The Morning After: Day One

One of the advantages of living in California is that when it's 1:55 in the morning here (as it is as I write this), a late, but not unreasonable hour to be up on a close presidential election night, it's 4:55 AM in the east.  So, at least I have more details to go on than might be available to others who went asleep oh-so much earlier.  And by the time you read this, much more will most certainly be known.  But at some point I do have to go to sleep...

Mind you, that doesn't make me any more prescient, and so I don't really have a clue what's going on, but do have a sense.

To start with, it looks that while my thoughts Tuesday on morning had some basis in reality, the larger reality is that I was wrong, along with (again, bizarrely) most of the polls.  I thought that there would be a pretty strong sense of a direction on how the election was going, even if there wasn't a clear winner...and I even thought a clear winner was possible.  But that not only wasn't the case, and even though Joe Biden still has several strong paths to win, not of that is certain.  And it was a dismal night for Democrats in the Senate, and even shockingly it looks like Democrats will lose a few seats in the House, though kept the majority.  

And this is all in the middle of a pandemic and massive economic crash under a Republican administration lead by an out-of-control, malignant narcissist fascist.  Joe Biden could still win as I write this -- but he may not, and Democrats won't likely win the Senate. And lost seats in the House.

Democrats came impressively close in Florida, Texas, and Ohio, as well as likely Georgia and North Carolina, but not impressively close enough, it appears.  (Though North Carolina remains very close, and Georgia has tightened to Trump up by 118,000 votes with 9% of the total remaining to be counted, including much the Atlanta metro area.)  But of course, the point is to win the presidency.

While  results through the night showed Trump with leads in Pennsylvania and Michigan, both still have outstanding votes yet to be counted.  In Pennsylvania alone, there are 2.2 million mail-in votes that hadn't been counted yet, mostly in Democratic Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.  And most of the outstanding votes in Michigan were also early voting.

What's left out of this picture is that Biden has a solid lead in Arizona -- he won Maricopa County by 8 points, and that's 60% of the state.  And if Biden does win Arizona (which he appears on the way to) and wins Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota -- though none of that is certain -- then (along with the 2nd District of Nebraska, which has been called for him), Biden will have his 270 Electoral Votes exactly and be elected president.  Even without Pennsylvania -- which numbers suggest he should win.

"Should" is the operative term, since Trump was disturbingly ahead in Wisconsin by 118,000 votes with 84% of the vote counted. But -- still not reporting had been Milwaukee County, which is Democratic. And just moments ago, indeed the reason why I was waiting up this late, the results for Milwaukee just came in, and Joe Biden picked up so many that he took the lead in Wisconsin by 11,000 votes.  This is huge -- though 11% of the vote remains to be counted.  (Still, so much for that ABC News/Washington Post poll that had Biden winning the state by 17 points...)  

As much of a "lock" as Wisconsin seemed on Tuesday morning, it seems balancing on a pin now.  But even though Biden is behind in Pennsylvania and Michigan at the moment, he appears to have a chance to turn those around, especially Pennsylvania.  And if he turns around just one of them -- and holds on to his razor thin lead in Nevada -- he wins.  But there's that pesky "if."

The larger point is that we're still a day -- or maybe even two (or more??) -- before we know enough of the votes to have a solid winner, even though the direction is headed that way.

The additional issue, of course, is there still will be voter repression and legal challenges.  That doesn't mean they will change any the results, but will delay things and cause uncertainty about those who have been conditioned by Trump to believe it's all "rigged."

Important Note about those legal challenges:  One of the Trump campaign's major legal challenges has always been centered on Pennsylvania.  But here's their problem:  if Joe Biden flips Wisconsin (which at the moment he has, though it's razor thin) and Michigan (which, because of all the mail-in votes still out, is very possible), and wins Arizona and the Nebraska 2nd district -- both of which he's respectably ahead -- he doesn't even need Pennsylvania to get 270. 

And this doesn't include the other states that right now are too close to call. Biden's behind in them, but as we're learning with so many mail-in votes to be counted, those have been breaking very heavily for Joe Biden. So, even these are states is in doubt.  If some of them do reverse during the next day (or days...), this angst-filled razor-thin majority could bizarrely turn into comfortable margin for Biden.  Could.  But what a "head of a pin" to dance on.  And no, whatever the margin there could ​be, there's nothing "comfortable" about it, or any of this.

By the way, speaking of voter suppression, none of these totals, of course, include the 300,000 mailed ballots that have been scanned into the postal system but not delivered, which federal judge Emmet Sullivan ordered on Tuesday be immediately found and delivered, an order Postmaster General Louis DeJoy ignored.  (And at this point, after Election Day, even if they were now tracked down and delivered, they wouldn't be eligible to be counted in many, if not most states.)

As noted, Democrats will probably lose a few seats in the House, though hold control -- and flipping the Senate seems unlikely.  It's certainly reasonable to think that they could, but too much is too close in too many states even at this late point to know more.  What with losing a seat in Alabama, Democrats had to flip four seats to take control -- they've flipped Colorado, will likely flip Arizona, appears like they should flip Maine...and then -- it's uphill.  They could flip North Carolina, or Montana or Georgia, all of which have Republicans ahead but are extremely close with significant votes still outstanding.  The biggest individual disappointments are that both Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham won re-election.  But hopefully they'll be on the minority side of the bench without the power they had before. Though even that likelihood is thinning.  Especially if Biden doesn't end up winning, since then Democrats would need to win five more seats to take control.  And it's hard to see that happening.

​It should be noted, even if meaningless in how we elect a president, that Joe Biden is ahead in the popular vote by several million, and that seems to be increasing.  (Though it's also far less than the 8-10% margin almost every poll had.  It was a very bad night -- again -- for polls.)

I think Biden is in a position where he could win.  And a much better position than he was literally just five minutes ago.  But that's still dancing on the edge of a coin.  I wish I knew more, even staying up this late in California.  I wish Biden would not just win, but had been able to do so by a big clear margin.  I wish Democrats could take control of the Senate.  But most of those seem unlikely.  However, as I said yesterday -- I'll take the first thing on the list.  Dayenu.  It would be enough.  Especially looking at the map at 1:55 in the morning in the West.