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Election night blogging
Nov. 3rd, 2020 10:52 pmWell, Election night 2020. Figure I should mark this moment down, for when I want to look back on this in a few years.
So, at first I was mildly optimistic that either Florida, North Carolina, or Georgia would have enough of a decisive Biden lead as to be able to end tonight somewhat definitively. By about 5pm it was pretty clear it was going to be down to a lot of counting in the next few days.
I'm really proud of Texas, for being up in the air until about 10pm. Go Texas go!
The NY Times vote tracker has been helpful in giving me a sense of where the remaining votes are in the battlegrounds that are still counting, and even though Michigan looks bad now, I think it'll end up blue. (Basically, I take the remaining votes, divide by 3, and if that number is safely bigger than the current vote difference, then I count it as swinging the other way.) By that metric, I think Arizona will ultimately end up red. I think Georgia is going to go blue by razor-thin margins, and North Carolina, I don't even know, man. I feel like it will be down to 1000 votes.
So, predicting what will happen:
Wednesday: Wisconsin, Maine, and Nevada will be called for Biden, Arizona will be called for Trump
Thursday: Michigan will probably be called for Biden, and... hopefully Georgia? Unless Georgia gets called on Wednesday. That will be enough to put Biden over the top.
Then Pennsylvania and North Carolina can sort themselves out over the weekend.
This hasn't stopped Spouse from looking at emigrating to Canada. He makes the argument that the lack of a clear Biden landslide means that he's probably going to be eking by with a slim Senate majority, if that, which means no meaningful legislation will be passed, and so America will still be a failed state, just failing slightly slower. I said that I'd want to see where Canada is re: climate change, and whether Canada is better as a country than California is as a state. But, I guess emigration might happen after all the COVID stuff clears up enough to allow us to move, so that may be in a year or two. I've warned him that I'd probably be without a job for a year or two, since teacher credentials don't exactly transfer. And that he might have to go first, establish a base of operations, and so on, so we'll be separated for some months, possibly a year.
I've decided that if I were a single issue voter, my single issue would be climate change, because that's something that we need national leadership on, and it's something that crosses all borders. I've started asking folks: if you had to pick a single issue to vote by, what would it be? Thus far, some have answered foreign policy, and some have answered social equality.
But also -- I hope that the Democrats seize control of the Senate, and no matter how thin the margin is, play hardball, because seriously, being nice when the other side isn't, just isn't going to work. Climate change waits for no one. And also: education, dammit. Teach people to be able to critically evaluate sources and not pin their fears and anxieties on bogeymen and conspiracy theories. Teach people about systemic issues and also middle class skills. (How else are we gonna rebuild the middle class?)
So, at first I was mildly optimistic that either Florida, North Carolina, or Georgia would have enough of a decisive Biden lead as to be able to end tonight somewhat definitively. By about 5pm it was pretty clear it was going to be down to a lot of counting in the next few days.
I'm really proud of Texas, for being up in the air until about 10pm. Go Texas go!
The NY Times vote tracker has been helpful in giving me a sense of where the remaining votes are in the battlegrounds that are still counting, and even though Michigan looks bad now, I think it'll end up blue. (Basically, I take the remaining votes, divide by 3, and if that number is safely bigger than the current vote difference, then I count it as swinging the other way.) By that metric, I think Arizona will ultimately end up red. I think Georgia is going to go blue by razor-thin margins, and North Carolina, I don't even know, man. I feel like it will be down to 1000 votes.
So, predicting what will happen:
Wednesday: Wisconsin, Maine, and Nevada will be called for Biden, Arizona will be called for Trump
Thursday: Michigan will probably be called for Biden, and... hopefully Georgia? Unless Georgia gets called on Wednesday. That will be enough to put Biden over the top.
Then Pennsylvania and North Carolina can sort themselves out over the weekend.
This hasn't stopped Spouse from looking at emigrating to Canada. He makes the argument that the lack of a clear Biden landslide means that he's probably going to be eking by with a slim Senate majority, if that, which means no meaningful legislation will be passed, and so America will still be a failed state, just failing slightly slower. I said that I'd want to see where Canada is re: climate change, and whether Canada is better as a country than California is as a state. But, I guess emigration might happen after all the COVID stuff clears up enough to allow us to move, so that may be in a year or two. I've warned him that I'd probably be without a job for a year or two, since teacher credentials don't exactly transfer. And that he might have to go first, establish a base of operations, and so on, so we'll be separated for some months, possibly a year.
I've decided that if I were a single issue voter, my single issue would be climate change, because that's something that we need national leadership on, and it's something that crosses all borders. I've started asking folks: if you had to pick a single issue to vote by, what would it be? Thus far, some have answered foreign policy, and some have answered social equality.
But also -- I hope that the Democrats seize control of the Senate, and no matter how thin the margin is, play hardball, because seriously, being nice when the other side isn't, just isn't going to work. Climate change waits for no one. And also: education, dammit. Teach people to be able to critically evaluate sources and not pin their fears and anxieties on bogeymen and conspiracy theories. Teach people about systemic issues and also middle class skills. (How else are we gonna rebuild the middle class?)
