Election 2020: Day 9

This evening the last large remaining block of votes was reported from Maricopa County in Arizona, and in the wake of those results most news organizations have now called Arizona for Biden. His lead is currently 11.4K votes, or 49.4% to 49.1%; my understanding is that a mandatory recount would only occur if the margin is less than 0.1%.

Arizona makes the score 290-217 for Biden, with Georgia (16) and North Carolina (15) yet to be called. Neither state’s reported vote total has moved noticeably since yesterday.

From a just-published Maggie Haberman article at the New York Times: “[I]nstead of conceding … [Trump] is floating one improbable scenario after another for staying in office while he contemplates his uncertain post-presidency future. There is no grand strategy at play… By dominating the story of his exit from the White House, he hopes to keep his millions of supporters energized and engaged for whatever comes next.”

I hadn’t paid any attention to what happened in the Minnesota State Senate elections until just now. Going into the election the Republicans held a 35-32 advantage, which made Minnesota the only state in which different parties controlled different houses of the legislature. The Democrats did manage to flip 3 seats, but the Republicans flipped 2; so the end result is a 34-33 Republican edge, and continued potential for gridlock.

Election 2020: Day 8

Not much to report today.

The media organizations have finally called Alaska for the Republicans, in both the Presidency and the Senate race. That puts the current electoral college score at 279-217. The leads in the Pennsylvania and the three uncalled states are now as follows: Biden by 53K in Pennsylvania; Biden by 14K in Georgia; Biden by less than 12K in Arizona; and Trump by 73K in North Carolina.

Georgia announced today that they will do a full hand recount, as opposed to a mechanical recount. The election certification deadline in Georgia is 9 days from now, on November 20th; it seems arduous to get a hand recount of almost 5 million votes accomplished by then.

Biden made his first significant appointment announcement today, naming (to nobody’s surprise) Ron Klain as his chief of staff.

A good article today from Benjamin Wittes, “How Hard is it to Overturn an American Election?”

Election 2020: Day 7

A week after Election Day, this evening the Associated Press declared that the House majority will indeed remain in Democratic hands. At this point 16 House races have yet to be called, while the races that have been called so far have gone 218-201 for the Democrats.

Also, today Cunningham conceded to Senator Tillis in the North Carolina race, giving the Republicans their 49th Senate seat. Alaska would make 50, and then there are the two Georgia runoffs to occur on January 5th.

Nationwide COVID-19 hospitalizations hit a new high today, surpassing the 60,000 level for the first time and topping the previous peak from April 15th.

Today was also the day when the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on California v. Texas, the third major case to reach SCOTUS regarding the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. The general consensus from oral arguments, consistent with my expectations going in, appears to be that there are not five votes to declare the entire ACA unconstitutional.

Election 2020: Day 6

No new developments today to speak of with respect to vote tabulation in the Presidential election. By this point Nevada has been called for Biden, putting him at 279-214. Georgia and Arizona remain uncalled but with narrow Biden leads; North Carolina and Alaska remain uncalled but with larger Trump leads.

The main story at this point is how Biden is attempting to get on with the business of the Presidential transition, even though Trump has not conceded and there is relatively little Republican pressure at this point on Trump to concede. I believe that only 4 Republican Senators have publicly congratulated Biden, and they’re the four you might expect – moderates Collins and Murkowski; Romney, the only Senator who’d voted to impeach Trump; and Sasse, who until now had allowed the fact that he was up for re-election in 2020 to temper his innate ‘never Trump’ views.

Today Biden announced the membership of his new task force relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the Trump appointee who heads the General Services Administration “is refusing to sign paperwork that releases Biden’s $6.3 million share of nearly $10 million in transition resources and gives his team access to agency officials and information,” and per the Washington Post other government agencies are using the GSA’s inaction to justify not commencing the process of liaising with Biden’s transition teams.

Both Georgia Senators today demanded the resignation of Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State, although it’s not really clear what they think he has done wrong. His response was “that’s not going to happen.”

Trump’s Press Secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, basically accused the Democrats of “welcoming election fraud and welcoming illegal voting” in a press conference today. That sentence caused Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto to immediately interrupt his network’s coverage of the press conference, saying “Unless she has more details to back that up, I can’t in good countenance continue showing you this.”

Oh, and Trump twitter-fired Defense Secretary Esper today.

So, yeah, just normal post-election stuff.

Election 2020: Day 5

Now that there’s a general consensus among the news organizations that Biden will be the 46th President of the United States, I’m going to go back to recording developments on no more than a daily basis, at night.

After yesterday morning’s call by all the major media organizations, there was a Biden-Harris victory speech event in the evening, at an outdoor stage in Wilmington that had been awaiting that moment for days. Biden gave a good if occasionally uneven speech, whose most memorable line I think is the following: “Let this grim era of demonization in America begin to end here and now.” Good band name, Grim Era of Demonization.

Trump remains defiant that the election is not over. There is speculation that he may never actually concede, and may not attend Biden’s inauguration.

And there will be lawsuits; but it is unclear to what practical effect. In 2000, the election hinged on a single state in which the voting margin was measured in hundreds of votes. Whereas, if Biden does end up with a 306-232 advantage as is now widely expected, litigation would need to be successful in multiple states in order to effectuate a change in the outcome. And the margins we’re talking about in all of those states are much larger: Right now Biden has leads of 43K in PA, 33K in NV, 20K in WI, 17K in AZ, and 10K in GA. So while the election was in some real sense a close one, it’s not “reversibly close” the way it was in 2000.

There remains a lot to resolve down-ballot, particularly in the House. One race I’ve been watching is the Illinois 14th. This used to be Speaker Hastert’s district, although in the post-2010 redistricting its geography and character changed somewhat. It now represents the western exurbs of Chicago, including most of Kane, McHenry, and Kendall Counties. While historically a Republican district, in 2018 a young African-American Democrat named Lauren Underwood unexpectedly flipped the seat, making her a rare example of a Black representative whose district is only about 3% Black. This time Underwood is running against dairy magnate, mutual fund manager, and perennial Republican candidate Jim Oberweis. Until recently Oberweis looked to have a very narrow lead, but today Underwood moved ahead by several hundred votes as more vote came in from Lake County. It may be another ten days before the situation is clear.

Election 2020: Day 4, 11am

About half an hour after I wrote that last post, I stepped out of the shower to find that the Associated Press had called Pennsylvania for Biden, and therefore had concluded he was the President-Elect, with at least 273 electoral votes. Other news organizations, including Fox News, followed suit minutes later.

Not that I’m expecting a concession out of Trump any time soon.

And I’m sure there will still be things to write about, as the electoral, judicial, and political processes continue to play out. But, the white smoke has been seen, and after three-and-a-half days we finally have an apparent President-Elect.

Election 2020: Day 4, 10am

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.

Election 2020: Day 3, 10am

About two hours ago Biden took over the lead in Pennsylvania. Right now his lead is about 7K votes and is expected to expand.

Georgia officials recently announced that a recount will occur in the fullness of time. Biden’s lead there is currently about 1.5K votes.

In Arizona, the conventional wisdom over the past 24-36 hours has been that Trump would need 59% of the incremental uncounted vote to catch up. Until now, he had been keeping pace with that target. However, minutes ago 62K new votes in Maricopa County just came in, and Trump only got 53% of that incremental vote. This is making it look more likely that Biden will hold on to his Arizona lead.

As such, it is looking more and more like Biden will win 306-232, having flipped 74 electoral votes from 2016: Pennsylvania (20), Michigan (16), Georgia (16), Arizona (11), Wisconsin (10), and Nebraska’s 2nd district (1). But, in addition to likely recounts in at least Georgia and Wisconsin, there will surely be litigation of various sorts.

Election 2020: Day 3, 7am

A couple of hours ago, Biden took the lead in Georgia for the first time; he currently leads by 1,096 votes.

Georgia would give Biden 269 electoral votes, so a tie is still possible, but Trump would need to hold on to his lead in Pennsylvania and reverse Biden’s leads in Arizona and Nevada. (And win Alaska, which remains uncalled since it has yet to start counting its mail-in vote, although it seems like a safe Trump state.)

The Pennsylvania mail-in vote continues to trickle in. Trump’s lead is now down to 18K, or 0.3%. There are believed to be 54K votes yet to be counted in heavily democratic Philadelphia, and those votes are expected to propel Biden into the lead.

Some additional votes from Clark County (Las Vegas) are expected to released later this morning. This will likely increase Biden’s current 11K lead in Nevada.

There are believed to be over 200K votes in Maricopa County (Phoenix) yet to be processed, some of which will be released later this morning. Biden is currently leading in Arizona by 47K. Biden’s lead has been eroding and may continue to erode. In the Arizona Senate race, Kelly has been outperforming Biden by about 1%, and that race has been called for the Democratic challenger to Senator McSally even though the Presidential race remains in doubt.

It would not surprise me if news organizations start calling the Presidential race for Biden before I go to bed tonight.

Trump gave a press conference yesterday evening, timed to coincide with the 3 networks’ evening news. I didn’t listen to it, but the headline “Trump lies in the White House briefing room, and the networks pull the plug” sounds like what I would have expected to happen.

Election 2020: Day 2, 9pm

When I was 14 or thereabouts, I played a lot of computer games on my Apple ][e. One game that I particularly enjoyed was “President Elect”. It was an early example of what we would now call a turn-based strategy game, simulating a presidential campaign. You could play in ‘historical’ mode, in any election from 1960 to 1984; or you could alter the candidates and/or economic conditions.

After playing it for a while, one day I felt very impish, and I decided I would try and create a series of conditions that the game couldn’t effectively handle. So, I set up an election in which the Republicans had nominated the very liberal Jesse Jackson; the Democrats had nominated the very conservative Jesse Helms; and then moderate John Anderson ran as an independent.

To the extent my objective was to create chaos, I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams: My recollection, a third-of-a-century later, is that the outcome of the election ultimately hinged on a margin of 7 votes in Hawaii. (Not that I can remember who actually won.)

I bring that up because I’m starting to feel like we’re all living in somebody’s simulation of an ultra-close chaotic presidential election…

There have been no new developments in Nevada or North Carolina since I last wrote several hours ago, but the other three states keep tightening:

  • in Georgia, Trump’s lead is now down to about 1,900 votes, with both candidate’s share rounding to 49.4%;
  • in Pennsylvania, things keep narrowing and it’s now Trump 49.7%, Biden 49.0%; and
  • in Arizona, things also keep narrowing in the other direction, with things now at Biden 50.1%, Trump 48.5%.

It’s very, very tight. If Biden does win, there could be multiple states where Biden’s margin of victory over Trump is less than the meager percentage of votes that went to the Libertarian candidate, Jorgensen: AZ (1.4%), GA (1.2%), PA (1.1%), NV (1.0%), and WI (1.2%).