You know how in every war movie there is at least one scene with a jittery private who accidentally discharges his weapon or shoots at a friendly in a panic?
That is me right now I just unloaded my M-16 in the foxhole I am sorry.
Deep breaths, fatty, deep breaths.
Eljai
If fretting were an Olympic sport I would be winning at it right now.
Robby-D
It’s gonna be ok :)
something fabulous
Thank you for your service. ???
Suzanne
The Onion: accurate, once again.
Timurid
I’m watching MilTwitter right now and trying to imagine how hard I’d be freaking out if I had to watch this while I was in the military…
opiejeanne
All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
GA, PA, maybe MI and now Wisconsin (per Adam’s post two floors down) will not have final results till tomorrow.
Also, I move that networks not report any results on any state showing less that 50 or 60% of the vote
Dagaetch
Freaking out is my god-given right Cole, don’t try and take it away from me! I like panicking! It gives me an excuse to eat more candy!
Patricia Kayden
Deep breaths!!
Jerzy Russian
On the one hand, Biden is up in the electoral college count on the AP map I am looking at. On the other hand, it is depressing as hell that Trump’s vote count is larger than one.
pat
When the results came in in 2016 I emailed a good friend that I felt sick. She responded that it would ‘be OK’
We have hardly spoken since then.
I am getting the same sick feeling tonight. I hope I’m wrong.
columbusqueen
John, baby, it looks like Joe is winning Ohio. That’s game over regardless of Florida. Be chill.
Sister Golden Bear
We need to get Cole an emotional support Canadian.
Suzanne
@Patricia Kayden: Trying to breathe. Trying to breathe.
mattH
Did you disenchant a purple again?
guachi
Come on, Ohio! I’m feeling better about it. My wife says I have to dislike Ohio as she’s a Michigander, but gimme some good news, Buckeyes! I’ll take back every bad thing I ever said about you.
Also, I’m feeling you, Pat. Knots in my stomach since 7 pm.
TheTruffle
@columbusqueen: Maybe Florida just makes everyone flip out. Because Florida
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: This sounds like a good idea. And yes, it looks like Biden is ahead E-votes wise on AP. Please let him stay ahead. This year is horrible already.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
I’m really hating this country right now. Would love to become a Chinese operative so I could feel happy about betraying it.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@guachi:
If Biden is outperforming Clinton in several OH counties, that could bode very well for WIS, MI, MN, and PA
Chris Johnson
I’m checking in on the Lincoln Project reaction at 11:00 on their youtube channel and don’t give much of a fuck until that point.
Because they know all the bullshittery which is going on, because they’ve DONE it and know what they’re looking at. They were saying yesterday that they’ve got multiple paths to the Presidency for Biden if they don’t get Florida, if they don’t get Texas etc.
They totally didn’t expect to get Texas and weren’t at all sure about Florida, and were still damned confident, so I want to hear from them.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That guy keeps making me look bad.
Adam L Silverman
@Sister Golden Bear: That none of us will know.
guachi
@columbusqueen: Yeah. FL is a goner. Just like in 2018 the polls were about 5 points too high.
GA is a mess with vote counts so I’m ignoring that now. NC is just too close and I doubt Biden’s lead will hold. TX is really interesting but was always a longshot.
But I’m getting good vibes about Ohio. And with it counting faster than the other Midwest states a Biden win in Ohio practically guarantees Biden wins in MI, WI, MN, and PA.
Mike J
Thank you, John. This is what we need. Everybody else needs to turn off their computers, and switch their TV to an old movie that they like.
Yarrow
Steve Kornacki is really annoying. He can fuck right off.
CaseyL
I’m reading Tom’s book and, alas, have just reached the part with where people figured out how to game the 17th Century stock market. The book is wonderful, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not proving to be a soothing distraction. I may have to read a nice little murder mystery.
Taumatugo
@columbusqueen: Agree since the cities are yet to be counted.
dmsilev
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Fingers crossed.
Chris Johnson
Also, I figure if Trump DOES take the country, either ‘legally’ or illegally, just call me Antifa. I’ll be everything they believe about that, and I got nothing more specific to say about it, very intentionally. I won’t be alone, not by a long long shot. So give us Biden, or you can have it the HARD way. We’ll see.
Mike J
From Twitter:
Amanda Orson @amandaorson
Some counties in PA are saying they’re going to report their in-person votes today, but in some counties mailed-in ballots may not even be *processed* until tomorrow. Pennsylvania has 2,506,557 returned mailed in ballots.
Adam L Silverman
@TheTruffle: Don’t worry, I’m in Florida and I’m prepared to Stand my Ground the state if necessary!//
Gin & Tonic
We’re not going to flip the Senate, are we?
David ?Booooooo!? Koch
Betty Cracker
I’m not so panicky that I think Trump will win. But we needed to really crush the orange fuck-nugget, and that’s looking less likely. Which sucks.
Quinerly
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: my first laugh of the day.
Timurid
@Timurid: And I’m freaking out pretty fucking hard now.
Baud
@Betty Cracker: Yep.
Mike J
Less than an hour and a half left to vote in WA and there’s a line in Renton. KC elections is telling people it’s faster to drive to Kent. Ballots went out on 10/14.
guachi
@Betty Cracker: Yeah. I wanted to crush Trump. I wanted GA (where I live) and NC to be for Biden so we’d get THREE Democratic Senators.
Three.
I don’t want a victory. I want a repudiation. I want your post from earlier today.
Wyatt Salamanca
I’ll see your scene and raise you the final scenes from Chinatown and Planet of the Apes (1968 version) because I feel like a cross between Jake Gittes and George Taylor.
Cheryl Rofer
Seanly
I’ll take OH and I think that’ll bode well for the rest of the midwest.
I made it through my wife’s cancer treatments, bone marrow transplant, and nearly deadly lung infection w/out becoming a raging alcoholic. I can make it through tonight and the next couple of days.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’ll admit I let myself get overly excited by people like Larry Sabato and Charlie Cook saying Biden would take Georgia and NC. And he still might.
But it looks like odds are we go into limbo at least overnight because of the three “blue wall” states.
MSNBC reporter on the ground just said the Milwaukee voting process was incredibly well-ordered, lots of volunteers and very efficient.
sdhays
@guachi: Anything in particular making you think Biden won’t be able to hold on in NC? The TPM map still looks like there’s enough Democratic counties with votes out to be interesting.
PsiFighter37
@Gin & Tonic: If I had to say, it is going to come down to Iowa and the GA runoffs. Harrison, Bollier, Bullock – I think they are all going to lose at the rate things are going, despite high turnout. Certainly seems like having a racist con man is a sure fire way to do GOTV with the losers of this country.
Narya
I am handling the freaking TF out for the central time zone.
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
Darnit, you guys just had to mention Ohio….it’s showing red now. I knew I shouldn’t have looked. Gahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
MazeDancer
Trump intends to give a speech tonight “to set the narrative”.
Will stop watching TV before that happens.
GA Senate run-off races will be the most expensive in history.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: lots of conservatives talking about a “1980” like repudiation. I bought into that, too.
Lyrebird
@Eljai: All the smileys for that! I’m an Olympic contender in something now!
Dan B
@Patricia Kayden: Amazing about Medina County going Biden. Growing up there in a town of 10,000 there were two Goldwater for President offices. They despised each other. I believe one set was Klan and John Birch so I can imagine the distaste.
I think of Medina as Akron suburbs but it’s 30 miles to downtown Cleveland.
guachi
@sdhays: Biden’s lead has been falling sharply all night since the early vote came in. AP has him up 0.5% with 86% reporting.
I just don’t see any way Biden pulls NC out at this point. That’s not really a problem for the Presidency but it is bad for Cunningham in his Senate race.
lurker
You know all you had to do was dig that fox hole a little deeper and you would not have needed to deepen it that way
…
(oh … that was not the point … sorry…)
hang in there everyone. gonna be a long night/week/indeterminate period of time. regardless of the actual news, despair is the biggest enemy, and this community is a little fire of hope we can focus on like a campfire…
thanks to all for keeping things going around here, especially the water woman [; – )] keeping the gears turning.
Zeecube
@Eljai: I think your comment wins the internet so far tonight. And first post, too. Perfect landing. I score that 10 across the board. Congrats.
MomSense
He killed 250,000 people with his lies and his incompetence. How the fuck can this many people vote for him?
FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK
Yarrow
Fucking Cornyn wins.
raven
@Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ: No it isn’t
Yarrow
@MomSense: Because people suck.
Old Dan and Little Ann
Fucking Bollocks to it all.
TheTruffle
Hickenlooper won in CO. Hooray!
mrmoshpotato
@Yarrow: Haha, I can’t imagine how much Kornacki is going like a hummingbird tonight.
debbie
Biden won CO and Gardner’s out. That’s good news, no?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@guachi:
Breathe
David ?Booooooo!? Koch
Right now Fox News is saying there is a :
95% chance of Biden winning North Carolina
88% chance of Biden winning Ohio
Martin
I don’t like these numbers so far. Not saying Biden won’t win, but he seems to be underperforming the polls in way more places than not.
Kristine
@Yarrow:
Unfortunately, not a surprise given the polling I saw this week.
Baud
@David ?Booooooo!? Koch:
That’s something.
David ?Booooooo!? Koch
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit practicing Voo Doo
debbie
And the NV Supreme Court turned down another stupid Trump request to stop the count until they could observe properly.
persistentillusion
@Sister Golden Bear: First time I’ve LOL’d out loud. Thank you.
Suzanne
WTF is happening in Michigan?
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
@MomSense: That’s how I feel too. How can so many people be THAT profoundly stupid or at least selfish?!?!
@raven: Which site /channel you watching? Google Election results show Trump at 50.3% to 48.3% for Biden with 72% reported. It’s not done done, but still turning that way. It was blue 15 minutes ago.
ElwoodPDowd
Still sipping red wine.
Still losing at solitaire.
Still trying not to drift into depression.
yikes
TaMara (HFG)
Jeebus. I’ve put three coats of paint on the wall. Done the touch ups and cleaned up. Fed the animals.
Now what? I mean I started painting when the polls closed, I thought it would take longer….
Aleta
Ilhan Omar won her seat acc to NYT.
guachi
@David ?Booooooo!? Koch:
Huh. That’s good. I’m happily surprised that Biden’s narrow lead will likely hold. It was dropping so fast after the big initial dump.
AP has Biden ahead by only 0.2% with 87% reporting. It started at 13%. I figured Biden needed about 15% after initial voting to hold on so I was thinking a narrow 1-2 point loss.
EDIT: I reopened the NYT Needle and they have Trump with a 95% chance to win NC.
Eric U.
My pennsylvania county expects mail-in ballots to be counted by tomorrow. The law inexplicably doesn’t allow them to count until 7am on election day.
sdhays
@Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ: Biden is now down by about 95k according to the AP on TPM with 74% of the vote in. On the TPM map, it looks like there’s still quite a lot of votes in vote-rich Democratic counties left to report.
But we’ll see.
PsiFighter37
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Does not account for massive disparity between early in-person/mail vote and today’s vote.
David ?Booooooo!? Koch
@Suzanne:
debbie
@raven:
It just flipped. Trump up by a percent or so.
lurker
@David ?Booooooo!? Koch: there’s the booze, glue, grass, blow, how long have you been out of that turkish prison? lot of stuff to avoid. Are you flying a plane?
pat
So I’m kind of watching MSNBC and they are talking about election returns but are they taking into account the possibility of lots of MAIL BALLOTS that might be counted in the next few days?
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: Cornyn was always going to win.
Logan Brown
@columbusqueen: What math are you using to reach that conclusion? It’s basically tied at this point.
donnah
Y’all can tell me to quit being Donnah Downer, but this is 2016 again. We’re not getting Ohio, Texas, or Florida, Mitch won, and all of the South is still red. Yes, more votes will come, but these numbers are not encouraging. It tells me that the Republicans are going to run us so far into a ditch that we may never get out. Four more years of Trump and Mitch McConnell terrifies me.
There’s still hope, but this is making me sick.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: Yes.
sdhays
@David ?Booooooo!? Koch: If true and Pennsylvania follows, that’s pretty much the ballgame, at least for the White House.
Fingers crossed.
OGLiberal
@David ?Booooooo!? Koch: They have Biden at 58% in AZ as well, but also Trump at 58% in Michigan and Wisconsin
ETA: And 67% in PA.
Omnes Omnibus
@sdhays: Please mention the name of the state. Yeah, I know it’s Ohio, but I don’t think it is too much to ask so that stressed out people can quickly understand what you are saying.
catclub
@Suzanne:
also this:
Report: Nothing Could Go Wrong On A Day As Beautiful As This
horse dave
What’s going on with Virginia?
Suzanne
@Martin: It feels like the polls are off by a lot.
Trying to sort out feelings and reality.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
fifteen minutes or so ago, Kornacki was saying the big Dem leaning districts in OH were not reporting yet. Do they traditionally come in slow?
scottinnj
I’m still feeling good on the midwest in OH/PA and even AZ. And hopefully we get Maine, AZ and one of IA/NC/MT/AK to flip so we at least get a 50/50 Senate with VP Harris taking up permanent residency.
That said that Trump and the GOP can literally murder 250k (and counting) and it isn’t a landslide on some level makes me feel even worse about this country than I have in the last 4 years. I can sort of see why you took a flyer on Trump in 2016, but not now. This is not good.
debbie
Brunner’s up 57% to 43% for OH SC!
PsiFighter37
@David ?Booooooo!? Koch: Not in PA…the urban areas in PA always get the vote out first. I suspect Philly+Pittsburgh votes will still heavily weight the results towards Biden initially.
John S.
@MomSense: Our media sucks and is run by corporations with a vested interest in chaos, social media is fueling rampant misinformation that is taken as gospel, and decades of failures in our education systems have churned out people incapable of rational thinking.
So there you go. ?
Ruckus
@Jerzy Russian:
A lot of our fellow citizens are fucking insane.
And the only thing you can do is not join them.
sdhays
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m stressed too, hence all the mistakes (a least a couple times I’ve been sure I put the state in the comment, but didn’t). But noted, I’ll try to be sure to include the state in replies as well.
NotMax
What’s there to freak out about? That Texas didn’t go full indigo? (As if.)
Stay mellow. Things are going fine.
Ella in New Mexico
LIke I said below
https://balloon-juice.com/2020/11/03/how-are-we-holding-up/#comment-7937538
I’m just gonna find work in another country if when I wake up tomorrow Trump has won decisively.
The United States of America has an incredibly flawed Democracy, and how we elect our President is the stupidest fucking dumb way to run a country anyone ever imagined. The Electoral College serves absolutely no 21st Century purpose and only works to keep slave owners/Republicans in power
Zeecube
@MomSense: I live in Louisiana. I come across folks every day who think Joe Biden is a “socialist” and Covid-19 is no worse than the flu. They do not care about all the deaths because a) it has not affected their bubble and b) they believe disinformation that Covid deaths are only a fraction of true amount. Oh, and they’re racist. That’s why they can support a monster and sleep soundly at night.
guachi
I find it insane this election is as close as it is.
Adam L Silverman
@OGLiberal: MI, WI, and PA are all election day votes. Almost no mail in or early voting are counted before election day in those three by law. Expect the numbers to shift significantly over the rest of the night and into tomorrow and Thursday.
Edited for clarity by adding: “are counted before election day”.
TEL
@PsiFighter37: I just read that almost 300,000 mail in ballots for Philadelphia won’t get counted until tomorrow. The majority of these are probably Biden voters.
JMG
I’m gonna try and sleep, gang. I don’t think we made it. Happy to wake up wrong, but it doesn’t look good.
Kay
I don’t think “polling” recovers from this. They were just as wrong as they could be.
Kay
@JMG:
Me too. I’m so, sorry for the country.
David ?Booooooo!? Koch
@lurker: Surely, you must be joking.
Bnad
@Kay: The sliver of people that they can get to reply is no longer representative. They need to figure out new methods.
Quinerly
Graham wins in SC.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: Not quite. In WI, you can vote early, but the votes are not counted until Election Day.
Baud
@Kay: Agreed.
Suzanne
@Kay: This is really bad.
I’m not feeling good. I think I should go to bed.
guachi
@Kay: Yes. Polling seems to have been way off basically everywhere. Biden may win the popular vote by 5-6. It will probably… maybe… be enough to win the Presidency.
But I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some glaring polling misses.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I don’t think MSNBC has mentioned what’s going on in Fulton County once.
Kay
@Bnad:
Obviously I just want someone to blame, but I’m mad at them for giving people hope.
guachi
Trump takes the lead in NC.
PsiFighter37
Maricopa just dropped its early vote – Biden up nearly 10% with 77% out. That’s a very good start.
OGLiberal
@Adam L Silverman: I live in PA part time but permanent residence is in NJ so vote there. I thought PA offered no excuse mail-in voting this year? Not sure how many did it.
Quinerly
Biden looking good so far in AZ. Mail in votes up to the weekend. Will come in 3 waves.
Ruckus
@Mike J:
The polling place I wrote about this morning that I walked past at 7:45am that had a line? Dramatically longer tonight as I walked home. I really don’t get it. This polling location opened on 10/31 7am-8pm and has been open since. CA mailed ballots to every registered voter, drop boxes all around and people waited till 5pm on the 3rd. The state did everything but drive them there and hold the fucking pen. It’s normally easy in CA, they made it much easier. Still people waited. I’d bet I’d have to start drinking again to understand it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: Let’s see what the final numbers are.
Oklahomo
@Kay: I’m really curious as to how the pollsters explain this failure.
Chris Johnson
@guachi: If you say so, Boris.
I’m waiting to see what the Lincoln Project folks think about all this.
Plenty of Russians out there trying to kill Americans still, even if it’s ‘get them to shoot themselves in the head on Election Night’ since covid doesn’t always suffice.
Ruckus
@Cheryl Rofer:
There’s always a way to laugh at anything.
OGLiberal
Trumps up in Ohio now per AP. 77% reporting and he’s up by 4.7%. Again, per AP. I don’t think Joe is winning Ohio.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@PsiFighter37:
Please god, let AZ help us
Almost Retired
I am torn between taking deep breaths and digging deep into the wine collection on the one hand; and planning my first run for office in the independent country of California on the other. But my essential Happy Happy Fun Ball personality still believes it will all work out, even if my inner Eeyore is making contingency plans.
HumboldtBlue
@Suzanne:
Passes the spliff … here ya go, still a ways to go.
Betsy
North Carolina is going to go for Biden. The big blue counties have barely begun to report and they’re landsliding for him. There are at least a million votes in three of these counties alone that haven’t been reported yet and they’re going to swamp the rest of the rural parts of the state.
sdhays
Why is Maine so slow? Anyone know?
Adam L Silverman
Suzanne
If he wins AZ, I’ll probably cry. I would like to have left that state in better shape than when I found it.
Taumatugo
@scottinnj: Good question? Why is this election not a blowout?
piratedan
those polls stayed steady here in AZ for a long time, unsure if that will maintain based on how much MOE we continue to see that seems to tilt to the GOP as each of these states report in.
Maricopa and Pima are the big Dem vote sinks, with the rural areas being decidedly red, if not crimson, but Phoenix has been trending bluer of late and there’s been a big push to register tribal voters, so we shall see.
Kelly voters may end up dragging Biden over the line, and it depends on how deep the COVID memories people retain as AZ got blasted earlier in the year…
guachi
@Chris Johnson: I don’t say so. The AP says so.
schrodingers_cat
Do the current results and projections account for the non election day votes?
Gin & Tonic
NYT saying Tuberville beat Doug Jones.
Leto
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: They have not.
gwangung
@Goku (Amerikan Baka): Talk about futile hopes…
No, polling is going to need to be rethought…
Full Metal Wingnut
@Taumatugo: because there are a lot of stupid, nasty people here.
Fair Economist
Thanks for the effort, John, but it’s not working.
Adam L Silverman
@sdhays: Four Senate candidates and ranked choice voting. So they have to exclude everyone below a certain threshold and then redistribute their second and possibly third choice votes.
sdhays
@OGLiberal: You may be right, but where the votes are still out matters. At least on TPM, most of the big Democratic counties still have a lot of precincts left to report.
Are you seeing something different?
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
Thanks for saving me the effort of freaking the fuck out, Cole. Since I’m in Ohio, I’ll just check the respite pics and see y’all tomorrow.
guhm61
@OGLiberal: I live in Lackawanna County (Scranton ) and indeed voted by “mail in ” ballot using a drop off box at the local municipal building. Bunch of us Seniors ( or what Bill Barr would call the “fraud squad “) streaming in out of there day I was there about 3 weeks ago.
guachi
@OGLiberal: I’m less bullish on Ohio than I was about 30 minutes ago. I guess the thing to do, win or lose, is look at the margin.
sdhays
@Adam L Silverman: Ah, right. Ok. I’m getting impatient to see Susan Collins kicked to the curb.
Yes, I’m going to remain positive.
MomSense
@sdhays:
Very high turnout
HumboldtBlue
New Mexico does its job.
Amir Khalid
@Taumatugo:
Remember, the jackaltariat is not America.
Quinerly
OK, I’m on the phone so hard to post long posts and links. Cruise over to TPM and read about the gathering at the WH. The food being served in the East Room, with pictures. Seriously, take a peek.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: I left the following out: “are counted before election day”.
I’ve corrected it.
GoBlueInOak
@guachi: Looks like about 30,000 vote lead right now for Trump in NC.
p.a.
Sam Wang last hour:
Under current conditions, watching partial counts come in is like trying to guess someone’s weight as they put different body parts on the scale – but you are not told which part is being measured.
Give it time, everyone. This is not a normal election night.
Citizen Alan
On the bright side, I finally got around to finishing the updates to my will and got it sent off to my lawyer for review.
Suzanne
@piratedan: I am really missing AZ tonight.
different-church-lady
@p.a.: Go eat a bug, Sam.
pamelabrown53
@Omnes Omnibus:
Agree with waiting to see the final numbers. In the meantime, I need to detach, read a book and check in about 3A.M. EST.
Until later.
Subsole
Well, folks, I am gonna rack out. I don’t think there’s anything to be gained tonight.
If I’m gonna laugh or cry, might as well do it all at once tomorrow instead of stretched over the hours.
Y’all be safe. See you on the other side.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I don’t think anyone’s told Kornacki.
Emma from FL
@MomSense: No matter what happens I will always look sideways at people I don’t know from now on. Damn near 40% of Americans have shown themselves to be a variety of monster. Not even members of my own family can be trusted.
Even though I never had any illusions about the human race, it goddamn breaks my heart.
David ?Booooooo!? Koch
Adam L Silverman
@OGLiberal: They did. I left this out of that sentence: “are counted before election day”. I’ve corrected the comment by adding it. Sorry for the confusion.
NobodySpecial
I’m not. I can’t. I woke up to the Guardian map being a sea of red, including MI, MN, IA, GA, FL.
This country feels fucked and I’m stuck here.
guachi
@GoBlueInOak: Wonder what will happen with the NC ballots still in the mail. And will they even matter even if counted?
sdhays
@Quinerly: Here’s the link:
Taumatugo
@Full Metal Wingnut: You may be right but a case has to made by the democrats to these folks that in a second election are repudiating the party. Something is not working and a hell omore work needs to be done.
RaflW
@Betty Cracker: Two observervations: This country is well on its way to being an ungovernable, horrendous wreck. Even if Biden squeaks it out.
And, touchscreen voting with no paper trail is a tool of the devil. I absolutely, inherently, cannot trust results from any state that uses those machines. Period.
NotMax
@guhm61
For those playing at home, pronounced SKRAA-awn.
:)
Pleased to see my one of my old stomping grounds, Pike county, in blue.
Barbara
This is just too grueling for me. I will check in periodically, but I can’t take the minute by minute swings.
Ohio Mom
I tried so hard not to get sucked into a bubble this time (as opposed to 2016). I really thought it was reasonable to be hopeful about a big blue wave.
It’s a blow to my sense of reality and my faith in my ability to navigate the world.
I mean, in addition to the absolute terror of four more years.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: Not in WI, MI, and PA. Very limited amounts of the mail in and early votes will be counted today.
Omnes Omnibus
@Taumatugo: Bernie would not have done better. And it is too fucking early to make judgments about what is happening since it is actually still happening.
PsiFighter37
Donna Shalala is also going to lose. So we just threw away 2 of our pickups from 2018 away in South Florida because we couldn’t do fuck-all in Miami. Goddammit.
piratedan
@Suzanne: hopeful is the mood… the part that is maddening is that all of the states that we’re counting on are not reporting the same day as other states, which in THIS environment is an incredibly shitty look.
I hate the Northern Virginia is taking for-fucking-ever to report, I hate that Dem strongholds are under fucking water in the city of Atlanta… y’know. If rural bumfuck alabama can get their votes in, so should these places… and I know its just nerves talking and the electorial stress, but goddammit, we’ve waited 4 goddamn years for this, give us some motherfucking closure.
GoBlueInOak
@guachi: Yeah I mean eyeballing the county by county returns, not like there’s some major Biden leaning area with tons of votes outstanding compared to red counties with similar percentages still outstanding – ya never know, but not looking good.
Wonder what deal is with Michigan.
Logan Brown
@Betsy: You are being an optimist. His only hope is that the absentee ballots break so heavily that it bails him and Cal out. I’m not sure that Wake and Guilford can make up 30000 votes.
Full Metal Wingnut
@Taumatugo: a case has to be made? What the fuck would you call this entire year?
guachi
@PsiFighter37: IIRC, those were the only two Florida pickups.
Baud
Dems keep the House according to MSNBC.
LeftCoastYankee
I’ve been watching MSNBC and the biggest problem is they keep throwing out a “projected remaining votes”, with no mention of where that is coming from or how it is calculated.
If it is an internal projection, and not from county sources, it could be way off.
Data analysts who focus on mainly on percentages (rather than counts) eventually look stupid when a change in the source data occurs.
ETA: and this year will have changes in voting patterns.
Felanius Kootea
Arizona is giving me life right now.
OGLiberal
@sdhays: The lead is at 5.8% now with 80% reporting. The AP map on Google is not detail enough for me to see what precincts haven’t reported yet. All of the counties are colored in which means they’ve all reported at least some. But 5.8% just seems like too much at this point.
raven
@LeftCoastYankee: Exaclty what Sam Wang said.
Adam L Silverman
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: Check your text messages.
guachi
@OGLiberal: Mouse over OH and it’s now 6.2% to Trump. Total changed while I was looking at it.
Clinton lost OH by 8.13% as a comparison.
Bnad
AZ , plus the ME 2nd which has been called for Biden, gives Biden exactly 270 if he hangs onto WI, MI and MN. Even if Biden loses OH and PA.
OGLiberal
@PsiFighter37: She lost.
Mai Naem mobile
@Goku (Amerikan Baka): don’t count on AZ. I was following the in person voting numbers by party affiliation and the Dems were down as expected. It all comes down to if the Indies will flip enough to the Dems. Ugh I got sucked in by Carville, Sabato and Cook. Doug Jones lost so that washes out Hickenlooper’s win. Montana has been called for Donnie so I am guessing that means Bullock has lost.
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
@Emma from FL: Same here. I can’t watch anymore. I’m going to put my son to bed and then go hide in my craft room. I’m going to make beautiful things while I listen to an audio book.
I’m not brave enough to watch the possible destruction of my country. See you all tomorrow.
LeftCoastYankee
@raven:
Maybe I should come out of semi-retirement then…
:)
Seriously, I think we’ll wake up tomorrow to a different world… assuming we actually go to sleep!
Suzanne
@Bnad: I don’t know if we can count on MI or WI.
Cheryl Rofer
@Adam L Silverman: We had ranked-choice voting in our last mayoral election, and it took until the next day to get the result.
Takes longer, but it gives a more representative result.
Aleta
yikes
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne: Why not?
Damned_at_Random
El Paso still out in Texas- on the border and still raw from a hate crime against “Mexicans”
Suzanne
@Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ: Hugs.
OGLiberal
@NotMax: I’m actually surprised at that – and even more surprised that Monroe and Lackawanna are currently red. My guess is that will change – still a lot of votes to count in PA.
Ksmiami
Ok expat I will be… this country is monstrous
NotMax
@raven
Yes yes yes. And thank you. Keep your eyes on the Wang.
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: Because I am watching CNN and Trump is ahead in both of those places. By what seems like a significant amount.
Martin
Yeah, NC and PA will still be receiving ballots after today. We’ll have to see how that shakes out.
But overall, large urban districts tend to drift in over a few days with provisional ballots, etc.
I was just really hoping for more decisive wins this evening.
p.a.
Sell Florida back to Spain. Sorry Betty but you could be better off as a Spaniard anyway…
different-church-lady
I suppose I should go to bed, but what’s the point, I’m not going to sleep a goddamed wink.
OGLiberal
@guachi: Given that people had almost 4-years of watching this fool in action, that does not give me the warm and fuzzies.
Martin
@OGLiberal: PA isn’t allowed to count mail-in votes until today, and most counties weren’t going to start counting until tomorrow.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Midwest states haven’t started counting mail in ballots.
mrmoshpotato
I see the mobster manbaby has finally realized they can serve something better than McDonald’s*
*Both menus are still crap for the White House.
guachi
@OGLiberal: No, not really. Even if Biden squeaks out a win it’ll be really sad.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
2.5 million people did it. And Democrats have over a 1 million vote advantage in mail-in ballots returned in PA.
Old Dan and Little Ann
My wife’s birthday is tomorrow. 13 years ago we had one too many Martinis during dinner and then went home and partied well past midnight watching Obama’s acceptance speech. That night was much more fun. Fuck drumph and his voters. My faith in humanity is teetering on the brink ferfuck’s sake!
OGLiberal
@Bnad: I’m starting to see some of the poll folks on the twitters mentioning the dreaded 269-269 tie. Wonder if that could still happen. I believe that, if it does, Joe loses even though the Dems control the House because of our Constitutional rules around a tie, which are even sillier than the EC.
ballerat
@Kay: It’s like 2016 again. The pollsters learned nothing.
I think it’s Trump. He’s an overt dirtbag, an obvious racist and a bad person. Everyone knows it. Everyone. The people who answer the polls know that. They just don’t want to admit they are bad people too.
The poll people should have figured this out. But it is apparent they learned nothing about why people would pretend to be better than they are on the phone.
What is depressing is just how many execrably bad people there are in this country, and worse, how many know they are truly bad people but are only concerned with how bad they might look.
NoraLenderbee
Can’t take any more of this gnashing of teeth.
Chris Johnson
The Lincoln folks have a mantra: “Fuck you, keep counting”. I think everybody getting pushed to kill themselves in despair for the country, right now, might bear that mantra in mind. Half an hour before the Lincoln guys are live. I am reasonably confident THAT crowd doesn’t have Russians or useful idiots spinning as hard as possible.
If they’re pissed off, sad and defiant, I’ll resign myself to being antifa. People have died for worse causes. But fuck you, keep counting. This is exactly the intention: we’re supposed to give up NOW and throw away all the votes. Nuh-uh.
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: I like the idea.
karensky
@Yarrow: Yes.
Quinerly
@sdhays: thanks for posting. So fucking tacky. I hate these people.
Starfish
@donnah: Mitch was always going to win. Mississippi passed medical marijuana and kept the flag that is less racist.
NoraLenderbee
@guachi: Oh, shut up.
Baud
@Martin:
Right. Even if we avoid the worst, we have to fundamentally rethink some things.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne: And MIlwaukee has said that it won’t be done until around 5am.
NotMax
@mrmoshoptato
Upchuck E. Cheese.
It’s what’s served at a kid’s birthday party or a Brownie/Cub Scout jamboree.
SenyorDave
If Hitler was running he would get at least 80% of Republican votes.
Starfish
@Zeecube: Some people don’t care even if it has affected their bubble. It is deeply weird.
LeftCoastYankee
Stop freaking out people. Each state is reporting their early voting different. Yeah, FL reported them first, but other states like PA are reporting same day first, and not even calculating the mail-in early until tomorrow.
Larger population areas (favoring Dems) will take longer to report.
Breathe…..
mrmoshpotato
@Chris Johnson: Fuck the Lincoln Project. We’ll keep counting because that’s what we do in a democracy.
GoBlueInOak
@Baud: In Michigan, going by total votes reported and the percentage of total votes those reported votes represent, Biden will need win roughly 53.5% of all votes remaining in order to take Michigan.
John S.
@ballerat: With record turnout, it’s hard to imagine that Trump was the one motivating people to vote given what a clusterfuck he’s been.
Yet here we are.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Impressive. mr mo shop tato or is it mr mosh op tato? :)
debbie
@guachi:
A win is all that should matter to any of us.
Adam L Silverman
I just put a new post up. They misreported the NC vote tallies. The correction is in Biden’s favor.
Erin in Flagstaff
I’m hoping my state, AZ, goes blue. The numbers are looking good, but my fingers are crossed!
Quinerly
@mrmoshpotato: be sure to look at the pigs in a blanket under glass picture.
guachi
@NoraLenderbee: What I mean is that it will be sad it wasn’t a total repudiation of a terrible person. Trump is awful. And it’s not obvious a huge portion of America thinks so and that our broken electoral system means he has a better chance to win than he should.
It’s sad that our country is so broken.
jnfr
I admit I am unhappy watching this, because of what it all says about my country and my neighbors. It’s very disturbing.
Though my local neighbors here in Colorado did vote for Biden pretty overwhelmingly, and kicked out Cory Gardner even more overwhelmingly. (Everyone hates him here.)
And we’re apparently on track to approve parental leave and reject yet another abortion ban.
On the other, other hand CO-3 has elected Boebert, a QAnon fan and gun nut. She’s cute though. CO-3, our own little nugget of Republican craziness.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Grinding teeth, and it isn’t even bedtime.
I’ve gone over to streaming Rake and will take a Xanax before sleep.
I hate this country, hate old conservative whites, hate its flawed constitution, hate the founders, hate the flag, hate apple pie and hate the values so beloved by desiccated corpse of my asshole maternal grandmother.
Ivan X
@Ohio Mom: I feel like there must be a good yiddishism for this one but it escapes me.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Just to repeat these numbers:
I’m seeing Trump with a margin of 1.3 million to 1.0 million based on in-person votes in PA. That’s a 300,000 vote margin.
The mail-in ballots show a margin of 1 million in party registration in favor of Democrats. There were 1.6 million Democratic ballots returned and less than 600,000 Republicans.
There is no way Trump takes PA.
Sister Golden Bear
I need nice, polite person to feed me poutine and tell me everything’s going to be all right.
mrmoshpotato
@Quinerly: Yeah. I read about that.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Whoopsie. Unintentional.
Lysdexic erfings.
Glyph2112
I am still amazed that we have that many racist, dumbass people that vote against their interests. How much more damage will it take for people to wake up.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Erin in Flagstaff: MSNBC seems to be chomping at the bit to call the Senate race for Kelly. They keep insisting it’s too early, as opposed to too close, to call, and I’m hearing a lot of wink wink in the way they say it.
Quinerly
Dem Gov Cooper in NC re-elected.
Jerzy Russian
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I hope you are right. The pink color on the map on my iPhone now is not reassuring at the moment.
NickM
I stopped watching because I was starting to spiral. Is there any chance Biden might pull this one out? I can’t see how people voted for that lunatic over a decent human being. I’m stunned.
NotMax
@Jim, Foolish Literalist
Champing at the bit.
/pedant
;)
tam1MI
Given that the blue areas generally come in late, this is doable.
LeftCoastYankee
Trump’s going to lose North Carolina, Ohio and likely Pennsylvania.
Also, if after tonight, anyone thinks the EC is a swell idea, they s/b sent to sea.
GoBlueInOak
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: From your lips to God’s ears.
GoBlueInOak
@LeftCoastYankee: Trump has a 7 point lead in Ohio with 82% of the vote reported.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Jerzy Russian: There’s a reason Trump wants to declare the winner today before counting any of the mail-ins.
This is not like previous elections. I haven’t seen in-person overall totals, but I think we may have more than 50% of the votes early or mail-in.
Certainly that’s the case here in PA. 2.3 million people voted in person today. 2.5 million voted by mail. So far. They’re still allowed to accept ballots that arrive late.
NotMax
@NickM
Abso-rooty tooty fresh ‘n’ fruity-lutely.
OGLiberal
@LeftCoastYankee: I really, really hope this is true and I know we probably won’t know until tomorrow. I have hope for PA given how much of the vote is still out there but really worried about the other two, especially Ohio where Trump is now up about 7% with almost 90% reporting. NC has 93% reporting but gap is much smaller there.
frosty
@John S.: I saw huge turnout in Confederate Pennsylvania and it made me nervous. Hope the mail votes can counteract it.
GoBlueInOak
@tam1MI: Possibly. Though there’s a number of red-red counties that haven’t reported votes at all yet. Wayne County (Detroit) has a lot of votes outstanding, but I’m worried won’t be enough.
Geminid
@PsiFighter37: The Biden campaign put resources into South Florida, but too late. The trump campaign wasted much of their billion dollars, but they did do a lot of effective messaging to Spanish speaking Floridians, starting last year.
OGLiberal
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I know he can do it because he does whatever the fuck he wants but if you are not even close to having 270 confirmed, how can you declare victory? OK, he will because he’s Trump.
Fucking monster.
OGLiberal
@Geminid: Isn’t the FL Dem Party terrible and especially terrible at Hispanic outreach/GOTV?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@NotMax: dammit, and I knew that
in the last few years, I also confuse reign and rein
I blame horses
GoBlueInOak
@OGLiberal: If the FL Dem party is that bad at Latino outreach, they should be fired.
LeftCoastYankee
Ah… time for the Left Coast to represent.
NotMax
At least one of the GA senate contests going to runoff in January. So that means the new Senate will be down 1 R when it convenes.
Geminid
@OGLiberal: I am not too familiar with Florida politics. I picked up the info on the trump campaign outreach from Rachel Bitecofer, who was hollering at the Democrats to counter. The Biden campaign had the money by August, but it could be that folks the trump campaign had already persuaded stayed persuaded
Logan Brown
North Carolina is done. Trump and Tillis win.
Steve in the ATL
@NotMax: thank you—I can go to bed now!
LeftCoastYankee
@GoBlueInOak:
82% on the statewide aggregate, but the smaller rural counties s/b already around 100%. Even if the larger blue counties are actually at 82%, the net vote count of winning 70% of a big pool are alot more votes than 70% of tinier pools.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
This is pointless. I’m through gnashing my teeth. There is nothing more going to be learned tonight. The votes will take days to count, just as we’ve been saying. I’m going to bed.
frosty
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I would too but I won’t be sleepy until around 2 AM. So … stay and twist my gut or pick up a book? Maybe a little more of (1) and then (2).
Pollyanna me thinks this will be more like 2018 when I left the election party feeling dejected and the House flipped more and more the more it went on. It’s probably the case with the states that are still counting mail-in ballots. (crosses fingers)
Mary G
I am freaking out over something completely different and I will tell you guys about it so I am not freaking out alone.
My housemates, as you know, are originally from Guatemala and are in their early thirties. They like America OK, enough for her to get naturalized so she could vote for Obama, but they really want to spend their earning years working all the hours in the day so they can go home to retire.
They are from a little coastal town on the east side of the country called Livingston, after the actual “Dr. Livingston, I presume,” who tried to start up a democracy there but was foiled by Big Banana, Inc. It was founded by shipwrecked and escaped slaves from the Caribbean and is still impossible to get to by land; everything comes in by boat, so the gang crime problem isn’t as much of a deal as it is in the rest of the country. One website says:
The Spanish influence isn’t very strong, most everybody looks Black, and the religious practices are interesting and colorful, so they are developing a nice little tourist trade. They are also on the mouth of the Rio Dulce, with all kinds of waterfalls and pools to swim in fresh water as well as the ocean. The seafood is amazing, and the fruit of the cashew tree is delicious in addition to the nut.
Five years ago, B and K bought a small house about a block from the ocean, rented it out and paid it off, so now they are buying a bigger house on four acres of prime trees with its own spring, to turn into a B and B, with a long flat frontage road where they plan to build a cafe, ice cream shop, and boutiques. Plus they want to rent jet skis. It’s halfway paid for.
Now comes Hurricane Eta, which was a Category 5 offshore, hit Nicaragua as a Category 4, and is predicted to churn up the coast, right over Livingston, then go back out into the Gulf and travel over to bash Florida. Even worse, the tenant they had in the little house lost his parents and job to the ‘Rona, so since it’s empty they’ve just borrowed more money, done a lot of upgrades and took off the roof to replace it, which was supposed to be finished last week but isn’t.
So we are sweating the election and the possible destruction of all their hard earned future. Cell towers are out, so it may be a few days before they can see the damage.
Waiting, Trump, and climate change all suck.
The Fat White Duchess
@Mary G: What a rotten situation! Much sympathy, and I’m holding your housemates and you in my thoughts, hoping for the best possible outcome.