Trafalgar, Susqueanna, Insider Advantage and Rasmussen are all right wing pollsters and they're all included in the PA average to make it look close.

Any initiatives down the ballot that you guys are keeping an eye on? Florida has three for me.

Amendment 1 wants to change the state constitution to say that ONLY citizens who are 18 years old can vote in Florida as opposed to the current EVERY citizen. I have no idea why we need to make this change. The Governor has no idea why we need to make this change. This allows me to jump to Amendment 4.

Amendment 4 will require voter approved constitutional amendments to be approved by voters in two general elections instead of one. Supporters say this is to prevent frivolous amendments from becoming law. The opposition see this as an attempt to make it harder for initiatives such as the restoring of felon voting rights and the legalization of medical marijuana to become law.

Amendment 3 is to move from closed primaries to top two primaries. Of course, the R's and D's are opposing this amendment,

Trump says "we have a very solid chance of winning," then immediately says, "I don't know what the chances are."

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) November 3, 2020

He HATES being President. He just wants to watch Fox News and shitpost and grift and have crowds worship him without all of these boring responsibilities. I think that he gets that he can have everything he likes about the job and none of the bad stuff as the head of Trump TV.

But he is incapable of admitting defeat.

Recreational weed on the ballot here in Jersey. It is so funny to read comments on social media about how this will be the destruction of the free world as we know it if it passes.

That's where I've been for a while, but I'm - tenatively - leaning to the side where it's going be more one-sided. I.e. Georgia, Texas, flipping and Biden getting to around 400 EV. The turnout numbers just look so large that I don't think there's going to be enough Republican votes to even make it competitive. If there's more Trump support on election day than I expect, then I think you're right on the money here.

Colorado 115 is a 22 week abortion ban with no exceptions. It is interesting as this will b the most liberal state to take up that so far. I expect to go down in flames pretty easily.

For reference later, 538's numbers at shutdown time:
OVL: 89/10


Here are the states where the favorite is under 90%
AK: 85/15 Trump
AZ: 68/32 Biden
FL: 69/31 Biden
GA: 58/42 Biden
IA: 60/40 Trump
MT: 82/18 Trump
NC: 64/36 Biden
NH: 89/11 Biden
NV: 88/12 Biden
OH: 55/45 Trump
PA: 84/16 Biden
TX: 62/38 Trump

NOTABLES MISSING FROM ABOVE
WI: 94/6
MI: 95/5

Alaska is 85/15 Trump

I think it's close but I think it'll fall short by about 2%. I don't see the math there.

I'm ok being wrong, though.

SI

Heh. Stupid states not on the main map!

Fixed, and added WI/MI as "notables missing," as they are well over 90%.

Interesting. That would probably explain it.

Yeah, that tweet with Biden's own internal numbers yesterday had them losing the early vote in TX by 2%. I don't know how that jibes with a win today, but it doesn't seem like it to me.

I'm just going on my own simple math from yesterday or two days ago, whenever that was based on early voter turnout.

That said, if people shift their preferences from Beto/Cruz just a point or two, Texas is in play. I think that's possible but unlikely - there are probably some Trump voters who would vote against Cruz and by 2018, you probably knew if you hated Trumpism already, and turnout was a bit lower. However, the increased turnout of young people and the pandemic/economic downturn could prove me wrong.

SI

Speaking of those little states at the bottom, there's something I can't recall. I know there have been brouhahas in the past when Presidential elections were called before polls close in some states. What if Biden takes FL/NC by, say, 10:30pm? The west coast closes at 11. Do the networks have an obligation to hold the obvious calls of Cali/Wash/Oregon--the ones that would put Biden over 270 in that scenario--until Hawaii closes their polls?

In all seriousness, who waited to vote today? Yes, your procrastinators and your "today is election day and I'm voting today because I've always done it this way" people, but my greatest fear is it's mostly MAGA people left to vote. I don't have any idea why on earth someone would willingly wait until today to vote.

My wife and I waited to vote in person today. We want our votes to be counted as early as possible. Plus, coronavirus isn't too bad here at the moment.

And as you might guess, they won't be MAGA votes. :)

I am going to need a lot of rum and a big bucket of KFC to get through tonight.

Voting today. Too hard to get to county election place and didn’t feel need to mail in given those concerns. Live in relative small suburb and don’t think lines will be too bad. I’ll let you know about the lines in about 2 hours. Company also lets us take time off to vote no questions asked.

:+1:

Me - I always vote in person, I like it doing it that way, and my polling place is a well-oiled machine which rarely has a line so - why wouldn't I?

Speaking of which ... just voted, and today there was a line. This is anecdotal, but we're definitely in Trump country here. Democrats don't even waste their time running for county offices, so if you win the Republican primary you're in. Busiest I've seen this poll location going back several election cycles and most of the others there agreed with that assessment; one worker said it wasn't much different than '16. Still, this was a big surprise to me given now much this area did not turn out in the '18 midterms. I'm seeing it as evidence of the polarizing effect the last year's events have had.

If this ends up being a general trend, maybe Biden just has a solid victory here instead of a blowout, but I still see no way - even extrapolating - that it's likely to overcome all the early voting going the other way. There's just more numbers on that side.

In Texas, you don't have much of an excuse. Early voting is fairly plentiful and lines are much shorter than Election Day - it's just easier. There's a reason why people had done it before

But I know a lot of states don't have that robust of an Early Voting system and The President has definitely sewed as many seeds of doubt about vote by mail as possible. Even with a pandemic, I can see where "vote in person on Election Day" has the best chance of your vote being counted.

SI

I remember that they called Obama over McCain when California closed.

So I think that a state needs to close to call it, but if a candidate is >270 with called states, they call the whole thing

I guess it depends on whether your state has early in-person voting. Certainly I understand voting today versus absentee ballot if those were your only choices. We've had 3 weeks here in KY to vote (including Saturdays) - I don't know why a single person would vote today.

I am still amazed/impressed that the GOP is having such high turnout. Normally, the people in charge get complacent. Their media has done a great job of keeping them engaged.

CT doesn't have early voting, so it was either voting in person today, or doing the mail-in ballots. We have the mail-in ballots, but like someone mentioned, the best chance of our vote counting seems to be voting in person.

Fixed that for you.

I really wish a new voting rights act were towards the top of the priorities of the next four years. Move Election Day to a Saturday, mandatory requirements around every voter getting a paper receipt of who they voted for, and mandatory free voter ID cards with a very easy program to get them. Then set up a bunch of rules for counties with populations >100K (or something like that - reasonable number, tho, not like 500K where hardly any counties fall into this): make 2-3 weeks of Early Voting with reasonable hours mandatory, must have a polling place within 3 miles of every house/apartment, must have X polling places for every Y amount of population, etc. Stop making our elections look like a banana republic so people can stop trying to rule it like one.

SI

;)

About 500 people in line to vote at one polling place when I dropped my kid off at school at 7. Early voting and mail has been going for quite some time, but I guess people just like cold lines.

Around us in SC, there's a clear delineation of support depending on which side of downtown you live. Our side, it's 20 to 1 Biden to Trump signs with house prices between 300-800k. The other side of downtown, they don't have signs, just million dollar houses.

My company allows for people to take the time to vote on Election Day. Yesterday afternoon, my VP sent out an email to everyone telling them they were excused to go vote today. He has people in 4-5 different locations across the US so polling options vary.

aren't companies legally required to provide people time off to vote?

Not all states have these laws. Indiana is one of the states that doesn't.

Can I take off time from work to vote? State-by-state guide - Business Insider

As we all know Colorado and Washington state are complete shitholes because of weed ;).


Hahahaha... I mean, yes, they are... but no one ever enforces it.

Yeah, but what is "legally required to do anything" in an "at will" state where they can fire you for any reason? Like they literally can't fire you for voting but they can fire you "just because" and the reason might be because you agitated for time for voting.

SI

One thing I've seen mentioned in a couple places is how partisan RCP has been as this polling season closed. They've phased out some really strong polls in favor of right wing polls that makes the election look far more competitive than it should be. For example their 2 week tolling average hasn't really been that. They've kept trafalgar polls in the average longer than far more accurate polls.

It's like they're trying to hedge their bets in the event Trump wins so they can claim their model was better than 538 and others.

7 days a week for 2 1/2 weeks in NC, including 3 full Sat/Sun weekends, polls opening at 8am all 7 days. Same-day registration allowed throughout that period. Unless you're incapacitated for the entire time, there's really no excuse whatsoever not to vote here, and no good reason to wait until today.

I think so. If Trump wins, then they were "right."

And, if Trump loses, then they can say that they were just averaging other's polls. And they can become part of the right-wing media ecosystem, which seems like a pretty profitable place to be regardless of whether they were "right" or not.

Lines are longer than I’ve ever seen, even at 10:30.

The right leaning polls are trying to factor in shy Trump voters. Those people probably existed, but that shame died a long time ago. Shy Trump voters don't exist anymore.

I don’t think Trump has any chance in Michigan or Wisconsin. This election will be decided by Pennsylvania. Whoever wins this state will win the election. I don’t see anyone winning Pennsylvania without also carrying the other battleground states.

In the unlikely event Trump wins Pennsylvania, the deciding factor won’t be taxes, race relations or COVID policy. It will be because of energy policy.

people in high populated areas that don't want to travel away from home to vote I'm guessing.

I don't believe this for a second. I admit to overestimating how many of them there are. To say they don't exist ignores what the shy Trump voter has been saying the entire election cycle. They will vote for him because he will speak for them and take the arrows that they have no desire to take.

I really don't understand what RCP is doing. I think there's a business model in being Trafalgar and just flat out rigging polls to say what right-wing media wants to hear. There's also a business model in trying to be as accurate as possible regardless of what that says. I don't understand the model where the goal is only to be slightly skewed to one side. It seems like that's most likely to piss everyone off eventually.

Ok, but last election there were 12% undecided voters late that overwhelmingly broke for Trump. This time undecideds are more like 2%. Wouldn't that further the narrative that the shy Trump voter is dead?

It's funny watching the voting lines on TV.

Mask = Biden vote
No Mask = Trump vote

I mean it really is that simple and ridiculous that we are at this point.

So who's winning then-Masks or No Masks? :)

Well now you have insight as to why I'm fat.

Just voted. Line was 30 minutes long. Almost everyone had a mask on waiting in line but that is consistent with normal life in my town. Unlike kingfc22, I'm sure the majority were voting for Trump given the demographics of my town. I saw 1 husband/wife without a mask while waiting in line outside, but had her mask in while voting. No surprise she was wearing a MAGA hat.

One interesting note, is that we signed with a q-tip to prevent sharing the electronic pen which we could then throw away.

I'm looking forward to getting way fewer texts and targeted FB posts about voting, encouraging others to vote, and donating to whoever's campaign.

I think he may have been referencing folks that claim Biden to pollsters and then vote Trump.

I question the hidden Trump voter theory because the R Senate candidates don't poll better than Trump and the generic congressional ballot is about where it was in 2018. Unless they just aren't reaching that voter but pollsters seemed to adjust for that this year.

Right. In fact in a lot of polls, the D Senate candidates poll HIGHER than Biden do. Meaning there doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence that people don't want to admit they are supporting Trump... unless they are ashamed of their Senate candidates as well.

this grammar broke my brain

The shy Trump voter stuff reminds me of the Bradley effect theory posited in 2008 that said Obama would underperform because people didn't want to admit to pollsters they wouldn't vote for a black man. Obama ended up overperforming his polls.

Shenanigans!

#NEWS: The GOP commissioner of Lancaster County, in southern Pennsylvania, is REFUSING TO COUNT MAIL-IN BALLOTS THAT COME IN AFTER ELECTION DAY UNTIL THERE IS A SUPREME COURT RULING. #Election2020 pic.twitter.com/XRsea1R7Wg

— Eric Cortellessa (@EricCortellessa) November 3, 2020

my sister is one of those that DVR records hannity

Whenever things are brought up she says (loudly) well both sides lie. Both sides are throwing misinformation"

When I told her of my exploits at Biden honk and waves, and how trumpers were always so angry she got mad and said that she never saw any democrat that wasn't angry then she mentioned a bunch of fox news buzzwords.

So I replied back with a three page treatise giving facts and my opinions on why things trump has done are wrong as well as different viewpoints from various articles. as well as how religion factored into things. I was waiting for a reply about.....ANY ONE THING that is an issue....I got nothing

So that's my intrepretation of the silent trump voter. People that deny they are republican, and try to manipulate conversations with "oh both sides blahblahblah"

is that an incorrect interpretation you think?

So she would lie to a pollster or be wary of admitting she's a Trump supporter?

Because that's the shy Trump voter theory.

I am really glad that ROb Reiner and the Spinal Tap crew told Pennsylvanians to not mail in their ballot but to go to the board of elections and mail in person. Maybe that got more Democrats doing that. Or at least dropping them off early.

I really really want to throttle people that are living in a cave and mail in ballots late.

oh no she would totally say she was for trump if asked by a pollster I think.
is that what you're talking about?

So in PA, zero of the mail ballots that are received yesterday and today will be counted before tomorrow.

So you can see where this is going. Unless it's a unexpected Biden landslide there, Trump will look relatively stronger until tomorrow, maybe significantly so. I guess there's a version of that at play in most states.

This is why I vote in person. Even if my ballot was received weeks early, I wouldn't have confidence that it would be counted on election day or before. (And I guess ballots received after today won't be counted at all even though state law requires it and there's no court ruling to the contrary)

It depends on where you live. My county started county this morning.

EDIT - Had to look up exactly what happens here.

I feel like a donkey for spending 90 minutes in line to vote early. Rode by my polling place this morning, and there was absolutely no line. Interestingly, the next closes polling place (about a half mile down the road, which I will never understand) did have a sizable line. Difference? My district skews a little further blue than the other. By 10, even that polling place was down to no line. Meanwhile, my boss who lives on the very rural red side of the county had to wait 45 minutes to vote after 10am.
I just heard that Fulton county has no line over 30 minutes.

Btw, my idea of a shy Trump voter is one that would never answer a poll because they don't trust pollsters. I saw someone recently did an article that said that might not just be as heavily a Trump support thing as a many voter thing.

Been hearing interesting rhetoric from the Trump camp thins morning, stuff like he will declare victory when there is one, and he just said he doesn't want to think about a concession speech or acceptance speech. I'm wondering if after all the typical bluster there isn't any fight in the dog and he won't litigate this.

Trump needs two things to challenge the results, a close enough election that he could win through legal challenges and a conservative legal establishment willing to fight to overturn election results and/or stop counting votes.

I think he might be realizing that after he got the third SCOTUS appointment, the GOP doesn't need him as much.

Just got back from voting with my wife. Other than having a hard time finding the place, no line at all.

Nope, I think this was one thing KY did that was very well managed. At least here. Except for the dude they let vote in full trump regalia. Besides that it was handled well.

There's a lot going on in the lower tweet.

I spoke w Kristen Woodward, who drove 5 and a half hours from NJ to visit the Trump House on Election Day after seeing it featured on Fox. She brought her ventriloquist dummy, George, to take photos with (he’s also a Trump supporter). pic.twitter.com/65XDbem0Mh

— Rosalind Adams (@RosalindZAdams) November 3, 2020

I was wondering this too. Wouldn't shoving Amy Coney Barrett through basically make a lot of conservative evangelicals who couldn't stand Trump but voted for him for the SCOTUS basically have little reason to hold their noses and vote for him anymore? Hell, they could even tell themselves that Trump had "gone too far".

RE The Trump House.

Jesus Christ...

I like the one guys comment "definitely not a cult" lol.

If at any point during the night Trump is leading in enough states that he can declare victory, he will. I don't think there is any chance he gives a concession speech. Even if he gets blown out, he will claim voter fraud and try to sue.

So anybody see/hear about any voter intimidation/poll watchers going on?

The cult is all in, but the GOP establishment doesn't have a lot of reasons to go all in on a scheme to overturn the election.

What will be fun is when Trump starts placing blame for losing on various GOPers. His team not being loyal and ruthless enough will be a much bigger slight than anything done by Dems.

My youngest son who was unable to join me in early voting, went by our suburban Dayton polling place and said it was a walk-on, to use roller coaster wait time parlance. "Where is everybody?" he asked me. I said early voting, mail voting, or not showing up

His body language says otherwise. Lets not forget, this is a man who people that know him claims never wanted to be president. His ego will never let him back out and he had to talk a big game leading up to today, but if he loses he can say he will leave office because he is a patriot even thought he was robbed.

He is starring at 4 years of real responsibility and a raging pandemic. I don't think he likes the job as much as he did the first 3 years and the prospect of 4 more with some real challenges, including not having the senate anymore, could make him give it up while saving face.

Probably just wishful thinking though.

I was in a good space until my brother texted about an hour ago and thinks Trump is going to win. And he's not an avid Trump guy. He says the raw data in FL and elsewhere looks good for Trump and that GOP turnout is heavy. I just don't see it but I'm open to the possibility that it's all in the silos you get your information from, and one of us is obviously seeing wrong info/analysis.

I've got an hour drive home and I don't usually drink, but tonight I may be busting out the bourbon pretty early. That and listening to some post-Black metal to prep me for a hypnotic depression if the results call for it.

There's a little advantage in FL in terms of GOP turnout, but the real issue is how do independents break. The gap in turnout isn't going to be more than 2-3 points while independents make up a third or so of the electorate.

He's using the wrong pen.

um SIR pic.twitter.com/2AIvurXK13

— miko | croc daddy (@holamikoo) November 3, 2020

Looking at turnout as of earlier this morning, Wasserman said Trump needs 68-70% of the vote in Sumter County and he's definitely been under that. We're simply not going to know much until 7pm though. Anything prior to that is speculation.

Florida is probably Biden's worst performing state overall as well. Following the polling trends form other states he should be up in polls more than he has. I wouldn't be worried unless Florida looks like a clear win for Trump.

Or... Hanging Chad. Take your pick.

A former co-worker of mine is a poll worker in the Los Angeles area and she said there was a bomb at the polling station that was found shortly before it opened this morning.

wow scary Jedi. I have not yet seen reports of voter intimidation but did see this report about misleading tweets from conservative operatives in PA:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/202...liveBlogHeader

Also KS Sec of State has tweeted about ignoring robo-calls saying the polls were closed, and Michigan has received similar

The Trump campaign is worried about early election day turnout numbers in PA.

“When you bank your entire election on Election Day turnout, you have to ask people if they’re going to stand in line for two hours," this source w direct knowledge of the Trump campaign's operations says, detailing concern about Election Day turnout for Trump in PA. https://t.co/RWUqWaXGGW

— Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) November 3, 2020

Pretty wild man. She said the cops said it was some kind of battery bomb and they took care of it. Other than that, that's the only thing I've heard and really does seem to be a quiet day so far.

The robo calls sound like something that is very premeditated in my opinion. I don't know how fast you can set up a robo call operation but seems like you would need to at least have some time to coordinate it.

I hope you are right but I've come to expect the worst from the President.

I. Am. Crying.

an electoral map if Biden wins every state containing area codes where Ludacris claimed to have hoes pic.twitter.com/WGLVYN4ufq

— Pumpkin Spice 1 (@toriimacdaddy) November 3, 2020

That pretty much happens every year. Illegal as can be, but run of the mill.

SI

Yep I agree as long as its not a coordinated and organized effort to do so

FTFY

This is my first Presidential election in a swing state and yeah... I could do without the mass of unsolicited calls/texts. I know people think they're helping their side by doing these, but at the least the volume leads to greatly diminishing returns if not backlash. Since I voted early I've been responding to them saying I'll vote for Trump & Tillis out of spite if they keep badgering me.
The first is a given, I don't think the second is. Lawsuits will be filed in some states and encouraged on his behalf (PA seems like a given), but his heart's just not in it, and more importantly it would require actual hard work. America 2020!

The Governor of Michigan has tweeted now about the robocalls some of the people in the state have been getting

I've actually been somewhat happy about it, ONLY because it means Georgia is finally a battleground state.

Of course, we are likely to have 2 Senate runoffs (due to the early retirement of Sen Isakson), so it's not going to end today.

Remember that he's a goldfish, too.

A lot might depend on who has his ear at the right time. If it is someone with an interest in just burning the whole thing to the ground (i.e. Mark Meadows), he'll convince Trump that he's going to jail if he doesn't win and he needs to start a civil war.

If it is someone who thinks that Trump will end up losing and hurt the GOP brand, then he convinces Trump that "yeah, they stole it, but you don't need this anymore, sir. Why don't you go make some money and let the Democrat party deal with the mess they created?"

Like, the difference between civil war, and a normal transition, and Trump just quitting and going to his golf course in Scotland might literally be who happens to be in the room with him tonight and tomorrow morning.

I've yet to see any evidence they ever existed in any significant number. Polls and election results have been too close for that to fly.

Thank you very much for this. This is the content I come to this board for and the board never disappoints.

I'm in SC and know plenty of people who in 2016 would not have admitted in public they were voting for Trump that now believe Biden will lead us into a socialist ANTIFA hellscape. These are people who arent poorly educated and have mostly been indoctrinated in their churches and Fox.

Is it really in any GOPer's interest to protect Trump from something like prison if he loses the presidency tonight?

I'd think there is a pretty good chance that he goes as scorched earth on the Republicans as the Dems, so it may be in their (powerbrokers') best interest to do whatever it takes to get him off the radar and out of their lives as soon as possible. I think the worst thing for the Republicans would be to lose all three branches this election and then have Trump crusading for "his people" in lieu of being a good Republican for the next few years.

It will be interesting to see what the public comments from the GOP establishment players will be if there is a big loss tonight. They have a pretty fine line to thread to not upset the Trump Republicans AND to bring back all Lincoln Project types.

I live in Florida now, in a heavily republican area of Palm Coast. One thing that isn't getting much play in the national media is the genuine fear that many of these people have of Joe Biden passing away or becoming incapacitated soon, and Kamala Harris taking over.

I don't share the same fear of Harris. Actually, I don't think she would govern much differently than Biden. I do find it fascinating that a woman who couldn't even get 2% support in her own party's presidential primary has a realistic chance to become president in the next four years.

I mean Dan Quayle was Vice President once.

edit: I will also note that in 2008, Joe Biden ran for President as well. He got 1% in Iowa and dropped out that day.