Bartimaeus

"data scientist who wishes to remain anonymous" lmao, think I'll rather listen to the various data scientists and analysts who do put their names behind their work, who called everything that would happen (Georgia and Wisconsin going down to the wire but with a slight Biden advantage, Pennsylvania and especially Michigan ultimately not being particularly close, Arizona being called too early, etc.) on the night of the election, aka before any of the things they expected had even the appearance of happening. There's a reason I was reasonably confident Biden would win (and where he would win) while everyone else was assuming and bemoaning Trump's victory.

Yeah, I don't give a crap about Trump, he's been defeated and there's no real sign that he's not going to leave office (voluntarily or otherwise). The second half of my post is what I'm worried about - the fact that such a clear and pathetic wannabe-dictator (even if it's purely for his own self-gratification and nothing else) has such a cult of personality and half of our population is just cool with it while gladly promoting his various forms of hatred and authoritarianism. It seems likely they're going to be looking for another to rally around (especially because he only just barely lost the election in this gamed electoral system), and the next one that comes along is likely to have much grander ideas and be a lot more competent. A 'true believer' is much more dangerous than whatever sorry mess Trump passed for. (edit): Identity politics suck. It's been a huge part of the Democrats' platform for a while, and it seems to be an increasingly large part of the Republicans' lately as well (in their own twisted way). Bernie Sanders was my guy for a reason, and that reason was that he talked about real issues pretty consistently while only paying lip service to garbage like identity politics. (...Also, I liked the way he handled gun control for a progressive, although he was admittedly forcibly pushed left of where he seemed he wanted to be in his 2020 run, which kind of sucked, but I can accept one little failing on the man, especially in the current political climate. Perfection is the enemy of God, after all, .)

There have certainly been presidents who have shifted us towards authoritarianism, some much more strongly than was warranted given the crises of the day, but to my knowledge, we have never had such a genuinely cult-like fervor for an openly autocratic leader that wished they were dictator, and whose millions of followers wished the same (and tens of millions of more who thought nothing much of it so long as they got what they wanted out of it - I can't help but think of parallels to the rise of Nazism in Germany). The next four years should help elucidate whether that was a momentary error, or the trend of something much more deeply frightening in our society - my money is on the latter. These kinds of moments don't usually occur in a vacuum or out of nowhere, even if they feel like they do at the time...and based on the ever increasing disparities between what people want or feel like they need, as well as life just generally not being as good, prosperous, and/or stable for most compared to decades past, I imagine it's only going to get worse.

306*? The same amount Trump earned, coincidentally? I think he lost a couple from faithless electors, so it officially went down as 304, but he earned 306.

Trump is the first president in over 150 years not to have any kind of pets (...animals that aren't humans, I mean, before anyone cracks any jokes) at the White House. There is apparently a widely held belief that Trump hates dogs (his frequent use of comparing people he doesn't like to them certainly does nothing to help dispel that), so at the very least, @Guard Dog should be happy to know that there will be canines in and at the White House once again, . Though I wonder...if Trump hated dogs, was it because dogs hated him?

**** Donald J. Trump, **** Melania Trump, **** Donald Trump Jr., **** Eric Trump, **** Jared Kushner, **** Ivanka Trump, **** Mike Pence, **** William Barr, **** Louis DeJoy, **** Betsy Devos, **** Rudy Giuliani, **** Mike Pompeo, **** KellyAnne Conway, **** Steven Mnuchin, **** Stephen Miller, **** Mike Meadows, **** Andrew Wheeler, **** Gina Haspel, **** Kayleigh McEnany, **** Wilbur Ross, and every other piece of ****, past and present, from this corrupt, incompetent, racist, sexist, fascist, or otherwise generically horrid basket of deplorables of an administration. Place yourselves directly into your nearest dumpster and go straight to hell.

Amen. Sounds like a plan.

for anyone who has no clue who the above person is (like me): https://the-boys.fandom.com/wiki/Homelander

The United States of America's next president, folks: he'll be 82 by the end of his first term, lmao

Didn't seem to change anything for Florida, who does count their ballots early and where Biden was a mild polling favorite.

Anyone remember Trump voters' motto and taunt to liberals after he won back in 2016? With their increasingly pathetic (and completely unsubstantiated) claims and crying of cheating and voter fraud, it's hard for it not to come to mind...

Biden officially takes the lead in Georgia (+1000 or thereabouts right now, likely to grow at least a little). Donald Trump...

Uh...maybe? It sure sounds related!

Vladimir Putin planning on retiring next year? ...Might be total BS, difficult to say. NY Post is a total rag, but interesting timing coinciding with Trump's presidential loss.

Fox News' internal polling and projection models are among the best in the business - everything else, not so much. I think their projection of Arizona probably stays correct, but it was premature.

Maybe depends on whether the stress has caused him to completely lose his marbles by then...

It might not be called by tonight, but it should be for sure by tomorrow if not. If yesterday looked 95% like Biden, it is 99% right now with Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Nevada all but his (and still likely but not certainly Arizona). I could see a network calling it tonight in order to get a head-start on everyone else when it seems so certain. Relatedly, the second Georgian senate race has been officially called to go to run-off. Two Georgian senate elections in January!

I think they're waiting to see it get closer before they do so, because they'd prefer to avoid having to retract it and then re-call it for Biden in the event it does stay for him. Unlike Nevada, Georgia, or Pennsylvania, the analysts I'm following don't seem to have a good grip on where the remaining votes from Arizona are or by what method they were voted for, both of which would help suggest which way they'll lean towards, so there's a lot of uncertainty. Biden might easily be called safe if a big batch comes in and favors him heavily, or it could just as easily become a nail-biter. I don't think Arizona will ultimately matter - Nevada, Georgia, and Pennsylvania are likely to go Biden, rendering it moot...and Biden only needs Nevada + either of the other two to officially win it.

Last I checked, they still have about 100k outstanding ballots, but they're expected to about break even overall (maybe mildly lead one or the other way, but not enough to change anything even if it's Trump), and analysts have suggested that it is just about callable at this point. However, Fox made an error in calling Arizona so early (even if the state ultimately does still stay Biden), because now if they call Nevada for Biden, they would reach that 270 number (and be the first to do so) when there is still genuine uncertainty about where Arizona ends up. In other news, Senator Perdue of Georgia has fallen under 50% in his re-election bid, and it's likely to stay that way, forcing a double senatorial run-off (i.e. another election) to decide the Senate majority. It is anyone's guess as to how those two races might go with Trump off the ballot while also having them deciding the Senate. The Senate is more or less officially still in play here. A double victory would prove instrumental for the Democrats, for it would allow them to decide what is or isn't voted on in the Senate, as opposed to Mitch McConnell doing his thing in not allowing anything to be voted for.

PA is the thing that seals Trump's doom, and all the analysts still believe it is likely to go to Biden, but there is still a two point gap, and networks are likely waiting for Biden to at least take the lead before they call it - for optics' sake, if nothing else. Nevada and Georgia/Arizona would do it as well, but while the strong feeling is that Nevada will stay Biden, Arizona and Georgia are both too close to strongly say one way or the other, hence the delay.

There is no need for them to join. Once 270 has been breached, then the remaining states that did not join do not matter, as all the states that did join will give their 270 votes to the winner of the popular vote while completely ignoring their own individual results. That's the entire idea. So once all reliably blue states have joined, you only need just *one* swing state to join as well, such as Pennslyvania or Georgia, to breach that 270 number. It might take a strong blue wave year for it to happen (with no corresponding red wave), but it probably will sooner or later.

Florida, Texas, and Ohio do not matter whether or not it is accepted, except that if they adopted it, it would make it take effect that much faster. I wrote a breakdown of it earlier in the thread, but once the rest of the reliably blue states join it, effectively only one swing state (such as Pennsylvania) needs to join before it is forcibly adopted and effective: It's still going to take time and is unlikely to be in effect by 2024, but 2028 and 2032 are realistic possibilities (although I'd say Democrats not getting control of the state legislatures they expected to this year probably will put it off for longer).

It will be a great boon to our election process if/when the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact goes into effect over the next decade or two.

All Democrats really needed to do was target Miami-Dade in Florida and shift the margins back to how much Clinton won them by and Biden would likely have Florida...and probably nobody would've even noticed. Amateur hour here, .

There's unlikely to be a call tonight after all, since Nevada changed its mind (again!) and decided to wait until tomorrow to finalize its results rather than release them in two batches. Arizona, which was called for Biden early by Fox, is tightening up and looks likely to get close, although it's difficult to say how exactly, so no final call there tonight either. Georgia looks increasingly likely to go to Biden (but ever so narrowly, possibly within a similar or even slimmer margin as Wisconsin did), while the analysts seem fairly certain Trump has lost Pennsylvania.