That's not the network's standard for calling a state in any other instance. I don't know if it's a good or bad idea or all the reasons behind it, or how much it matters, but they're absolutely not just going by their ordinary projection book here.

Come on, they would've called these states in the past. In that infamous 2012 Karl Rove meltdown, he was making that very same argument: complaining because there were more votes outstanding in Ohio than the margin at the time. The Fox News Decision Desk guy stood by his call because most of the votes remaining were from Cleveland.

That's the same exact scenario we have here. If you think they should be more cautious this time around, then fine, but they are clearly applying a different standard than they have in the past.

I see two reasons for extreme caution:

(1) The President is making this a very contentious election, so you have to be double/triple/quadruple sure.

(2) Because of the unprecedented voting patterns created by the pandemic, you can't be as sure as normal about what different groups of voters will say.

I'm not sure how "contentiousness" should impact projection models. Why should indications that someone is going to be a poor loser impact news coverage? (Except for maybe immediate security concerns around the network buildings). If someone's going to be gracious in defeat the networks should be more aggressive calling states?

Edit: It also seems like the "contentiousness variable" for calling elections would encourage contentiousness as Trump supporters can see how they're successfully intimidating the networks.

The second one makes some more sense to me after all of the roving estimates about how many votes were left, etc.

If I had to guess, if someone called this at 6AM this morning, they all would have by now. Nobody wants to be first. I wonder if there's discussions to that end behind the scenes.

If we were getting a new county that had no counts at all, that would make sense. But the votes outstanding are from places that have already seen some counts, so we can already see the voting patterns.

PA Biden has a 13k+ lead with maybe 100k or so left to count, mostly from Dem leaning areas.

NV, Biden has a 20k+ lead with maybe 100k or so left to count, almost all from Vegas.

Call it

I agree at this point. It was painfully close, but we know who the winner is now. It's time to call it.

Somebody wrote a statement for Trump to release about election integrity.

The only valid reason I can see for not calling PA are the 92K provisional ballots. I think I've seen where they are expected to be pro-Bidden based on the precinct info but I can't remember where I saw that at this point.

I would love to read this statement

113k ballots left in PA, over half in Philly or Allegheny (Pittsburgh) counties.

I doubted for a little while that the count would turn, but now I just want to see those numbers keep going up. 50k seems like a reasonable figure.

Statement from President Trump sent by his campaign

"We will pursue this process through every aspect of the law to guarantee that the American people have confidence in our government." pic.twitter.com/UFTve1Rh9W

— Yashar Ali �� (@yashar) November 6, 2020

Every other outlet making Fox News be the one to call it pic.twitter.com/E0BxPVsewn

— Jason Kirk, This American Life's cornhole expert (@thejasonkirk) November 6, 2020

So you think they are protecting Trump? You think CNN or NBC cares about Trump's feelings? Is that your theory? Or are they just making sure they dot their i's and cross their t's?

I think there's some degree of inevitability, time is on Biden's side, and there's no reason to feed the perception this was a con perpetrated by the Dems/Lamestream Media, so why rush it?

My theory is no one wants to be the first one to call it, period. They're afraid to call it. For whatever reason.

Though I do like KSyrup's Simpsons meme above... waiting on Fox News to call it. LOL

Back in 2012, or previous elections, there has always been this urgency to call SOMETHING on election night (that's what got a lot of networks in trouble in 2000). That doesn't apply here

I don't think CNN or NBC cares about that. I think, esp NBC, would love to call it for Biden as soon as they are confident in it. MSNBC would gloat in it.

Damn, John King almost said what I typed above word for word. Inevitability, why rush it.

CNN just explained it. They want to make sure there is no mathematical chance Trump can come back - and that needs them to know where the votes are outstanding. And when they get to the confidence they need to make the call, they'll make it.

What Ksyrup said as well.

In normal times, I would agree to call it now. But for these hotly contested states, I'd wait. Perception does count.

For GA, my understanding is GA is pretty much done. However, today is last day for the military ballots. There are approx 8,000+ outstanding (not saying all of them will be received). I'd wait till the cut-off, see if there are enough receive that could change the result (probably not).

I actually thought NV was closer. If NV still has 100,000+ outstanding, I'd wait.

When it gets to the point where even if all 100% of outstanding goes for Trump but won't change the results, that's when to call it.

Speaking of GA military ballots... apparently they suddenly matter regardless of when they come in!

Stop The Count was so Nov 5th, apparently https://t.co/tbxXeRFGiV

— Drew Curtis (@DrewCurtis) November 6, 2020

"Missing." Trump doesn't even understand that these are waiting to be filed by today, not filed and not counted yet. What a moran.

Again, this has never been the standard. Holding to this standard now is unnecessarily cautious. But I feel like we've exhausted the arguments at this point, and whatever happens, happens.

I mean this morning Pennsylvania at one point when from +9000 to +8700 based on a drop and now the vote releases have slowed to a trickle in PA. Nevada ain't counting much fast at all. Arizona's new votes are going for Trump but maybe slightly less than he needs. Georgia has potentially 9,000 votes coming in today (likely not, but it can happen).

I will also note that NO ONE has called North Carolina yet.

NC is weird. Been at 95% since Tuesday night. This being 2020, I half-expect them to just drop all the rest of the votes and they show Biden winning.

From the 538 blog:

Where we’re expecting more data tonight:

Pennsylvania: Biden has overtaken Trump in the state and now leads by 13,371 votes — and most of the remaining 100,000+ ballots should be very good for Democrats, given that they are either mail-in or provisional votes. Of particular note, a cache of about 29,000 mail-in ballots in Allegheny County (Pittsburgh) that a court had ordered to be segregated and double-checked will be counted starting at 5 p.m. Eastern.

Nevada: After some updates this morning, Biden expanded his lead here to 20,137 votes. Although about 150,000 late-arriving mail ballots or provisional ballots have yet to be counted, these ballots are expected to lean Democratic. Clark County (home of Las Vegas), where most percent of the outstanding ballots are, will release its next update at 7 p.m. Eastern and should have the bulk of the counting done this weekend.

Arizona: Biden currently leads here by 43,779 votes, but there are somewhere around 220,000 left to count. Trump needs to win about 60 percent of those (or more) to pull into the lead, but he’s been falling short of that so far. We expect to get more results from Maricopa County (where most of the outstanding ballots are) at 9 p.m. Eastern. It’s unclear whether that will be enough to cause the networks to project the state. (Some outlets, such as Fox News, have already projected Arizona for Biden, but most media outlets have not, including our colleagues at ABC News.)

Georgia: Biden currently leads here by a razor-thin margin (1,561 votes) with about 8,200 regular absentee ballots, up to 8,900 overseas ballots and at least 5,500 provisional ballots left to count (plus 2,000 rejected absentee ballots that could be “cured” by their voters). The secretary of state has already said that the race will go to a recount.

No updates until next week:

North Carolina: North Carolina has counted every ballot it had in its possession as of Tuesday, and Trump leads by 76,737 votes among them. However, the state has announced that about 117,000 mail-in ballots and 40,766 provisional ballots are potentially outstanding, although not all of them will count. Mail-in ballots have until Nov. 12 to arrive, and only at that point will more results be released.

Since this morning, in PA since the last time I updated my spreadsheet, 24k more votes have come in and we are down to 97k votes left to count. These votes have split 65/35 for Biden, and looking at ABC's map, I see a sea of red counties at 95% reporting. I see only 2 red counties left that are below that (one at 89% and 1 one at 94%). So I think these were a good chunk of votes left from the rural areas.

So Kornacki on MSNBC said that there are also 100,000 provisional ballots in PA and, while in a normal year they’d be Democrat-friendly, this year they’re favoring Trump (for example people who requested an absentee ballot but decided to vote in person because the president told them the mail was bad).

So they have to see how the provisionals are breaking first before they call it.

Agree with Edward64 that perception counts, but I think it's as bad to wait too long as it is to call it too soon. Any call now disenfranchises nobody - there are no votes still being cast.

Oh good, I can now go back to voting Republican!

Right on cue:

With a potential Democratic president, Republicans are now talking about the debt.@LindseyGrahamSC: “But we need to get out of debt and there’s just no way for the Republican party to get out of debt ... so it’s going to require bipartisanship.”

— Leigh Ann Caldwell (@LACaldwellDC) November 6, 2020

And going back to my post about Biden underperforming vs Hillary in Philadelphia, he's currently at 553,953 in Philly with 23,288 (according to the dashboard) mail in ballots left to count. If he got literally every vote from that batch, he'll be at 577,241. Clinton got 584,025.

So, unless there's more ballots left than the dashboard is currently reporting, Biden with have gotten ~7,000 fewer votes in Philadelphia than Clinton got in 2016.

For comparison, Trump got 108,748 in 2016 and currently has 125,513, an increase of about 17k.

It seems like that may track with what's gone on in the rest of the country. Biden has gained lot with whites, but Trump has gained a bit with blacks and latino/as

There was a time when Lindsey Graham was a useful public servant. That ship has unfortunately long since sailed.

It's funny that Trump and his supporters are freaking out over Philly, saying you can't trust the city and the vote is being rigged, when it's literally the only county in PA where he performed better than in 2016.

I guess the Dems that rigged the election just forgot about Philadelphia the way Danny forgot about the Iron Fleet.

Just watched a clip analyzing this and there are also 100K provisional ballots - likely people who request absentee and then decided to vote in-person. It's likely these will favor Trump. So even if Biden gets a good chunk of the remaining regular absentee ballots, his lead may get cut down by the provisionals.

My wife never understood when I used to mention him as a potential dealmaker and reasonable Senator. But he sold his soul to Trumpism and is just a hollow shell of his former self. He was always one of the token GOPs that would vote against things when they had a couple of Senators of wiggle room and that was all a mirage. But he could also be part of bipartisan working groups, too, and come up with reasonable compromises.

SI

Missed this, but it is important that they are already on record.

PA Senate and House Republican leaders:

"The Pennsylvania General Assembly does not have and will not have a hand in choosing the state’s presidential electors or in deciding the outcome of the presidential election." https://t.co/oTHh3qOSTG

— Ryan Struyk (@ryanstruyk) November 6, 2020

We also forgot about Kentucky somehow. And North Carolina.

And the Senate. And all those state houses that would have been useful for redistricting.

SI

Is there any dumbed down data (for me lol) that shows those gains?

When was that?

You should know better than to expect the impossible, Dan.

Did you even read past the first sentence? Or are you just purposely lying so you can talk tough? No one said give up. I literally said investigate every irregularity and use the courts. You’re a member of Congress now, Marjorie. Start acting like one. https://t.co/47a7Gqq4lH

— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) November 6, 2020

Crenshaw is probably happy. He's not the biggest idiot in Congress anymore.

Also, I'm totally hear for the GOP firing circle.

We're living the horror movie not-dead-yet monster trope.

It's like we know that as soon as we turn our backs, the villain is going to rise up behind us and have to be killed again.

Say what you will about Trump, but it's pretty impressive that the guy has managed to give an entire nation collective PTSD to the extent that we're afraid NOT to stand over the body until we're 100% sure it's dead.

There's a small, but angry protest now forming demanding a recount in... Rhode Island?

PLEASE! ALL CRAZIES GO TO RHODE ISLAND AND PROTEST! FIGHT FOR THOSE FOUR (unwinnable) ELECTORAL VOTES!

SI

LOL at McConnell. He can't even get himself to verbally say he rejects Trump's premise of fraud, etc but instead says "read my tweet".

Note the "GONNA BE A CIVIL WAR" shouted by a man in the background at 15s.

Large gathering of Trump supporters outside the Rhode Island Board of Elections headquarters in Cranston, demanding a recount here in RI. @wpri12 pic.twitter.com/skAOmhDMNy

— Corey Welch (@CoreyWelch) November 6, 2020

Evacautions ongoing in Philly near where they are counting ballots due to bomb threats

Double Tap is what Zombieland has taught me.

I have a couple of friends who are conservative New England types and they're an interesting breed. They mostly have it good in life but there's always some perceived slights or minor problems with local government that the rest of us just ignore because there are bigger problems in life. But rather than just complain about it the way the rest of us do, everything's a dramatic production. They're ready to get on their powdered wigs, cosplay the Revolutionary War, and overthrow a tyrannical government all to get rid of a $20 HOA fee.

SI

One of the reddest GA counties with ballots left (Laurens, Trump +29%) reported a batch of ballots today, & Biden won the batch by double-digits.

Trump just won't be closing the gap through mail-in ballots, even if they were all from red areas; in fact a lot from Gwinnett.

— Taniel (@Taniel) November 6, 2020

Hey, the "failing NY Times" wrote an article for me! Seriously, I needed this to push back on some brain-dead Trump supporters in my family. I knew the answer, but this puts some meat on the bones.

NEW: Conservative Twitter exploded yesterday with claims of proof that dead people voted in Michigan.

We looked into it. The evidence indicates that this was not fraud, but rather something much less salacious: Run-of-the-mill clerical errors.https://t.co/XhwD2PYGoa

— Jack Nicas (@jacknicas) November 6, 2020

More like gathering of large Trump supporters.

Georgia is up 4,263!!!!

+1 for the zombie reference.

Unfortunately, he's not the Romero slow, lumbering kind but more the WWZ or 28D fast.

Thanks!

Haha! I have to admit, I like how they did it for 28 Days Later and WWZ, but, will always prefer the slow, shuffling zombies.

BTW, I enjoyed Zombieland 2 better than 1 (the Bill Murray storyline was just too "off" for me).

Well, the zombies in Zombieland weren’t the Romero slow, lumbering kind, but were pretty quick. Remember Rule 1: Cardio.

Hah, you are right!

The provisional ballots are being counted in PA now as some counties are finishing up their mail in ballot counting. Pittsburgh and Philly still have a good amount of mail ins to process.

Interesting. I liked Zombieland 2, but, like the first one better. It's not like they are miles apart in my liking them though.

CNN guy is trying to explain why CNN hasn't called it yet - highest level of confidence etc.

Smells BS'y to me.

Just curious why you say that, I think they are going to slow play it to avoid the inevitable wrath that will come if they are first.

I like how every few days conservative Twitter freaks out over one of their own getting suspended from Twitter for posting insane conspiracies.

They then all say they're leaving for Parler, aka white nationalist Twitter.

Then they don't leave and just continue posting insane conspiracies on Twitter.

I think all the internet has ever accomplished is making it easier for mentally disturbed people to connect with each other and to no longer be afraid to say stupid shit in public. That's how we have the current GOP.

That and videos of cats trying to jump from a smooth surface and falling into trash cans. Those videos are never not funny.

Instead of us fighting and going to court, why don’t we have Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin vote again? We can have it done within a week, and maintain our democracy.

— Herschel Walker (@HerschelWalker) November 6, 2020

Dat boy don't think too good.

That's why I think it's BS'y. In any other election, it would have been called by now.

They just don't want to be first.

One of the replies to that tweet

"Maybe Minnesota should get to take that trade back, too"

Not as Bad as Aubrey Huff's, but that was still a depressing twitter to peruse.

Did all the vote counters go home for the weekend? WTF.

PA was on a roll for awhile and then stopped.

AZ and NV - wish they would just upload in batches instead of these bigger lump sums that stretch it out

PA has had a slow trickle of what I think are provisional ballot results. They've been collectively a 50/50 split of 3k or so votes.

Or alternatively just announce the results when all the votes are counted?

I totally don't get the Trump legal strategy in PA suing to stop the counting of late mail votes (which aren't part of the vote total we see) and provisional ballots given that he's losing right now. If those ballots are never counted and we just stop when all the other votes are counted, he LOSES. The ONLY chance he would have is to count every single vote and hope that somehow most are for him. It won't happen, but that's his only option.

Unless there's a separate legal strategy to invalidate other votes already counted, this makes fuck-all sense.

Biden's lead has grown to 17k now with 2 more small-ish updates that went 75/25 for him.

You’re trying to apply logic to an environment where that notion is an anachronism

It's the same strategy they use for everything else. Throw so much stupid shit at the wall on the off chance it might stick, while trying to do even dumber, worse stuff in the background so you keep that if the front page for as long as possible.

Also, it rules up the trolls and idiots. It's been the strategy for 5 years.

HAHAHA! So true!

I think the best strategy here would be not to kick but to do that thing babies and dogs do where they go completely limp and produce their own gravitational field becoming completely immovable. https://t.co/XtDAiMgdxY

— Justin Drummond (@tenaciousjdd) November 6, 2020

I laughed a lot.

This is truly awful.

“He is currently in hiding.” Fulton Election Director Rick Barron says an election worker at State Farm was falsely accused of throwing out a ballot, video uploaded to Twitter and his personal info including car license plate were released #gapol #Election2020 @wsbtv pic.twitter.com/zGs0gq5F5v

— Nicole Carr (@NicoleCarrWSB) November 6, 2020

Biden about to go up nearly 20k with the first allghenney county votes about to post.

I probably know the answer to this, but if the secret service, or whomever, have to perp walk Trump from the White House does that hurt his brand moving forward?

His die hards will of course love it, but would single issue voters or hold their nose but vote him voters be turned off?

"Hold your nose" voters don't like him except for what he could do for them in office. So yeah it hurts his brand with them, but those who have accepted his loss are already done with him.

Biden's lead now ~19,500 in PA.

If you have to perp walk him out, I'd like to think you'd do it in as humiliating a way as possible.

But the folks who work for the Secret Service are probably 1000 times more professional than I am. They'll do what's best for the country and the reputation of the United States rather than the sort of passive-aggressive petty shit I'd get up to.

Come on MAN. Thus the need for observers - on both sides.

NEW: The GOP member of a vote review panel in Gwinnett, GA repeatedly argued Friday that write-in ballots for Mike Pence as president should count for Donald Trump, the group's Democratic representative tells me.

— Zachary Cohen (@ZcohenCNN) November 6, 2020

Hopefully the batch in AZ that will be released in 90 minutes are enough. Then let the floodgates flow.

And NV has gone home for the night.

I'd love to see the ballots be checked in Maryland to see if Hogan actually did vote for Ronald Reagan.

And I hear Twitter was already talking about removing Trump's special status once he leaves the white house. So I'm sure he will get banned shortly thereafter.

The amount of traffic he drives to their site I'll believe it when I see it.

Also my wife had her 7th graders fill in a map today, to see where they thought certain states were. Bonus points for the kid that thought "Glorida" was the state directly above Florida.

That's actually the strip of Florida from Pensacola to Jacksonville, starting just north of Ocala.

So about those 9K "missing" (Trump's words) military ballots. It looks like this may be in the dozens, at best, if Gwinnett is any indication.

As of this morning, there were ~8,400 military/overseas ballots requested but still unreturned in Georgia. The deadline was 5 p.m. In Gwinnett County, the 2nd largest county, they only received THREE more of these ballots today before the deadline, according to @JGambleCNN.

— Marshall Cohen (@MarshallCohen) November 7, 2020

SC orders PA to do what it has been doing - segregate late ballots - but doesn't tell them to stop counting them. GOP on a roll! Nothing is going to stop Trump's comeback now!

This is like the North Carolina situation. There are like thousands outstanding but very few are actually going to come in, which is why it most likely ends red unless there's something with provisional ballots

SI

So what is the impact of the ruling to separate all mail in ballots received late in PA, I haven't seen a number attached to this anywhere yet.

A few thousand. Won't be material, and they aren't even baked into the vote count we see. It's a nothing burger - even if 100% of them went to Trump.

Wonder if they hadn't screwed with the postal service if more of the ballots would've made it in time...

International mail likely slower as well due to the Pandemic and general increase in workload (if Germany is any indication).

Damned shame though it is, i have to wonder how there isn't some sort of system in place for millitary votes at least (other overseas ballots i from stuff like embassies too i guess). I mean, why can't the millitary organise the shipping and distributing in some way ? (At least up to certain regional hubs). It's not like they don't ship shit all over all the time anyway.

Or scared their own voters into believing mail-in was fraudulent, unreliable, etc.