Election 2020: Feelin' kind of blue
Where we're at around noon Wednesday
Assuming all votes are counted, Joe Biden’s going to be the next president.
As of noon today, here’s the electoral map I’m looking at. I’m gonna line up with Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon and call it.
Joe Biden is on track to get the most votes of any presidential candidate ever. Right now, with many precincts still reporting results, Biden had already gathered 69,165,955 votes on Wednesday morning, compared to former President Barack Obama’s 2008 popular vote total of 69,498,516.
The horrible thing about the electoral college is that it obscures that, and leaves you feeling kind of empty. And yet — Biden already has 287 electoral votes in hand, and leads in a number of states that I haven’t called yet. Let’s go through them quickly:
Nevada: they won’t release any more results until Thursday morning, but Biden leads by roughly 8,000 votes and what’s outstanding will strongly favor him (Clark County).
Michigan: they’re counting quickly, Biden leads now by about 30,000, and what’s outstanding strongly favors him (places like Detroit and so on).
Georgia: again, they’re counting, and what’s outstanding favors Biden (Atlanta, places like Cobb and Gwinnett that swung to Biden).
Pennsylvania: this one might be iffy, if only because Trump leads by 8 points, but there’s just a ton of votes that haven’t been counted yet.
North Carolina: still votes outstanding, but I think this one goes to Trump.
You can watch the briefing O’Malley Dillon gave this morning here:
In short, just like last night, I feel confident that if we count all the votes, Biden is the next president. It’s fucked up that we have to say that, but that’s America.
On to the Senate: right now, it’s tied 47-47, with six seats outstanding. So far, Democrats have flipped two seats for a gain of one. The six remaining undecided contests are:
Michigan: Incumbent Democrat Gary Peters trails John James, but the outstanding ballots favor Democrats, so he should win.
Maine: Not gonna sugarcoat it, Sara Gideon badly underperformed polling, but Maine has ranked choice voting, so it’s entirely possible she could defeat the odious Susan Collins.
North Carolina: another seat where the Democrat underperformed; Cal Cunningham trails by about 97,000 votes. I just don’t see this one happening, but who knows? It’s important to note that mail ballots postmarked by Election Day are accepted until November 12 — that’s next Thursday, folks.
Georgia: Jon Ossoff trails David Perdue by about three percent or so; the key here is forcing a runoff, so we’ll see if the outstanding ballots from Atlanta do that.
Georgia special: Raphael Warnock won the first round by six points, 32%-26%; he’ll face incumbent Kelly Loeffler in the January runoff.
Alaska: Only 36% of the vote’s been counted, but Democrat Al Gross trails 61%-33%. Stranger things have happened, but I wouldn’t hold my breath here.
I don’t feel confident in making calls here, but I also don’t feel sanguine about Democratic chances.
Anyway, that’s my read on the state of the land. I’m absolutely bug-fuckin’-tired, and my eyes are about to pop out of their sockets.
What’s next? Well, for that I’m going to defer to Dave Dayen at The American Prospect. Dude put together a series called the Day One Agenda, but in short: even without a Democratic Senate, there’s a shit-ton of crap that Biden and House Democrats can work on without the Senate.
Point being: it’s easy as fuck to wring our hands and talk about we’re all fucked and everything is fucked and oh my god we’re fuckin’ doomed. And I feel that; I really feel that. I’m bone-fuckin’-tired, and so are a ton of other people.
But now is when the work starts, and while you’re not called to complete it, you are called to fucking do it. Complain if you want, but you’ve got to do the work.
Anyway: I love all of you, and I’ll see you when I see you. I need to take a nap or something.