More fascinating than any other story to me is how the voting totals break down state by state. I'll get into a little of that below.
In the meantime, I don't see any reasonable reason that Fox and every other network hasn't called this for Biden, at least as an initial matter and subject to any recounts or late surprises. Their probability analysis has had to be over 95% since yesterday and it's their duty to report reality, not what anyone might wish reality was. If I were the one in charge, I'd've called it for Biden a while ago.
I would prefer to see more Republicans come out like Hogan and Romney with something stronger than an eyeroll to throw a wet blanket on Trump's conspiracy theories about the vote being stolen.
That's how I felt during the Gore "recount" in Florida. It's absurd to demand of the opposition what we wouldn't demand from our own team.
It's also absurd to label voter fraud as a conspiracy theory. Voter fraud is detected in every election, notwithstanding that our "system" as modified through last minute court orders makes it virtually impossible to detect it for any of the most likely vectors for which it occurs. It's almost certainly, a tip of the iceberg situation when we catch any at all.
Don't mistake the preference of the Elites on both sides to pretend there's no vote fraud, and therefore that their own power is totally legitimate, with reality.
Romney is likely trying to set himself up for a possible 2024 Presidential run, although that could be a big maybe, given he'll be 77 by then.
Romney is done as a national candidate. The media may try to prop him up as a candidate (the way they did for both John McCain and then Donald Trump in 2016) because they know he's never getting turn out from the Republican base ever again. In fact, a big take away from this result - for me - is that never Trumpers have been repudiated.
In my opinion its what Trump says and method that makes him dangerous. I understand Republicans/Conservatives preferring his policies but staying silent on his method and the things he says Is acceptance of his method of governance and 'leading'.
And what is staying silent on the blatant media manipulation of how what he says is presented? I've watched many press conferences beginning to end, and found that the media reported version misrepresented what was said in the worst possible ways. I mean, again, the debunked claim on what Trump said in Charlottsville was literally brought in the first debate, has been repeated thousands of times, and was debunked and untrue on the first day it was written by the press.
Claiming, as Wayward frequently does, that he's using Trump's own words is sophistry when he may say something correctly 11 times in a press conference, leave no confusion or ambiguity and then the media pulls the 12th occasion where there was ambiguity out to use out of context to create a false impression. Even when it's a direct tweet the context is often stripped, explanation is always stripped and interpretations are often added that deliberately misconstrue it. I mean it's trivially easy to pull Biden's words out to show anything you want, he mispeaks in every public interaction, but you don't see the mainstream press EVER straining to highlight it - in fact they bury it.
If you want "Republicans" to speak out about what Trump says, you need to get the media to report accurately first so that there can be a real debate.
I think the main difference between this year and 16 is that the voters in 20 had had four years of Trump in action to consider.
Clinton in 16 was an underwhelming candidate, neck deep in the swamp. So is Biden. Except this year enough people had seen Trump's true colors and went the other way.
And this back to what i opened with. I think you came to a very interesting conclusion here. What you see if you look at the state by state results is not a story that voters changed their minds, in fact, Trump pretty much increased his voter support across the Board in every state and with key demographics that were "impossible" groups that "hate him." He got more female voters, more black voters, more hispanic voters across the board. The difference here is a massive change in turn out.
Let's set a rough baseline, and take a look at VA for example, 2016 roughly, 2m to 1.8m or so in favor of Hillary, and in 2020 2.3m to 1.9 Biden. Roughly a 10-15% voter increase. Or say Kansas, 670k to 430k in favor of Trump, to 750k to 550k in favor of Trump, 15-20% voter increase. NY, 4.55m to 2.8m to Clinton, now at 3.7m to 2.85m in Biden's favor with 78% reporting (so rough justice it finishes at 4.75m to 3.65m, for a 10-15% increase).
What about the battleground states?
GA - 2.1m to 1.9 Trump in 2016, 2.5 to 2.5 Biden in 2020. Around 25%.
NC - 2.36m to 2.19m Trump, 2.73 to 2.65 Trump. Increase of about 15-20%
PA - 2.97 to 2.93 Trump, 3.3 to 3.3 Biden. Increase of about 10-12% (maybe more not clear to me what the final totals will be).
TX - 4.68m to 3.88m Trump, 5.86 to 5.21 (with 85% reporting, do that mean this ends up roughly at 6.9 to 6.1 for Trump? That would be around a 50% increase. Even now its at a 30% increase (Trump's increase is roughly 25% in line with national averages, Biden's though is already at 35%, if the higher totals are true, Trump had almost a 50% increase and Biden almost a 60% increase). May call into question what money does in a race, when you dramatically outspend your opponent and his voting total increase almost matches yours.
MI - 2.28 to 2.27 Trump, 2.8 to 2.65 Biden. Increase of about 19%.
Seems like roughly 20% more voters is most "safe" states, with lower total increases as you'd expect in some states that were back to back battle grounds, with a big jump in TX as a "new" battleground.
So let's test that battle ground supression theory and look at Fl. FL - 4.61 to 4.5 Trump, and 5.66 to 5.28 Trump. A 20% increase for a repeated battleground. Maybe that just means FL was "battle-grounded out" because of its repeated status and just shared in the general voting boost that applied country wide.
I mean, it's too early to pick the exact national increase, but Trump has already beaten the total that Hillary got in 2016 and Biden is even further out in front of that (heck Trump is going to beat the total votes Obama got in both 2012 and 2008 as the loser of the popular vote in 2020).