"Will you shut up, man?" US Politics October 2020

maybe I’m misremembering but isn’t Jacksonville one of the very few metros in the US that’s reliably red? like one of maybe three? or am I missing a bunch.

Duval County is somewhat conservative for an urban county. It began moving away from the Democratic Party somewhat sooner than the rest of Florida. Despite the small Democratic plurality in registration, the county's Democrats are nowhere near as liberal as their counterparts in other large Florida counties, such as Miami-Dade and Orange. The county has only supported a Democrat for president four times since 1956, the last being in the 1976 cycle when Jimmy Carter managed to take the county.

The Republican edge in Duval has lessened somewhat in recent years. It swing from a 16-point win for George W. Bush in 2004 to only a three-point win for John McCain in 2008. Mitt Romney won an equally narrow margin in 2012. In 2016, Donald Trump only won the county by fewer than 6,000 votes even as he narrowly carried Florida.

I know Gillum won the county in 2018.

Fingers crossed and all that, but what's giving me some hope is America's dogged contrarianism. The only thing we hate more than losers is winners, and there's nothing more satisfying than taking a winner down. Especially sore winners, especially winners that barely won.

Those Texas numbers ... again, who knows, but I wonder, looking back on all of this, what was the earliest point that anyone thought Texas was a real Democratic possibility? I seem to recall even back in 2015 that Texas was unique among its peers for lack of enthusiasm for Trump. Either way, certainly underscores the reality that local races may be gerrymandered to hell, but the presidential race is all about turnout, running up those numbers.

Early voting numbers in the morning at 89.5 million. Things slow down over the weekend and this last weekend means a number of states have stopped early voting in the run up to Tuesday, but we’ll be at 90 million soon enough and all predictions are 100 million by Tuesday morning is pretty well likely.

wait, was trump visiting vegas? imo he didn’t have a prayer in clark county of all places

ICYMI: Seven Pennsylvania counties are now officially waiting to count mail ballots until Nov. 4, per @cbszak.

That's a big deal for PA results. Why?

These seven counties *currently* have received 141,977 ballots. Trump won PA by 44,292 votes in 2016.

— Cara Korte (@CaraKorte) October 31, 2020

Pennsylvania is going to be an end of week regardless, that's not new news.

mostly GOP counties, no? or counties won by Trump?

It's not news, but what makes it newsworthy is

Oddly enough, Trump won 6 of these 7 counties pretty handily in 2016.

Having 6 Trump counties in a swing state without results on election night could make Trump STFU about wanting results that night — and reduce the chances of him taking it to SCOTUS to try and stop counting. https://t.co/28eVQ1U7KO

— Angry Staffer (@AngrierWHStaff) October 31, 2020

Also good to set expectations in advance. If they are deliberately waiting until Wednesday to count votes, then it lessens the chance that it's seen as a mysterious delay.

ahhh ok that makes sense

Texas Texas Texas -- useful thread:

Morning update: Texas reporting 9,669,246 votes cast at the close of early voting. That's 57% of registered voters and 700,020 more votes than were cast in Texas in *all of 2016.*

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) October 31, 2020

and I helped!

man that's a lot of shy Trump voters!

Also good to set expectations in advance. If they are deliberately waiting until Wednesday to count votes, then it lessens the chance that it's seen as a mysterious delay.

― jaymc, Saturday, October 31, 2020 9:48 AM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Actually, forget what I said. I missed that these are specifically mail ballots, and now knowing that they're GOP counties makes me doubt their intentions.

Ned Raggett at 8:23 31 Oct 20

Early voting numbers in the morning at 89.5 million. Things slow down over the weekend and this last weekend means a number of states have stopped early voting in the run up to Tuesday, but we’ll be at 90 million soon enough and all predictions are 100 million by Tuesday morning is pretty well likely.


I go for a walk by my local polling place with my dog every morning, been generally busy, line out the door a bit

this morning it was crazy, pizza food truck there, volunteers handing out beverages, line all the way down the block and around the corner

assuming this is a reaction to the ruling about mail ballots but I think it's safe to say numbers in MN will be huge this weekend

Post-election, I want to see interview after interview with Biden voters expressing their searing, bilious hatred of Donald Trump. The Chuck Todds of the world are gonna want reconciliation and national unity; don't give it to them. If Trump loses, it's gonna be by a historic margin, and the significance of that revulsion has to be preserved and indeed honored.

Trump will actually get negative EVs

A New Mexico note:

Today is the last day of in-person early voting, and there are still some mail ballots outstanding. NM is at 93.2% of its 2016 total vote. I did not have NM going over 2016 on my bingo card

— Michael McDonald (@ElectProject) October 31, 2020

sounds like they're takin' it to the streets

It's almost as if people have hated this guy so much for so long they're coming out in droves to (hopefully) vote against him. Weird. I guess that's what happens when there is literally only one way people can remove a president from office and it only happens after a 4 year wait.

Yah mo burn this motherfucker

guessing the calculation of Wisconsin's absentee ballots was indeed not right as Michael's page now reflects far fewer ballots having been sent out, and ergo, far fewer outstanding. problem is they include their early in-person absentee votes in the same total.

so 14% ballots outstanding from those requested, and that's more like 196,000 outstanding than the 700,000 that was being bandied about.

also I have been told by those in Wi that anybody who requests an absentee can also vote in person as a backup, much like FL, so we won't know if the people who failed to return their ballots just went and voted in person early or on Tuesday or what. may not be that many 'unreturned' at all.

and naturally there's always a degree every year of people who are sent ballots, never return them, and don't vote at all, but i don't know what that typical number is

So what are we doing tomorrow? Starting a new thread like always? I think we should have a standalone thread for election results regardless.

Jeo Binden for presidetn

Trump is going to get dunked on so hard. I can’t wait!!

if this turnout means what it looks like it does, i think we'll know the result on tuesday

Get in loser, we’re going voting. pic.twitter.com/vGT7oMCi7Q

— Katie Porter (@katieporteroc) October 31, 2020

The official White House story is that this massive turnout is a measure of the president's incredible popularity. Most popular president ever!

if this turnout means what it looks like it does, i think we'll know the result on tuesday

i really want him to lose texas

my heart would feel so full if he lost texas as well as georgia and all the upper midwest states that put him over the top last time. (in this scenario, he obviously also loses florida and pennsylvania).

If trump loses Texas (or Georgia or NC) then it’s not good news for him in Florida, but Florida is a bit of a weird one. It’s demographically unusual and it’s elections don’t correlate very closely with anywhere else.

i got an email today titled "Have you ever had your lunch stolen at work?" and I thought it was another Jaime Harrison email until I realized it was a Reddit subscription email

In echoes of the Axelrod "we'll find out who's bluffing on election day" line from 2012, note that a top official at the NRSC says bluntly that data is showing Trump losing AZ in this @pkcapitol @seungminkim piece https://t.co/uJYpC7Y97p

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) October 31, 2020

One for UMS upthread:

The final GOTV push with @Ilhan pic.twitter.com/MNoSXvuU4T

— Dave Weigel, Re-Animator (@daveweigel) October 31, 2020

my heart would feel so full if he lost texas as well as georgia and all the upper midwest states that put him over the top last time. (in this scenario, he obviously also loses florida and pennsylvania).

My fantasy is having Texas and Florida in the bag on Tuesday night so that Pennsylvania doesn't even matter.

Further:

pic.twitter.com/vNAGnCV6Sq

— Dave Weigel, Re-Animator (@daveweigel) October 31, 2020

I think if he has Florida he can probably not worry about Texas or a prolonged wait for Pennsylvania.

Based on me being pretty conservative with this simulator.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2020/oct/30/build-your-own-us-election-result-plot-a-win-for-biden-or-trump

I think if he has Florida he can probably not worry about Texas or a prolonged wait for Pennsylvania.

I'm confident Biden will win the election but not Florida.

Biden up 290-0, Trump says "he's not mathematically eliminated"

aw 😎❤️ omar

My fantasy is having Texas and Florida in the bag on Tuesday night so that Pennsylvania doesn't even matter.

fine by me

i kinda want Trump to lose so big that he actually screams at his followers for being pussies and they still thank him for it

lol just went to look at recent AZ polls on RCP and all but one of them were from right wing pollsters