Election Day in America 2020; *UPDATE* – No winner; networks imply no more news tonight

By J.E. Dyer
Election Day in America 2020; *UPDATE* – No winner; networks imply no more news tonight
Joe Biden, Donald Trump (Images: Left—Telemundo, right—Fox News video

Right away we know there’s something about this election, because if you add up the digits in the date you get 8.  Indeed, if you split them between the month and day (4) and the year (4), you get an equal share in either set.

That’s the high standard of analysis we’ve come to expect from commentary about Election 2020 USA, and it will be a hard one to beat.  But here at Liberty Unyielding, we’re going to try.

We need to get the ball rolling on some admin to keep us busy, so herewith I’m declaring: ROLL CALL.  Check in and let us know you voted.  Funny stories (or tragedies; we’ll take either one) are a big bonus.  Atmospherics.  Gut feelings.  Length of lines.  We’re interested to hear them all.

Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?

FYI, I voted.  Got the ballot coupons and the “I voted” sticker to prove it.  Very long lines everywhere in California, including here.

The lines are expected to get longer when the day-working people show up in a couple of hours.

This is in spite of the fact that California mailed 21 million ballots out the first week of October.  The vast majority of them were unsolicited; California chose to mail a ballot to every registered voter.  Just think about that for a moment.  In the entire country, we don’t expect 210 million people to vote in this election.  So enough ballots were sent out, by one state, to represent substantially more than 10% of the entire vote we expect to see nationally (maybe up to 150 million, because of the unique nature of this election.  Maybe more).

Yet there will be no way to account for what happened to millions of those 21 million ballots.  That’s a lot of uncertainty to surround an election with.  And the situation can be used, or not, to inject uncertainty into the outcome — it all depends on what partisan operatives want to do.

Food for thought.  My recommendation: pray for America.  Pray for the vote; pray that there’s a vote counted honestly for each person who intended to cast one.

In the meantime, not to bum anyone out (and with due recourse to the recommendation above): some entertainment to keep you going until we start getting whatever news the media see fit to manufacture.  We’re about an hour and a half from the first scheduled poll-closing time — although I’m not counting on any state closing as scheduled tonight.  Even in Montana they’re likely to still have people waiting in line at closing time.

Herewith the entertainment.  James Woods, the actor and now the conservative scourge of Twitter, is collecting information on voting irregularities and other issues documented at polling stations across America.  He intends to forward everything he gets to the GOP and the Trump campaign.  Here’s his tweet with the many replies that have already shown up in it.

https://twitter.com/RealJamesWoods/status/1323670410378973185

Well, and this took a few minutes to track down, because the New York Times deleted the original tweet, apparently realizing too late its blithering idiocy.

https://twitter.com/ScottTBrower1/status/1323758980318011395

It’s worth posting as a reminder of the mindset that hasn’t gone away just because the tweet has.

… and now the NYT has copped to “referring imprecisely to the role of the media.”

OK, Al Haig.

There will be more to come.  Right now the choice is pretty much among which strain of uninformed speculation we want to bat around, and I figure our alert readers can manage that on your own.  You can also take advantage of some useful information posted earlier.

If you haven’t already … VOTE!!

Back shortly for the dig-in.  Pizza night in America.

*UPDATES*

8:30 PM EST: They’re incensed on social media that even Fox has already called Virginia for Biden.  Trump is up significantly on him with about a third of the vote counted at this point (all commentary in this regard bearing the same caveat that we’re talking about the known, already-cast vote, with trickle-in ballots yet to be acknowledged.  And yes, it’s bogus that we even have to talk about that.  But we are where we are).

In spite of Trump’s lead, Fox is joining other outlets in calling Virginia for Biden.  I remember when it was considered irresponsible to do that before the polls closed on the West Coast — now apparently it’s OK to make that call on national TV when there are still people standing in line to vote in Virginia.

Other states have been called for Trump.

Nothing unexpected there.  Florida is still “too close to call.”

OK, Arkansas called.

More to come.  These are coming in really fast – much faster than I remember in 2016.  It looks like there’s a reasonable chance Trump will win the raw vote tally.

8:45 PM: Tally (called) so far for Biden: Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland.

Some folks are saying Florida has been called for Trump.  I’m seeing that it’s still leaning Trump but hasn’t been called yet.  Trump is up 50.9% to 48.2% for Biden.

Note: total vote tally across states at the moment has Trump about 500,000 votes ahead of Biden, both over 17 million.  (It keeps changing by the minute so there’s no reason to try and record a single pair of numbers.)

9:00 PM: A contrarian view of Virginia, where the nets all persist in showing Biden as a lock for the win.  Loudoun County — D.C. suburb, trending blue for years — is 95% counted, and Trump is at 55% of the vote.

https://twitter.com/ChristianWhiton/status/1323803376421761024

That’s not the harbinger of a win for Biden.  Trump still significantly ahead in the raw vote in Virginia, about 1.040,000 to 713,000.  38% counted.

9:15 PM: A little color commentary to keep things lively.  Thee are at least two 12-hour account suspensions I’ve seen on Twitter, both of which are obviously timed to keep accounts from opining legitimately about the election.  One is the War Room media outlet; i.e., Steve Bannon’s, where he and a cast of well known conservative names (including Raheem Kassam and Jennie Beth Martin) are reporting via an online broadcast this evening.

https://twitter.com/RaheemKassam/status/1323767600963342344

The War Room channel is here.

Another suspension for Big League Politics.

And so it goes.  Some individual lockouts as well.  I know I’m seeing much less engagement than I would expect on election night for my own account.

10:00 PM: Big call – south Carolina for Trump, just before the top of the hour.  Everyone had SC leaning Biden up until an hour ago.

Top of the hour changes: Ohio is now trending Trump.  Everyone had it trending Biden earlier.  Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin — all trending Trump.

Trump has surged past Biden in Texas, 50.5% to 48.2% with 68% of the vote in.  Doubtful there will be any looking back at this point.

10:15 PM: YU-UGE flip: North Carolina, which has been trending Biden all evening, has switched to trending Trump.  This one’s narrower, right now with 90% of the vote in and Trump up 49.7% to 49.1% for Biden.  War Room has a vote expert on, Richard Barris, who thinks Trump’s going to take it because the 10% that’s left to count is in the same areas that have given Trump his late surge.  Barris expects the trend toward Trump to intensify, not abate as the last 10% is counted.

10:30 PM: Something interesting on the House side.  The House races seem to be getting called significantly faster for Republicans.  Every seat is in play, of course, and Republicans have been pulling further ahead in called wins all night.  It stands at 103 seats called for the GOP, 80 for the Democrats right now.  Just interesting, for the time being, as there are a lot of seats left to sort out.  But it seems meaningful.

A little surprising they haven’t called Florida yet (except that it isn’t).  Trump is up nearly 400,000 votes on Biden.  Yes, you heard that right.  It’s 51.3% to 47.8% with 91% of the vote tallied.

They may be waiting to call Florida until they can call another state for Biden, because calling Florida would put Trump in the lead in electoral votes.  Its 129 Biden to 109 Trump right now, as the eggheads have it broken out.  Florida’s 29 would put Trump at 138 — and the other states trending Trump would add 133 more to his electoral column.  Biden has only 39 votes in the states trending for him (which include Arizona, with 11 – still very much in play for Trump).

10:45 PM: Just saw that Ilhan Omar’s race in Minnesota has been called in her favor. That doesn’t mean Trump is going to lose Minnesota, although I’m sure he’s lost in Omar’s district.

Trump is closing the gap in Minnesota (down about 280,000 right now, or 38.5% to Biden’s 59.5%) with 42% of the vote in.  That’s probably not fast enough closure, but the state hasn’t been called for Biden yet.

11:00 PM: Big calls at the top of the hour — AP has called Florida for Trump.  John James has been called to win the Senate seat in Michigan over incumbent Peters.  And Tommy Tuberville is crushing Doug Jones in Alabama. Tuberville’s over 62% of the vote with the race called.

Utah’s 6 votes and Idaho’s 4 were called earlier for Trump, so his EC tally is now 148.  The top of the hour, with polls closing on the West Coast, dumped a bunch of EC votes into Biden’s column.  The vote-callers have him at 207.

Heh: Greg Abbott points out that Texas is still red.  Nothing has flipped.

Trump keeps widening the gap with Biden in Texas.  Trump’s up more than 440,000 votes now (after Texas trending Biden the first 3-4 hours this evening), with 74% tallied.

11:30 PM: Another trend flips: Trump is now up in Iowa, after the state trending for Biden all evening.  It’s narrow — about 25,000 votes — with 77% counted.  But when the bean-counters flip a trend it’s because they expect it to keep going that direction.  The numbers there are such that the percentage breakout is more impressive: 50.3% Trump, 48% Biden.

11:45 PM: This group is now calling Ohio for Trump:

None of the bigs are doing so yet.  Oh – just as I went to update, the word came over that they are now calling Ohio for Trump.  Trump is way up in Ohio with 94% of the vote in: 53.4% to 45.2% for Biden.

That would put Trump at EC 166.

Meanwhile, the bigs are calling Arizona and New Mexico for Biden.  That’s probably safe in New Mexico.  We’ll see in Arizona.  Biden’s in the 53% range in both, with about 70% of the votes in.  Biden’s EC total is thus projected at 223.

Midnight/12:00 AM: Bloomberg reporter says Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania all say they won’t be able to complete their vote count tonight.  So it begins.  We were being conditioned to expect this.  Any suspicion about it will be called “conspiracy theory.”  It’s a really good question, however, why these particular states would be hamstrung in their counts, when all states are expecting more by-mail ballots than usual this year — the obvious “reason” for not being able to identify a winner or have a definitive vote tally in an expeditious manner.

Where the races stand now in those states:

Michigan – Trump 54.4%, Biden 43.4%

Pennsylvania – Trump 56.2%, Biden 41.4%

Wisconsin – Trump 51.9%, Biden 46.6%

… and a big one: Texas is now called for Trump.  That puts him at 204; Biden remaining at 233.

Oh, and here’s the tweet from Saleha Mohsin (with my RT and comments)

It can’t help looking like this is an adaptive ploy to start bringing in just enough by-mail ballots to overcome Trump’s substantial leads in the three states.

Other states could have been chosen for “delayed results” — but those states don’t have judges’ rulings that they can keep counting ballots into next week.

00:30 EST 4 November 2020:  Minnesota has just been called for Biden, which looks reasonable if we accept that the vote has been honest there.  We probably shouldn’t, but you have to pick your battles.  Biden’s officially at 53.1% to Trump’s 44.9%, with 75% of the vote counted.

Iowa has been called for Trump.

 

J.E. Dyer

J.E. Dyer

J.E. Dyer is a retired Naval Intelligence officer who lives in Southern California, blogging as The Optimistic Conservative for domestic tranquility and world peace. Her articles have appeared at Hot Air, Commentary’s Contentions, Patheos, The Daily Caller, The Jewish Press, and The Weekly Standard.

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