Biden Is Projected To Be The President-Elect. Here’s How It All Went Down.

A Washington, D.C., ban on gatherings larger than 50 people nixed Trump’s plans to spend election night at his hotel in that city. But Trump is planning an indoor event at the White House instead, with a guest list that is reported to run upwards of 400 people. This will be the highest-profile event at the White House since the Sept. 26 celebration of Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court. That gathering had … some unintended COVID-19-related side effects. Officials say everyone attending tonight will be tested for COVID-19, but testing is, at best, an unreliable method of preventing the gathering from turning into another White House superspreader event. The key problem: Individuals can be contagious before they test positive.

One source of potential uncertainty is the delivery of mail-in ballots in key swing states like Michigan, where ballots must be received by 8 p.m. Eastern on Election Day to be counted. In an effort to ensure that mail delays don’t leave some ballots undelivered, a federal judge issued an order on Sunday, telling the U.S. Postal Service to expedite ballots ahead of the election. Today, the same judge ordered USPS to sweep processing facilities for ballots by 3 p.m. Eastern in a number of states, including Pennsylvania, Florida, Arizona, Texas and Georgia, and certify that “no ballots were left behind.”

This is the last election before the 2021 redistricting process — which means it could be pivotal to determining whether one party or the other can gerrymander the House map for the next decade. By our reckoning, control of drawing 132 congressional districts (30 percent of the House) is up in the air this election:

Democrats could gain full control of the redistricting process in New York if they win a supermajority in the state Senate; in Pennsylvania and North Carolina if they flip both chambers of the legislature; in Minnesota if they flip the state Senate; and in New Hampshire if they win the governor’s office. Democrats would also retain control of redistricting if Virginia’s Amendment #1, which would set up a bipartisan redistricting commission, fails.

Meanwhile, Republicans could win total redistricting power if they prevent a Democratic takeover of the Texas state House; hold onto both chambers of the North Carolina legislature; keep the governor’s office in Missouri; successfully defend the Iowa state House; retain their supermajorities in the Kansas Legislature; and flip both chambers of the New Hampshire legislature.

For more details about these races, check out my roundup with Elena Mejía.