Georgia and North Carolina have both been called this afternoon: Georgia for Biden by 0.3%, and North Carolina for Trump by 1.4%.

So, pending any unexpected developments coming out of the process for states to certify their results, we are finally at 306-232 as the final tally. The same electoral college margin for Biden in 2020 as for Trump in 2016, with Biden’s popular vote margin notably in excess of Clinton’s four years ago. Right now Biden is ahead by 5.3 million, versus Clinton’s 2.9 million, but that should continue to widen as states like New York report additional vote.

I had talked earlier this week about the House race in the Illinois 14th, where freshman Democrat Lauren Underwood faced a tighter-than-expected contest from Republican Jim Oberweis. Previously I referred to him as a “perennial candidate”. For clarity, he had: finished 2nd in two different U.S. Senate primaries; finished 2nd in an Illinois Governor primary; lost the U.S. House election in this same district in 2008 (pre-redistricting), when it was an open seat upon Speaker Hastert’s retirement; and eventually won a State Senate seat, although he didn’t run for re-election in that seat this year since he was instead running in this election.

Yesterday I missed that the race had finally been called, and for Underwood, whose lead kept expanding as the late vote came in. In the end she appears to have won by 50.6% to 49.4%. (Curiously, the Democrat running for Oberweis’ vacated seat in the Illinois Senate won by exactly the same margin.) This represented about a 2% shift from the Democrats to the Republicans in this largely exurban district.

In my district, the 4th, as expected Congressman Garcia won re-election very handily, although by only 83-17 as opposed to 87-13 in 2018. There were some other House races of minor interest in Illinois, however:

• The 3rd District extends outwards from the Southwest Side of Chicago towards the southwestern suburbs. It was a noteworthy race in 2018 for two reasons: The conservative Democrat incumbent narrowly survived a primary challenge to his left; and the only Republican running in the primary was a neo-Nazi, who was then disavowed by his party in the general, making for an uncompetitive election. This year the Democratic primary challenger (Newman) tried again and won, and then faced a more serious Republican challenge in the general. She won, but by only 9%, in a district where Clinton had beaten Trump by 15%.
• The 8th District covers many of the northwestern suburbs of Chicago; this had been Senator Duckworth’s seat before she ran for Senate, and Clinton had won this district by 22% in 2016. I was surprised to learn that the Republicans didn’t even field a candidate here in 2020, given that they managed to field them in less competitive districts like the 4th. The Libertarian party did however, and their candidate won 28% of the vote, as the only alternative to the Democratic incumbent. I rather suspect that could be the best-ever showing by a Libertarian congressional candidate (noting that Congressman Amash became a Libertarian earlier this year while in office but never ran for election as one), but I don’t know that.
• I used to work in the 10th District, which covers most of the North Shore suburbs of Chicago. In recent memory this had been a very competitive district: The current Democratic congressman, Schneider, won narrowly in 2012, lost narrowly in a rematch in 2014, and won narrowly in a rematch in 2016. Given that history I was surprised to see that this time he won 61-39, but it turns out that he’d actually won by a larger margin in 2018, once former Congressman Dold was no longer attempting to re-gain the seat.
• The 17th District covers the northwestern-most portions of the state. The incumbent Democrat, Bustos, had won 62-38 in 2018 and was the chair of the DCCC in the current election cycle. It came as quite a surprise, therefore, when it took two days for the Associated Press to call the race for Bustos. It now appears she won only 52-48.