, and are trying to salvage some vestige of reputation by not going along with Trump’s deranged conspiracy theories. The claims of fraud may play well with the base, but the senators can see that they are easily debunked and will likely have no chance at all of changing the result in the courts. My suspicion is that if they thought Trump had a good chance of winning they would be just as on-board as they have been for the last few years. I see no movement to reasonableness, more like rats leaving a sinking ship. Trump offers no loyalty and should expect none in return. He operates on self interest and attracts others who do the same.
If he does lose, it will be interesting to see how he copes. His view of reality does not match up with the real world, so he will necessarily insist that he was robbed, and that he really did win the election. That is the only way he can maintain his narcissistic view of himself. Narcissism does give one a certain strengths, from the confidence and ruthlessness it gives you, but when it ultimately clashes with reality it presents problems. When his ability to control others through his power as President disappears and he loses his enablers I think he will vanish quite quickly.
An alternative is that he manages to remain a figure in command of a cult-like band of disaffected and individually powerless Trumpers. Note I am not saying he has Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), although he might have, but I think it is clear he has narcissistic traits.
He is 4 million or so down in the popular vote, or about 2.8% That could shift up to 3% when all are in. This is quite a margin, but short of the polls, which were about 8 points by the end.
538 found that average error in individual polls is about 5% For 2016, a “normal” polling error was enough for Trump to win. For 2020, more than a normal error would be required. When all the results are in we will be able to see how big the error was. There could be a big systematic problem. After all, the “flagship” polls are using mid 20th century technology of telephones and it may be that this method simply cannot obtain representative samples. The margin of error quoted in polls is I believe the statistical margin of error based on sample size.
In Pennsylvania, the GOP House advanced a bill to allow pre-processing of early ballots. The Governor said he would sign it. That would have avoided these delays and the denied Trump the rhetoric he is using to claim fraud. The Republican Senate refused to pass a clean bill, insisting on attaching all sorts of other vote restricting measures. I do not think they had any ideological objection to the bill. The way this election is panning out was as predicted and a direct result of some Republicans deliberately making it so.
> The Republicans can see the writing on the wall, and are trying to salvage some vestige of reputation by not going along with Trump’s deranged conspiracy theories.
Looks like they had a change of heart there. The GOP is acting exactly the way I expected them to act, given their behavior over the last 12+ years.
No regard for anything other than political power.
Lindsey Graham just donated half a million to Trump’s legal effort.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/11/donald-trump-jr-eric-trump-are-right-blame-gop-election.html
And here’s Lyin’ Ted Cruz, the slimebag:
After Graham appeared on Fox News on Thursday, Cruz went on Hannity to make baseless allegations of fraud in cities that voted in large numbers for Joe Biden, saying that election officials were “setting the stage to potentially steal election not just from the president, but from the over 60 million people across this country who voted for him all across this country.” (Biden was winning the popular vote by about 4 million votes as of Thursday evening.) Cruz also suggested “we may see the state legislatures get involved” or the “U.S. Supreme Court” involved in overturning the vote and that “we need the Department of Justice in there” to affect the vote count.
“Looks like they had a change of heart there.”
Not a change of heart, just a shift in the calculation of what will help them. Many are backing away from Trump, as pointed out by Steve, as they sense his power eroding. This seems to be in agreement with what you said, but I am not sure why you said it was a change of heart. I am not sure what Graham and Cruz are thinking.
Somewhat as a surprise, there appears to be no legal strategy in all the law suits (sarcasm). It seems to be a public relations exercise since the cases will not produce more votes for Trump. The chances of this going to the SC are now very very slim, since Biden went ahead in Pa. It is looking like the polls were not quite as far off as they appeared. It would have taken more than a polling error for Trump to win. The error seems to be just about within the normal error, and Trump did not win (it seems at the moment). They may turn out to be fairly close for Pa.
Not so much the morning after. More of a lost long weekend. But we at last emerge bleary eyed to a new post Trump reality
His pathetic posturing about fraud is clear to all including fox news.
The damage is already done. Most GOP voters now believes, and will continue to believe, that the election was stolen from Trump.
Many do but is it most? I really have no idea.
> Many do but is it most? I really have no idea.
I bet it’s most. If it isn’t yet, it certainly will be in years to come.
What we’re seeing right now is the GOP completing its transformation into a right-wing authoritarian movement, complete with stab-in-the-back myth, but without discernible ideology aside from white resentment.
Advo (#20):
Most GOP voters now believes, and will continue to believe, that the election was stolen from Trump.
I think in 2016, one could have said with equal confidence and accuracy that most Democratic voters now believed, and would continue to believe, that the election had been stolen from Clinton. Or in 2000 that the election had been stolen from Gore. This is, unfortunately, the way of the world, and it seems to be a pretty non-partisan phenomenon.
It is slightly odd because most of rigged election allegations in 2016 came from Trump.
Did Democrats in 2016 think the election was stolen? My reading is that there were claims centered on Russian interference (which absolutely did happen but we don’t know if it was effective), voter suppression, which has always happened, and winning the popular vote, which is not how the election is decided.
There was some allegations of hacking based on statistical analysis, but these were dismissed pretty quickly as there was little evidentiary value. I don’t think they got much traction. See this Vox article for example.
https://www.vox.com/2016/11/22/13721426/election-hacked-stolen-trump-russia
The allegations we are seeing now seem to be much more widely accepted by the Trump supporters and are based on much more direct fraud, fake ballots and stuffing the ballot. Benson’s Law is suddenly the hottest statistical topic, but there has been no evidence presented using this that means anything. Allegations are being accepted as fact. I don’t think happened to the same extent in 2016, but I could be wrong.
The allegations in 2016 were based on political but legal chicanery, foreign interference and a political belief that the popular vote should count for something. All of these have some validity. I do not think they amount to stealing the election in any sensible way, but we could have a debate about that. This year they are based on unfounded allegations which have not yet had any evidence presented to support them.
Republicans have been saying this for decades (Remember Obama and Acorn? No I didn’t either) so it would not be surprising that Republican supporters are more likely to believe it
2000 was a special case. Florida was essentially tied, and whoever lost had some grounds for claiming they should have won. The fact is we have no real way of knowing. Gore could argue that in a tie the winner of the popular vote should prevail, but that is a philosophical position for which there is no legal basis.
So the claims of the stolen election are really quite different from each other. The Democrats have a philosophical but not a legal case, the Republicans have no case at all at least until some evidence is offered.
> I think in 2016, one could have said with equal confidence and accuracy that most Democratic voters now believed, and would continue to believe, that the election had been stolen from Clinton.
Harold has already addressed this, but let me reiterate it:
The Democrats complaints about the 2016 election center on two acts of objective malfeasance. Firstly, the Comey letter, which was published in contravention of established FBI policy, and which demonstrably changed the trajectory of public opinion.
Secondly, the Russian interference, publicly encouraged by Trump, and possibly even to some degree coordinated with the Trump campaign, although the Muller report does not contain any evidence of that, only some tantalizing indications.
From the Trump tower meeting, we know at least that the Trump team was very eager to collaborate with the Russians, but such a collaboration may have never materialized.
On the other hand, Trump’s complaints about the 2016 elections are mostly completely bullshit, and they are now being parroted every day by a great many prominent Republican scum, who see absolutely nothing wrong with burning down the Republic for their personal political advantage.
Here, again, there is absolutely no equivalence between the parties. The GOP, as it presents itself today, is a malevolent authoritarian movement with no ideology or principles other than the pursuit of power.
This time, it really is good versus evil.
A good example:
Look at Loeffler and Purdue, the two Georgia GOP senate candidates.
They accused the Georgia GOP Secretary of State of “intransparency and mismanagement” in running the election, without specifying what their actual complaints are, and demanded his resignation.
What is their real problem with the election?
They think that the Secretary allowed too many blacks/democratic voters to go to the polls.
They probably think he should have acted like Abbott, who handled the Texas election much better.
This is the GOP now.
And the US is careening towards a dictatorship.
I hope you don’t think that a US dictatorship is going to implement your preferred economic policies; it’s going to end up as a kleptocracy.
“although the Muller report does not contain any evidence of that, only some tantalizing indications.”
This is the problem with legal jargon and colloquial speech. We often use terms like coordinated and colluded as synonymous, but they are quite distinct. Mueller only addressed coordination that would be criminal.
““We did not address ‘collusion,’ which is not a legal term,” Mueller added. “Rather, we focused on whether the evidence was sufficient to charge any member of the campaign with taking part in a criminal conspiracy. It was not.” (from the hearing). If something is not criminal it does not make it acceptable.
https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf
The Comey letter I had not considered. FiveThirtyEight believed it cost Clinton the election, in large part because of how the media dealt with it, expanding its importance. NYT was particularly blamed. Nate Silver thought this was because NYT believed Clinton would win, so they were getting ahead on their coverage of the next administration.
Why did Comey do it? Few seem to think he was trying to sabotage Clinton. Rather he and the FBI had been subject to significant criticism from Republicans, much of it of course based on unsubstantiated accusations. He feared (with some justification) for his own job and FBI reputation if it leaked out that he had not told Congress of the new material. There would have been much bluster about an FBI conspiracy to keep it quiet. There were reports that he did not think he would survive that attack and might be impeached. He also probably thought that Clinton would win anyway, as there was a 3 point drop for Clinton after the letter which he probably did not foresee.
GOP tactic of attacking as corrupt institutions that come to conclusions they don’t like paid off once again.
#25 I said Benson’s Law, but that should have been Benford’s Law. It says that the initial digit of a set of numbers covering several orders of magnitude should follow a specific distribution, with No. 1 highest at about 30% This has been used to detect fraud.
There are data from Chicago showing Biden’s results from precincts has a peak at 3 or 4, not following Benford’s law at all. Fraud!
The reason is that 97% of precincts in Chicago have between 100 and 1000 voters. We would not expect a Benford distribution at all, and would expect exactly what we see.
Advo, Harold: Those are some pretty farfetched conspiracy theories. There were 2016 exit polls in which people said why they voted as they did. No one said the Comey letter or any of those other theories. Comey may have even helped Clinton by saying that she should not be prosecuted.
The Russian influence was negligible. The vast majority of the improper influences were pro-Clinton, so it is a little strange to complain about the very few that were pro-Trump.
> There were 2016 exit polls in which people said why they voted as they did.
And what did they say? As I recall “Hillary’s emails” featured prominently.
Roger, I am at a loss as to which conspiracy theories you think I support.
Clinton won the popular vote. Hardly a conspiracy, the results demonstrate it.
Comey letter influenced the election. Not a conspiracy. I specifically say he probably did it in part to protect himself, a personal decision. Independent analysts such as FiveThirtyEight consider it plausibly tipped the election, even with a 1% change.
MSM covered the Comey letter in a way which damaged Clinton more. Are you suggesting I support a MSM conspiracy against Clinton?
Advo’s memory is correct. About Clinton’s emails, 45% said it bothered them “a lot”. 63% said it bothered them. Nobody asked about the Comey letter specifically in the exit polls as far as I can ascertain.
[www]https://edition.cnn.com/election/2016/results/exit-polls
Others came to similar conclusions.
The Russian interference is not a conspiracy theory, but very well documented by reliable sources. One of which is the Select Committee on Intelligence under the Trump presidency. From volume 2 Findings.
“The Committee found, that the IRA sought to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election by harming Hillary Clinton’s chances of success and supporting Donald Trump at the direction of the Kremlin.”
From volume 5 “The Committee found that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian effort to hack computer networks and accounts affiliated with the Democratic Party and leak information damaging to Hillary Clinton and her campaign for president. Moscow’s intent was to harm the Clinton Campaign, tarnish an expected Clinton presidential administration, help the Trump Campaign after Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee, and undermine the U.S. democratic process.”
I don’t know where you get your information, but surely you believe the Republican led select committee under Trump?
https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/publications/report-select-committee-intelligence-united-states-senate-russian-active-measures
I realise that no amount of evidence will cause you to change your mind immediately, but do take some time to consider if the sources of information you are using are reliable.