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

So, we don’t know much at this point. But here’s one thing we do know: We are all experiencing the same snarling anxiety deep in our souls. Ninety percent of Americans agree that “the 2020 presidential election is the most important election in my lifetime.” More than 60 percent say they are “very afraid” if their candidate loses, and 80 percent say they are concerned about election-related violence. So yeah, if you are feeling a little jumpy at this point, you are definitely not alone.

Exit polls are usually a key part of election night reporting, especially before actual results come in. They can provide an early sense of who is leading and how different demographics are turning out and voting. But while it’s always a little dangerous to rely too heavily on exit polls on election night, particularly the early waves, which are released while polls are still open and generally are not representative of the electorate (skew toward older voters as many young votes vote late). But pandemic-related changes to the election mean that exit polls are even less reliable than usual this year.

That’s because the pandemic has undermined the major advantage exit polls have over other kinds of polls: Their ability to know they’re sampling actual voters. Because of how many people voted early this year, exit polls will include a phone poll component to reach these voters, and in some states there will also be exit polls of early in-person voters, but this has pretty severe limitations for two reasons. First, the phone poll will have to guess whether respondents who said they voted actually did, and second, Edison Research — the polling firm that produces the exit polls used by ABC News, CBS News, CNN and NBC News — will have to estimate how heavily to weight the traditional exit poll respondents vs. the phone respondents and early voters. That means there’s more uncertainty than usual in the election night exit polls. And that extra uncertainty means that it’s hard to make a case for relying on them tonight — though they’ll still prove useful in telling us about how key demographics voted once they’re weighted after the election to match actual results.

One barrier to interpreting early results in many states is not knowing just how many counted ballots are from early voting, but one thing we should be able to tell is whether any Senate candidates are performing substantially better than their party’s presidential candidate among the same voters. There has been almost no gap in the polls for Senate and President in many states, as those candidates have had trouble separating themselves from their party’s national reputation. Republicans would likely need a candidate-specific Senate vote in Maine and Michigan; Democrats would likely need one in Montana or Kansas. In tight races like North Carolina, even a small advantage for one party’s Senate candidate over their Presidential nominee could be enough for victory.