As a great man once said: “The waiting is the hardest part / Every day you see one more card…”

No additional state-level calls were made yesterday, although as vote trickles in things continue to be drifting in Biden’s direction:

• In Georgia Biden’s lead now exceeds 7K votes, 49.4% to 49.3%. The Republican Secretary of State has announced a recount will occur, but we could soon approach “apparent winner” territory as they run out of vote to count. The Purdue-Ossoff race will indeed to go a runoff, so in principle the Democrats could get to a 50-50 Senate tie by winning both January Georgia runoff elections, but in practice I don’t see that happening.
• In Pennsylvania Biden’s lead continues to widen and is now almost 29K votes, 49.6% to 49.1%. It seems that ultimately Biden’s lead will likely exceed the mandatory recount threshold in that state of 0.5%.
• In Nevada Biden’s lead has also continued to widen, now sitting at more 28K votes, 49.8% to 48.0%.
• As I was writing this, the latest tranche of vote results from Maricopa County in Arizona was released, and it cut Biden’s lead down to about 20K votes, 49.5% to 48.9%. Unlike the other three states above, the late-counted vote in Arizona has consistently favored Trump. However, given the rate at which Trump is catching up, it seems unlikely that there is enough vote left to count for Trump to pull ahead.

Biden gave a brief speech last night. I think he wants to give a victory speech tonight but it’s not clear whether the news organizations will make the call today.

Trump does not appear to have a viable litigation strategy. The sub-head of this New York Times article neatly summarizes the situation: “The president appeared to have little path through the courts to shift the outcome of the election, leaving him reliant on long shots like recounts or pressure on state legislatures.”

With the nation’s attention firmly focused on the election this week, we’ve overlooked the fact that COVID-19 is exploding. In Minnesota, a week ago today was the first day with more than 3,000 reported new cases in a day. New records have been set on each of the last four days, and yesterday’s reported number not only broke the 4,000 mark for the first time, but broke the 5,000 mark. Nationwide, three days ago we broke 100,000 reported new cases for the first time, and yesterday we broke the 130,000 mark. Yesterday Chief of Staff Meadows announced he had tested positive. Things are about to get bad.