So...this article is gonna be more about election night itself. I want to discuss when I knew something was amiss.
So I wasn't exactly sure how I was gonna approach election night. I heard NC and GA closed early but I figured I'd use the early swing states as a barometer for how things were going. I actually spent much of the early closings following florida. Why florida? Because they counted the fastest. Georgia was still like DERP patrick with board nailed to head with 3% while florida quickly had like 60% of their votes counted. And here's the thing. I knew that Florida was supposed to go trump by 8. That's what my final prediction said, so I used that as a baseline. Much like how R+7 was the baseline for the iowa poll because that was the expected margin there. So I figured, R+10 is bad, R+6 is good. Anything in between that is kinda roughly on par. Keep in mind, one state may not determine the national trend completely within a single point, but i figured an over/under performance either way would.
At first, Florida performed within expected parameters, and I didnt know how to read it. I kept flipping between different states, but with GA and NC at like <10% and knowing you cant really decide turnout based on that, I kept flipping back and forth. Virginia closed, they seemed D+5, on par with my expectations, back to florida....and...R+10. O_O. Well. Okay, it depends on the polling and where the rest of the votes are. That's why you cant call stuff early. If one county gets done and its super blue, the totals will be. Same thing with red. And GA and NC really do come down to the cities and suburbs, so I knew we were seeing a red mirage there. Back to florida, up to like 80-90% of the vote and....R+11. Uh...that really isn't good. Hopefully the remaining vote is all urban. I mean jacksonville and miami are red? Wtf? That's crazy.
Okay so....VA...seems to be stagnating. VA seemed to get a lot of DC suburban vote in early and it was only D+5. A lot of the remaining vote was rural, although some was urban and suburban. Still, it's within expeced parameters....with expected D heavy vote pouring in.
Turn on NBC. They start going on about how harris is underperforming everywhere and her performance is 3 points below biden's. Again, still early, not sure what to think. Back to GA and NC...again, counting slow enough where we have no idea. Yeah they were like 60-38 trump but we really need atlanta to know for sure.
Back to florida, R+11, R+12, R+13...hehehe, I'm in danger. Oh well, I think maybe florida is weird, it has a lot of demographic oddities other states dont have like the cuban vote being abnormally conservative for latinos.
OH and TX start to close. Originally...performing around where expected. R+8, R+9, ok. Rust belt closes. Early vote WAY up for harris, like 72-28. Ok, but that's all philly and allentown in PA. That's blue AF. Doesnt mean anything when you get urban vote in first.
Back to GA and NC....harris gaining but seems to still be behind by like 5. Well, again, all comes down to atlanta and the tri city areas in their respective states.
VA....wtf why is trump gaining there? D+2, D+1, trump ahead. DO we have any more of that DC suburb vote? And we seemed to be running low. Okay, now Im freaking out. TX and OH, both doing floridas, going R+13. CRAP CRAP NOT GOOD, NOT GOOD.
And yeah, by this point, it's like 10 PM. And i start panicking. Friends tell me to chill, be optimistic and not doomer, but here's the thing. I know what I'm expecting. R+8 florida, R+9 OH and TX, D+5 virginia, R+1-2 GA and NC, and then the media keeps being like "yeah she's underperforming..." and im freaking out.
So I look up 2020 for a comparison when were states called? VA was called early, FL was called after midnight. I remember panicking in 2020 but thats because i thought Biden would have such a commanding lead that he would win easily. He didn't. And it was close. And it seemed clear we were underperforming there.
And I'm looking at it. Swing states still debatable, but trump is winning GA and NC and the margins are shifting toward trump in the rust belt. VA is too close to call, FL, OH, and TX are called quickly and are 4-5 points more R than expected. A picture is starting to emerge. This is the R+4 scenario. That isn't good.
And yeah. I basically knew we were in trouble by like 10:30 or 11. Because I know how things were SUPPOSED to go based on polling and how we were several points underwater.
GA and NC were called trump, and they went trump by much larger margins than expected, like R+3 instead of R+1. Oh well maybe swing states are performing a little better. What really matters is the rust belt.
IA went trump quickly, and by the same blowout margins as the other red leaning "swing states". So much for the selzer poll. Wow. That selzer poll was off. Like WAY off. Like, 12 points off. Holy crap. I thought the other pollsters there were trying to do information warfare to even out the averages, but NOPE, they were accurate. Selzer wasn't.
That kinda made me realize that the rust belt might not save us after all. WI, MI, and PA started showing the right wing lean the sun belt states had, and I started realizing, yeah, the rust belt wasnt gonna save us. It's performing no differently than the south. We're screwed.
By this point, every election call was anxiety inducing as I was thinking "oh god they're gonna call PA arent there". I mean, it seemed obvious even before it was called we werent gonna win. We werent winning the suburbs by big enough margins to flip it. My own county was called already and it seemed like the latino vote that I thought would save us bugged out on us. And yeah, the margins started getting really concerning.
And while VA was eventually called like 11:30, it shouldnt have gone that late. And then it was the same painful story where NH, MN, etc were too close to call. And uh...wtf. Again, those were the cake walk states. Like those were our TX/FL/IA/OH style states.
What really broke me? NJ ahead by 5. WTF. I DIDNT HAVE THAT ON MY LIST EVEN. Like, it was on my list, but i took it off when a D+12 poll got averaged with a D+20 one and it was like, oh this is D16. WHY IS THIS TOO CLOSE TO CALL?!
Again, I'm not too worried about losing most of these. But some of these should've been quick victories for harris. The fact that those states were too close to call while the red equivalents were being called early pretty much proved things werent going our way.
And yeah. PA was eventually called about 24 hours ago at 2 PM for trump, and it was over. 219 base, NC is 235, GA is 251, PA is 270. We're done. Toast. Cooked. I stayed up, watched trump's speech, and the whole time i was listening to the demented one ramble on and bringing sycophants like elon musk and RFK on the stage i was just like OH GOD WHY, WHY DID WE ELECT THIS GUY AGAIN? HOW AM I GONNA BE ABLE TO PUT UP WITH LISTENING TO THIS GUY FOR 4 MORE YEARS!? And yeah, the dude was like nails on the chalkboard.
Going back and doing more post mortem stuff today, prediction subs pointed out some disturbing facts. NY was only D+11, not terrible terrible, but huge collapse from Biden. Illinois was only D+8 (!!!). NJ was D+5. I mean, this is the joe biden map. These were stated biden was struggling with and then when he dropped out they were removed. But no, that polling for joe biden that showed NJ, IL, and NY as swing states? That wasnt just outliers. Those trends were REAL.
And the popular vote totals. Looking at it, it seems obvious that we had a MASSIVE coalition collapse. In 2020, we had 81 million votes for Biden. Trump, 74 million. Not all votes are counted yet, but Trump has 72 million so far...and Harris....67 million. We just lost like 15-20% of our coalition here. Wtf? No wonder we did so badly. And we did badly in so many demographics. Latinos, the moderate republican suburbanites, young men, heck we underperformed with the women who were supposed to come out for abortion. We underperformed with everyone.
And just looking at those numbers, WHERE DID THEY GO? I'll tell you, they didnt vote for trump mostly. Trump's vote totals look like they're gonna be relatively consistent. They stayed home. Over 10 million people probably who voted for biden, 1/8 of his coalition, stayed the frick home.
And with that, Im gonna end this here. I'm gonna go into my actual autopsy for why i think this is tomorrow, but it's getting late, and this is a good place to stop. I started with the stats, i went into the demographics, and what actually happened, and now the stage is set for what I think happened. That part is probably gonna be the real fireworks for me. Because that's where I'm really gonna lay into the democrats and exactly what I think of them in this moment. Because they messed up and dropped the ball big time IMO.
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