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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Yeah, I'm not going to count my states until they're actually being called by the networks. Presumably the people they get to do those analyses know how much is still to be counted and where, and can weigh all that information better than I could. And they don't like being found to be wrong retroactively.
Of course, there are still the occasional case where something will be officially called but wrong, but that's fairly rare.
In an earlier article 538 mentioned to wary of a "red mirage" and a "blue mirage." Red mirage being states that look like they're going hard for Trump because they count their mail-in ballots latter, and blue mirage being states that look like Biden is winning hard because they count their mail-in early. As the night goes on its going to get more balanced as the rest of the ballots come in.
The news networks will be under immense pressure to declare a winner as soon as possible. This is going to conflict with their perceived duty to report accurately. The tension will fall towards how much they value the former over the latter. I expect Fox News to declare early if it looks like Trump has the slightest chance of winning, but everyone else to wait.
In place of calls, expect to see endless reports of the status of mail-in ballot counts, "inside looks" at counting rooms, jumping on every story about fraud, errors, and court battles, and endless pundits pontificating about legal ramifications.
Edited by Fighteer on Oct 29th 2020 at 1:21:56 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"There's probably going to be at least one Dewey Defeats Truman.
If Biden wins, it should be obvious enough that only Fox News could ever make such a bad call. If Trump wins, however, expect it to be close enough that some news agencies will feel pressure to project from very narrow counts, which might give us some Dewey Defeats Truman moments, but I'd like to think everyone learned from 2016.
Apparently Tucker Carlson's mystery package was found lost in transit by UPS
. Personally I find this whole thing farcical , it's like watching a bad comedy
Oh, I'm tuning out Tuesday night. I'll be off work Wednesday so my feed will be glued to MSNBC all day.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Having experienced the 2016 election live which made me scream so high and in such despair that the neighbors believed someone had been murdered in the area for the entire day afterwards, I'll just say this...
I'm not putting myself through that again and will tune out so I can be fully rested and recovered to deal with the frantic and rabid MAGA cultists that no doubt, will cry for blood, one reason or another, after November 3th has passed.
Edited by TitanJump on Oct 29th 2020 at 6:41:42 PM
I couldn't sleep that night. Just kept tossing in bed thinking about all the bad stuff that was coming.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Election night 2016 was easily one of the worst nights of my life. The Washington Post had a live updates tracker. Throughout the night, Trump's numbers just kept climbing while Clinton's stayed uncomfortably low. People kept saying "Don't worry they haven't finished counting the blue cities/states yet." So I kept refreshing the page in anticipation of Clinton pulling ahead. It never did, and like Fighteer, I went to bed with a mixture of dread and disgust.
No way am I putting myself through that shit again.
Edited by speedyboris on Oct 29th 2020 at 11:07:04 AM
I remember when I realized things had gone bad, I just started drinking. I finished the night having drunk four glasses of wine. I come from a family of lightweights, so I was totally shitfaced. Woke up somewhat restless the next morning, but if I remember correctly I didn't have a hangover.
You can only write so much in your forum signature. It's not fair that I want to write a piece of writing yet it will cut me off in the midI agree and I'm not saying it will be easy, but we won't really known on election night anyway. Trump could win every other swing state but if the three midwestern states who votes will take a while to count go Biden, he will lose. Not to say that we won't have good indications of where the race will be by morning (especially if Biden wins in either Arizona or Florida), but there's no point to stressing yourself out watching the vote counts climb IMO.

So 538 emphasizes that the vote count in Pennsylvania could look very, very different as more votes get counted because of the sheer size of mail-in ballots that will be counted and how many of them are likely to be democrats.
This is part of why I wouldn't spend all tuesday night panicking over the election; even if Trump had like a 10 point in the early hours of the vote count in Pennsylvania, it's not likely that lead would stay and could reverse by a huge margin in Biden's favor soon enough. Same goes for the other important midwestern swing states.
Edited by Draghinazzo on Oct 29th 2020 at 1:37:10 PM