Now this is an interesting point, re: 28-yr. old Miami voter who switched at the last minute from Trump to Biden. Is he more of a "normal" human being than us political junkies? Gets one thinking on the principles on which modern democracy is based--not just elites get to decide--and then back to our own founders, who feared "populism" almost as much as monarchy and taxation without representation:

To be honest, I think of this point a lot here on Dag reading some of NCD's comments in particular. When he gets into his rants on how stupid a large part of our population is. Part of me agrees, but part of me reacts like this: that's very undemocratic and elitist of us.

Blind political junkies not able to see they are part of the problem that Trump merely exacerbated:

The only polling that should be allowed is by geographic location and party registration, none of that other shit. American Floridians. Period. If there is ethnic or racial or religious tribalism, last thing you want is politicians pandering to it.

I find this racist and disgusting.

good point, nonetheless it should be clear by now that one of the candidates would not give a damn about what you are saying and the other would:

Talk about gerontocracy. Six more years. He's @ 78 now. Currently with bruised hands and lips, probably from overdosing on blood thinner.

By Ryan Lizza & Daniel Lippmann, basically confirms what Joe said here about worrying whether he'll leave office if he loses:

1 GOP Senator down! 

geez NC-11 must be a district full of horribly nutty conservatives, remind me to stay away if I ever visit the state again. Col. Moe Davis, a really nice guy personality-wise, anti-Trump, but rather centrist (for example, formerly lead prosecutor at Gitmo!), lost against this raving lunatic 25-yr.-old right-wing troll Cawthorne:

Edit to add: I don't vouch for the accuracy of the exit poll quoted above, I just posted the tweet for the snarky nature of Williams' comment

Biden might as well lose if Dems don't have the Senate, which it appears they won't, not even 50-50. McConnell would be sure nothing anyone would notice would get done, and the 'bad' would be blamed on Joe.

Dems would get killed in the midterms as lefties and minorities wold say "Biden did nothing for me, I won't bother to vote", leading to President Donald Trump Jr. in 2024, with a GOP House and Senate and SCOTUS.  Progressive revolution delayed to 2030s or beyond.

Saddest story, appears Melania may have to do 4 more years of Whine House Christmas decorating.

oh look here's two people agreeing with rmrd's favorite pundit, Glenn Loury about the close election pickle we are currently  in:

Expecting a thread hijacking now...

Good details on current mail vote issues

Rick Wilson retweeted on the USPS thing:

Trump campaign was livid when Fox News called Arizona for Biden — and tensions boiled over on-air

By Sarah Ellison @ WashingtonPost.com, November 4, 2020 at 8:23 a.m. EST

Fox anchor Bill Hemmer was gearing up to do another review for viewers of a map of the United States that at 11:20 p.m. was looking surprisingly positive for President Trump when he did a double take in the lower left-hand quadrant.

“Have we called Arizona?” he asked, sounding stunned.

Indeed, with only 73 percent of its vote reported, the analysts on the cable giant’s stridently independent decision desk had already bestowed a yellow check mark on the Grand Canyon State — putting it in Joe Biden’s column long before any other network was making that call.

It was one of several times throughout the night that the president’s favorite network declared results long before its competitors — and not necessarily in the president’s favor. Trump campaign officials were livid, and the tensions boiled over onto the broadcast, where former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders insisted it was a “premature call,” and anchor Bret Baier called upon decision-desk director Arnon Mishkin to explain himself on camera, because “we’re getting a lot of incoming here.”

“I’m sorry,” Mishkin said, “the president is not going to be able to take over and win enough votes to eliminate that seven-point lead that the former vice president has.” Told the White House was convinced otherwise, he stood his ground: “I’m sorry we’re not wrong in this particular case.” (“You don’t have to apolpgize,” Baier told Mishkin.)

Mishkin, a registered Democrat who works for Fox as a contractor, would go on to apologize several times throughout the course of the night — not for being wrong, but for daringly delivering calls that were so early they initially looked suspect. His calls added pressure on other news outlets reporting on a highly competitive race in a country that was uniquely divided and anxious about its result. And they helped ramp up the tension on a night when Trump was brazenly urging the vote count to be stopped before all early and absentee ballots were counted

Indeed, not long after polling analyst Nate Silver declared that the Fox News call on Arizona “looms pretty large as a check against claims Trump might make that he’s winning,” the president indirectly alluded to Mishkin in his 2 a.m. speech claiming he was on track to victory.

“Arizona, we have a lot of life in that, and somebody said — somebody declared it was a victory for — and maybe it will be, I mean, that’s possible,” the president said. “But certainly there were a lot of votes out there that we could get because we’re now just coming into what they call Trump territory.”

But as dawn approached, many other news organizations, including the Associated Press, also called Arizona for Biden. “Arnon was right,” Fox anchor Martha MacCallum said. “The White House was wrong." [....]

Looking like GA is becoming a swing state very much like Wisconsin, likewise with geographically segregated populations and urban area suburbs more mixed

Likewise looking like it might be a bad idea electorally if angry BLM protesters went and broke windows in suburban Atlanta (as in Wauwatosa and Milwaukee) and other things like burn police cars in suburban Atlanta either. (I also have this suspicion Keisha Lance-Bottoms might agree with me)

In Atlanta’s all-important suburbs, election officials scramble to finish counting votes

By Reis Thebault and Haisten Willis @ WashingtonPost.com, Nov. 4

ATLANTA — Inside a sprawling county government complex outside Atlanta, elections officials are working feverishly to count thousands of remaining ballots that could swing the presidential election in former vice president Joe Biden’s favor.

DeKalb County, home to the state’s largest city and its eastern suburbs, has reported an estimated 79 percent of its votes. County spokesperson Erik Burton said there is still a portion of absentee ballots left to be counted but did not say exactly how many.

“The goal today is to get through everything we can,” Burton said. “It’ll be all hands on deck.”

By 10 a.m. Wednesday, Trump led Biden by about 100,000 votes in the state, but the counties still tabulating — including DeKalb — lean heavily Democratic.

The DeKalb Voter Registration and Elections Office was buzzing Wednesday morning, as dozens of workers in multiple rooms drudged through the repetitive, assembly-line-style process of counting the absentee ballots.

First, about a dozen people working at computers verify voters’ signatures electronically, then the ballots are sorted by precinct. Next, workers use a machine extractor that can open thousands of envelopes in an hour and then lay them flat to feed them into another machine that will count them.

Most absentee ballots were processed ahead of Election Day, and those left to be counted Wednesday were among the last to come in, Burton said.

Officials have not said when the public can expect more results.

In nearby Lawrenceville, votes are being counted at Gwinnett County’s Voter Registrations and Elections office [....]

Because of the electoral college, presidential elections lately have hinged on a a very few voters in swing states, it's just the way it is. You don't want to loose, you pander to them instead of alienating them. Been arguing that point here on Dag since forever, seems like with some people it just doesn't sink in. (Obama got it, he had his own Sister Souljah moments back in his first primary, many have long forgotten.)

Confirms what Bob Bauer said here, that this time, they are the ones that are unprepared incompetents:

Luntz's latest thoughts:

also includes what I already posted upthread