RandoEFC

#COYB

Pennsylvania - 550k ballots left, pretty much all mail-in votes where Biden has been taking 70-80% of the votes. Means that Biden will probably beat Trump by 300k or so over the course of these votes. Trump's lead is only just over 100k. Pennsylvania alone is enough to finish the job. Georgia - 50k ballots left, again pretty much all mail-in votes. Biden needs to win about 65% of them. He has been winning about 70-75% of them so far. Biden looks likely to overtake and win the state by the slimmest of margins. Nevada - about 50k ballots left, Biden's lead is slim here but the remaining votes are absentee (mail-in) votes and mostly in Clark County which is heavily Democratic. Also bear in mind that the mail-in demographic are likely to make it more blue still, so he should be fine. Although in Nevada they think the mail-in votes won't be quite so dominantly Democrat than other states. Arizona - I'm not really across the detail here. Most people seem to think Biden will survive but some of the mail-in votes favour Trump. Probably not by enough for him to catch up but he might. Alaska and the second district in Maine will be called for Trump at some point and the probability of North Carolina also staying red is very high but not certain.

Biden is favourite now in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia and Arizona. Winning all of those would leave him on 306 electoral college votes, a victory of 306-234. Fairly convincing at the end and not leaving Trump much of a leg to stand on. On one hand I want to see it finish, on the other I want it to be stretched out as long as possible to see how far Trump's twitter feed descends further into madness.

If it wasn't the goalkeeper position Pickford probably would have been dropped for Pope by now. Pickford is having just enough decent games and moments for Everton without having any howlers for England either that he is still able to stave off Pope. Pope is more consistent than Pickford but his ceiling isn't that high whereas Pickford is capable of stand out performances. If you had a consistent top half standard English goalkeeper then they probably would have ousted Pickford. Henderson is a non-entity as long as he isn't playing. It would have been smarter for Southgate to drop Henderson if he's not playing anyway, to put some pressure on the lad to try and get some game time. If he played another season or two regularly in the top flight he could easily displace Pickford if he doesn't improve.

I think 2016 Trump would have had a chance if there was a presidential election in the UK in 2016 but not now. There was a poll last week on who Britons would vote for in a presidential election here and it forecast that Biden would have won 650 constituencies out of 650. I have about as low an opinion as is possible of a certain demographic of the electorate in the UK and the media that feeds them, but I don't think I'd go that far. If he was running as a party leader of the Conservatives he could probably win a majority, yeah, if that's what you mean. I'm not sure though. There have been government insiders over here that have said the feeling in Cabinet is actually that it was a bit of a toss up who they'd be better off with. Trump gives them a better chance of securing a trade deal with the US while Biden basically said we can fuck off if the Good Friday Agreement is compromised by Brexit, which it probably will be. On the other hand, they're aware of just how unpopular Trump is in the UK. When he visited last year in the run up to our election, there wasn't any pomp or photo ops in front of Number 10 because they were so worried about cuddling up to Trump having a negative impact on their prospects with the electorate. For all of the parallels that have been drawn between Trump and Johnson/Brexit, the extent to which our government has really aligned itself with him publicly is very limited because they know it doesn't play well at all. What has been noticeable are the Trumpian communication techniques deployed by Johnson's government, basically resorting to name-calling of immigrants, opposing politicians and other undesirables to play to their base and stoke up division. Also the stop at nothing to win approach, proroguing parliament, renaming their Twitter account to Fact Check UK, spamming social media with propaganda and refusing to admit it when the evidence of their lies and contradictions is played back to them on record. And using the social media accounts of Government departments for political messaging. Anyway, back to Trump, yeah you're probably right about the media. If you told the Sun, Mail and Telegraph today that we want Trump in Number 10 after the 2024 general election I could see them getting pretty close to pulling it off.

What's the feeling towards electoral form in America? The electoral college system is objectively ridiculous, as much as it makes for exciting viewing from my point of view as a mathematician and someone who loves the whole thing from exit poll to initial projection to the closing arithmetic. In the UK, we have a similarly flawed system which can see, for example UKIP in 2012(?) getting 10% of the vote and no MPs when by rights they should have had 65. It's the same in the USA. Voting regionally for Senators and Representatives makes sense as you need the local accountability. There's no reason why the Presidential election shouldn't just be decided by the popular vote, as the President represents the whole country, not an individual state. I get that the constitution is precious in the US but I wonder what the public perception is? Electoral reform isn't actually an unpopular policy in the UK. Last poll I saw it may even have been just over half of those polled who were in favour of moving towards proportional representation. The practicalities are difficult in the UK though because an MP has local accountability as well as playing a role in the arithmetic of the House of Commons. You'd have to separate those two roles if you wanted to change the House of Commons to proportional representation without constituencies ending up with MPs they didn't vote for. It's also probably never going to happen in the UK because neither of the major parties are going to introduce legislation to get rid of a system that enables them to rack up well over half of the seats in the House with 30-40% of the national vote. In the US I understand that the Senate and the House are more like the UK's House of Commons but sacking off the electoral college and choosing the President on popular vote just seems like such an easy win to me. The electoral college is brilliant from an observer's perspective, observing the strategy of each campaign, analysing the changing demographics in each state, etc. It isn't democratic though, is it? And that's before you get started on the fact that the President is allowed to make direct appointments to the Supreme Court who may be asked to rule on the legitimacy of a Presidential election result involving him or her during their time serving within it.

I'm seeing a lot of this about the courts, the Senate, the house of representatives, etc. Fair enough, there's still going to be a fuck ton wrong with America, and it might not even get better under Biden, but can't we just be happy that it's not Trump for another four years? This election means so much in the bigger picture. It's not the emphatic rejection of populism that I'd hoped we'd see after 4 years of this maniac, but it's still a rejection. The US President is arguably the most prominent person in the world, certainly has been when it's been the overgrown whoopee cushion over the last few years. The damage he's done to worldwide relations, globalisation, fighting climate change, generally setting any sort of example of behaviour or decency, has been extreme, and with the vindication of a second term behind him after all the shite he's got away with over the past four years, the damage would have become immeasurable. This stuff has an impact all over the world, certainly over the Western world. It was horrifying over the past four years as a teacher when I'd see 14 year olds in the UK doing impressions of Trump and thinking he was some comedic figure, imitating the things he said, thinking they were being edgy most of the time but sometimes actually thinking some of those things were becoming okay to say again, and who can blame them when the US President was coming out with them and getting away with it? I was absolutely delighted yesterday when I had a class of 12-13 year olds in front of me asking if Biden was ahead in Michigan yet. All bar one (that were interested) wanted Biden to win. I can't express that myself because you have a responsibility as a teacher not to express your political views to young people, but that sort of thing restores my faith in humanity just a little bit. Yes, it's absolutely horrible that the US and the Western world has got to a point where celebrating "not Trump" as progress is a thing, but I'm going to celebrate it anyway. Right now, in this moment, I don't care about the Senate, I don't care about the Supreme Court. I'm almost 28 and this is the first election in my adult life which has yielded any hint of positivity for the future. The US might still be in a really shitty place politically but arresting the slide, and taking a step in the right direction, however small (and I wouldn't call it small) is cause for celebration. Biden isn't the man to fix everything and he might get very little done policy-wise in the years to come but his line "I'm going to govern not as a Democratic President but as an American President" is the exact tonic the US needs after Trump and that's what people outside the US will see for the next four years. In the big picture, that to me is the most important thing. You have to allow yourself to hope and believe that a President's example can "groom" the electorate to move more to the left so that the Senate and Congress can be moulded in the image of a more progressive country down the line, otherwise we're just going to stay miserable. Trump lost, celebrate.

Almost half of the country just voted to re-elect a known racist sex offender who openly lies to the public, pours gasoline upon the embers of the historical divisions in the country and profits off of it. Biden might not be much of a socialist but he is at least a reasonable and responsible human being which is enough of a fundamental change for now. You're not going to convince the electorate to switch from Trump to Sanders overnight. These things have to come in steps and we have to understand this both in the UK and in the US or we're going to be complaining on forums about right wing governments for a lot longer. The idea behind Biden is that he's palatable to a lot of Trump supporters, the ones they actually had a chance of winning over. His job is to show them what moderation and compassion can look like over the next 4-8 years so that if it's Kamala Harris or somebody else more to the left than Biden on the next presidential ticket, some trust in kindness and togetherness can be built back into the electorate.

Calling Arizona early looking like an increasingly strange decision from Fox and others. It'll be close but I think Biden will hold on there and Nevada. Georgia and Pennsylvania both looking positive as well. One of the CNN reporters last night made a good point that it would be beneficial for Biden to win with a state "in hand". The Republicans might think it's worth having a go at overturning the count in, say, Pennsylvania if that alone would be enough to give Trump the election, but they're less likely if they're more than 20 electoral college votes away and they have to start getting stuck in legally in 2-3 states to overturn the results.

Biden isn't exciting by any means, but he's probably the guy they needed to put up against Trump. Looking at the way this election has panned out, it's a major relief they didn't put someone like Sanders up against Trump because it would have panned out the same as Johnson vs Corbyn in December and condemned the USA to another 4 years of dangerous and divisive populism. When you're up against the candidate of chaos, you need to take the non-chaotic line and Biden fits that bill. Would have been better if he was 10 years younger and had a bit more sparkle left in him but it looks like it's enough this time. The speech he just made was probably the best I've heard from him. Clearly casting himself as a moderate, compassionate leader who wants to govern the whole country properly rather than egregiously running the country in a way that rewards the people who voted for him and upsets his "enemies".

CNN have just called Michigan for Joe Biden. His vote share now exceeds Trump by more than 1% which makes a recount even more pointless and unlikely than the one they've called for in Wisconsin. If he flips Pennsylvania, or holds onto Nevada and Arizona, he wins.

Now we have Trump declaring victory in Pennsylvania which basically means he's absolutely shitting himself over the fact that his lead is now just under 350,000 and Biden's postal vote is very much on track to get in the ball park of winning there. I was wrong about how many votes were left in Michigan, apparently there are still a few hundred thousand, but Biden's lead now exceeds 60,000 and continues to rise. Trump is also so confident that he's won Pennsylvania that his campaign are now trying to find any excuse they can to stop them from counting the votes. So basically, he's definitely won, but he also wants them to stop counting the votes, and it's nothing to do with the fact that Biden is taking 20,000-sized chunks out of him every time a new set of results are reported, that's how much he's definitely won Pennsylvania.

Republicans just making noise. The way those votes are split is more or less consistent with the in-person voting percentages in Wayne county.

Michigan looks like a safe bet now. Biden's lead up to almost 40,000. They've added almost 100k since they said there was about 100k left to count.

Calling Nevada seems bold with the current gap and vote share even though most of the remaining votes are likely Democrat.

Arizona isn't finished yet either, only Fox have called that for Biden, but those three states wrap it up for Biden if he holds the lead, yes. They won't call any of the states until enough votes, in person or mail votes, have been counted to leave the result beyond any doubt.

COUNT THE VOTES STOP COUNTING THE VOTES COUNT THE VOTES AGAIN!!!!

One hand on the cup.

I think they can see some statistics that we can't about the breakdown of votes of mail in voters, on the day voters, early in-person voters etc. It's broadly consistent across the country, we can see it for ourselves. In the states like Georgia and North Carolina, where they released the counts of the pre-Election Day votes first, Biden led and was then pegged back. In Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, they weren't allowed to even start counting the early votes until the polls closed yesterday. On the day voting was released first, Trump took a huge lead in all three states, then it moves onto the postal ballots, and Biden catches up. This is a deliberate ploy by the Republican legislators in those three states to set up Trump's plan B this morning "where have all these Biden votes come from, I was in the lead last night, this is fraud". Well he's right on the last count.

If they actually did that though, there wouldn't be Labour parties and Democrats having to fight for it to happen and get the votes to put it into action. I get that people like to call themselves "libertarians" and it's the "land of the free" blah blah blah but if you're happy to give up some of your own money to help people less fortunate than you, then just pay your taxes. It isn't more complicated than that when you throw all of the 'excuse language' out the window.

It's astonishing how many voters both the Republicans and Conservatives in the UK still manage to keep on side because they're "the party of Christianity" when in reality it's the Democrats and Labour parties who want to do things like feed starving children and provide access to healthcare to those who can't afford the extortionate costs of it for themselves. It's almost as if they're using religion as an excuse to vote for an "I'm Alright, Jack" party that basically allows them to be more selfish but who am I to say.

Georgia is still possible for Biden as the postal votes close the gap for him but that gap is still around 100k and he would need there to be around 250-300k uncounted postal votes for there to really be a chance. I haven't heard people saying there's likely to be a significant number though. Some are starting to suggest that the current trajectory in Pennsylvania as the postal votes are being counted point to Biden turning it blue. I'm sceptical. He doesn't need it though. He needs to take the lead in Michigan and hold Nevada and Wisconsin. Then he has the electoral college votes and he is President. Things are heading in the right direction for him in all three of those states and the markets are now making him a convincing favourite again. Anything else is just a bonus.

Big dump of votes in Michigan. Biden now only 12k behind. Looks like it won't actually even be that close. Well it'll be close, but it won't take until the last ballots to turn Michigan blue. The gap in Biden's favour in Wisconsin is also creeping up by a couple of thousand here and there. Nothing new from Georgia, North Carolina or Pennsylvania but even if they all stay red, it looks like Trump has lost 271-269.

Nevada has narrowed, but it has been confirmed that the only votes left to be counted are (likely to be heavily Democratic) postal votes. Biden will hold onto those 6 votes. Biden is currently a bit ahead in Wisconsin and a bit behind in Michigan. Michigan is closing. They're a lot closer to finishing the count in Wisconsin than Michigan. In fact, apparently Michigan is more of a sure thing than Wisconsin as the postal votes are the ones that need to be counted and so far they've been roughly 70-30 in Biden's favour. Biden is therefore likely to end up with both Michigan and Wisconsin, which along with Nevada would put him on 270, with the 4th and final electoral college vote from Maine going his way to take him over that halfway point. Pennsylvania is the hardest one to call. Trump leads by 700,000 votes but one third of the votes are yet to be counted. Again, these are mostly coming from the likes of Philadelphia and are votes cast before Election Day, so should heavily favour Biden, but that's a massive gap to make up and there doesn't seem to be any clear consensus on which way this goes yet. Trump will win Alaska, no question. He has a narrow lead in North Carolina and Georgia with most of the votes counted. Georgia is heading towards Biden but the ballots are running out and opinion is split on who is the slight favourite. North Carolina probably stays red. Georgia seems to be 50-50. Again, this one is hugely damaging to Trump as it starts to give Biden quite a decent electoral college majority along with the popular vote which looks like it'll just top 50% by the end. I've just discovered why the three key states Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, are counting the early and postal votes after the Election Day polls closed unlike many other places which called a lot earlier than them. Well apparently the Republicans changed the law in these states so that these votes, which are likely to heavily favour Biden, would be counted last. This enables Trump to peddle this easily disprovable nonsense about these perfectly legitimate votes "appearing out of thin air" when usually they would have been counted earlier and given Biden (if he's won those states) a massive lead that Trump wouldn't have had enough votes to overcome. 10/10 to the Republicans for identifying this incredibly narrow route to victory, or at least the Supreme Court. 0/10 to the Republicans though for having any respect for democracy. In summary, fuck me, this is about as close as it can get, and it's absolute madness.

Biden is ahead in Wisconsin now. If that holds, then along with the 4th vote from Maine, one of Georgia, Pennsylvania or Michigan tips him over 270.