ABC News projects that Donald Trump will win Florida (😮).
The AP has called Florida for Trump. We’re a little reluctant to note other organizations’ calls sometimes when we think they might be out on a limb, but the AP is fairly conservative and Trump looks like he’s in good shape in Florida to me.
ABC News projects a Democratic win in CA-29.
Galen Druke asks Nathaniel Rakich to help us map out the potential schedule for the rest of the week and when we can expect more results from some key races.
A lot of states have been called on some networks and not on others. If you plug in all the states where any network has called the state for Biden or Trump, it shows Biden at 88 percent to win the Electoral College, Trump at 6 percent, and a 6 percent chance of a tie. But that depends on Biden winning Arizona and Minnesota, which ABC News hasn’t projected yet.
ABC News projects a Democratic win in MA-7.
Georgia was one state where we were expected to get timely results. Well, so much for that — separate problems in Fulton County (a burst pipe) and Gwinnett County (a software issue) have delayed the counting of absentee ballots. In Gwinnett, 80,000 ballots were affected ,but it sounds like they are still being counted tonight, per Atlanta Journal Constitution reporting. However, some ballots will have to be manually checked, which could cause the results to change. In Fulton, election officials anticipated having 20,000 ballots left to count tomorrow, with results expected no earlier than noon.
ABC News projects a Democratic win in CA-2.
In Maine, about 3 percent of the vote has gone to independents in the presidential race so far, which could make a difference because the state uses ranked-choice voting.
Dan, of the trio of measures I just posted about, I’d rank them in this order in terms of effectiveness at depolarization: 1) ranked-choice voting 2) independent redistricting 3) open top-two primaries. Of course, I think we need even stronger medicine in the form of some type of proportional representation. Maybe we’ll get a ballot initiative on that in 2022.
Lee, presumably it is far too late and our readers are far too tense for me to joke about asking you to rank depolarizing reforms?
ABC News projects a Democratic win in CT-5 and a Republican win in MI-1.
Another check-in on the race with Galen Druke and Micah Cohen. How does 2020 compare to 2016 and 2018 so far?
Iowa has been hit hard by a COVID-19 surge, and Trump’s trade policies haven’t been popular. So I’ve been watching both that race and margin closely. But I will say that the Seltzer poll that had Trump up 7 looks pretty good.
From the department of democracy-literally-on-the-ballot, it looks like ranked-choice voting has lost in Massachusetts, the top-two open primary failed to get to the requisite 60 percent support in Florida, and independent redistricting has passed in Virginia.
ABC News projects Republican wins in ID-2, NY-21, NY-27, TX-6 and TX-10.
ABC News also projects a Democratic win in TX-34.
With 81 percent of the expected vote counted in Iowa, per the AP, Trump has a comfortable 52 percent to 46 percent lead. That said, Biden leads by 15 points in Polk County (Des Moines), which Clinton carried by only 11 in 2016.
In Iowa’s U.S. Senate race, Republican Joni Ernst also leads Democrat Theresa Greenfield 52 percent to 45 percent — very similar to the presidential race.
One of the big uncalled states is Georgia, where Trump leads by about 8 percentage points with 79 percent of the expected vote reporting, according to ABC News. On its face, that would seem to be pretty good for Trump. But The New York Times’ needle now gives Biden a slight edge, probably because there are many votes left to be counted in the Atlanta area. Only half of the expected vote is in from deep-blue Fulton County, and only about one-third is in from next-door DeKalb County. Fulton’s count was slowed by a burst pipe at State Farm Arena, and a couple of precincts in DeKalb had their poll-closing times extended by a judge. So it appears a fair number of Democratic-leaning votes are outstanding, but it could take a while before we know what the near-final tallies look like.
The Washington Post’s election night model points to the source of uncertainty in Georgia: We don’t know how Biden will do in suburban counties.
I’m not sure what to make of this, but the NYT needle is now showing very close race in Georgia.
ABC News projects Democratic wins in ME-1, MO-5 and NY-26; and Republican wins in NE-1 and TX-5.
Our final forecasts for the 12 a.m. races
The final numbers from FiveThirtyEight’s forecast for races where the last polls close at 12 a.m. Eastern
ABC News projects that Joe Biden will win Virginia.
ABC News also projects that Democrat Mark Warner will win the Senate race in Virginia.
ABC calls Ohio for Trump. This was a state where Trump was slightly ahead in polls, so we’ll want to see what the final margins look like there before extrapolating too much about Trump’s performance in the rest of the Midwest. But it’s certainly not a great sign for Biden.
ABC News projects Democratic wins in CA-36, CA-41, WA-2, WA-6 and WA-9.
ABC News also projects Republican wins in MD-1 and WA-4.
We projected a turnout of around 324,000 votes in Nebraska’s 2nd District, and about 276,000 have been counted there so far. So there may be something left to count there, but not a ton, given that Biden leads by around 29,000 votes there now.
ABC News projects that Donald Trump will win Ohio.
The Trump and McSally campaigns both seem to pretty damn ticked off at the Fox projection of Arizona for Biden. McSally’s campaign is claiming that there are a million votes not yet counted, but it seems to be the consensus at FiveThirtyEight that they’re rounding up quite a bit there with that number. Though, as our friend Nate Cohn at the Times points out, the projection was made quite early.
Sarah, I think the real takeaway for me is to not treat voters of a specific racial or ethnic group as a monolith. Hakeem Jefferson and Alan Yan had a really nice piece showing diversity of opinion among Black people, for example.
In terms non-college-educated white voters, it’s hard to judge the preelection polls against more long-run trends in which the “white working class” has been moving toward the Republican Party for quite a while now (even before 2016).
Rather important update on Philadelphia:
ABC News projects Democratic wins in CA-19, CA-51 and MD-6.
Micah, I think the reason you’re getting conflicting reports is that there’s conflicting information. There are the counties Dan mentioned where Trump is replicating his 2016 performance. But there’s also Lackawanna County, where Biden is leading by 8 points, comfortably ahead of Clinton’s 3-point lead in 2016. (Of course, Biden is from Lackawanna County, so he may have home-field advantage.) Ultimately I think this will come down to how many mail-in votes there are to count in the Philadelphia area.
Micah, a handful of Pennsylvania counties are basically done counting, reporting more than 98 percent of their expected votes. One is Columbia County. There, Trump netted 8,934 votes in 2016, winning 63-31. With Trump is now netting 9,556 votes there, winning 65-33. Another is Jefferson County, which was 78-19 in 2016 and is now 79-20. Lycoming (home to Williamsport) goes from 70-25 for Trump in 2016 to 70-28 Trump so far in the 2020 count. So Trump is roughly running at his 2016 pace.
I’ve seen some conflicting tea-leaf reading in fully-reporting counties in Pennsylvania. Can anyone give me an overview of what we know, if anything, there?
Are Any Of The Races Projected So Far Surprising? Not To Fivey Fox.
When ABC News projects a winner in a presidential, Senate or House race, Fivey Fox dutifully posts it here on our live blog. But if the projection differs from what we expected according to our final forecast, Fivey posts it along with either a 😮, 😲 or 🤯 emoji — depending on how unexpected the projection is.
So far … lots of projections, and no emojis. But several swing states in the presidential race like Florida and Georgia, which our forecast had listed as “slightly favored” for Biden, have not yet been projected by ABC News. If those states go for Trump, that will surprise (😮) Fivey Fox.
ABC News projects Democratic wins in NC-2, OR-1, OR-3 and VA-3; and Republican wins in ID-1 and OR-2.
That’s a good point about Latino voters, Nate. And we’ve written on the site about how the Latino vote in a state like Arizona is very different than in a state like Florida. That said, I don’t know how much to make of the Latino vote in Florida. Or how much to take what happened in Florida and apply it elsewhere. Is it possible Biden is also underperforming with white voters, even though preelection polls showed Biden eating into Trump’s edge among white voters without a college degree? What do people think?
Steve Bullock outperforming Biden by about 6 points in Montana, although Biden is actually leading there right now (which probably won’t hold).
ABC News projects Democratic wins in seven House races — CA-28, CA-30, CA-32, CA-33, CA-52, MD-7 and MD-8.
ABC News also projects a Republican win in IA-4.
New Mexico is a fairly unique state, but it’s a mildly good sign for Biden in Arizona and Nevada that it’s been called for him. His apparent problems with Latino voters in Florida may not have translated to the Southwest.
ABC News projects that Donald Trump will win Idaho and Joe Biden will win New Mexico.
ABC News also projects that Republican Jim Risch will win the Senate race in Idaho.
The New York Times needle, with some updates, are still giving Biden a chance in Georgia and North Carolina, although Trump is favored in both states.
I know it’s a small group (maybe 5 percent of the state), but I also wonder how the Latter-Day Saint vote looks in Arizona. As FiveThirtyEight contributor Daniel Cox wrote, a fair share of Latter-Day Saints didn’t support Trump in 2016. Some of that is likely on account of their views on immigration, which are somewhat out of step with the Trump administration’s policies.
ABC News projects Democratic wins in six House races — CA-20, CA-24, CA-26, CA-37, CA-38 and CA-47.
Ohio, on the other hand, seems to be increasingly in Trump’s column: 88 percent of the expected vote is accounted for, and Trump leads by nearly 8 points. (Remember Trump won Ohio by 8 points in 2016.)
Fox News, which has its own decision desk and exit poll data, has called Arizona for Biden and Florida for Trump. They also called the Arizona Senate for Kelly. We have seen no other news organization call Arizona, which may mean this call is premature. Keep an eye on other outlets to see if they wind up backing up or conflicting with Fox.
If there’s a shift in focus here, it’s that we’re sort of going from “Make inferences about Michigan/Wisconsin/Pennsylvania based on results from other states” to “It’s close enough to the end to actually try to count the votes there.”
This is especially so in Wisconsin which is faster to count than Michigan and Pennsylvania. You’d think that Biden was in pretty good shape in Wisconsin based on his winning Minnesota plus his large leads in pre-election polls. But it’s not quite exactly known what’s out there beyond a lot of Milwaukee absentees, which should make the race much closer but may or may not put Biden ahead.
Where The Presidential Race And Outstanding Vote Stands … For Now
Readers, we’re going slowing our coverage as the election at this point is far from over. Biden leads in the electoral vote count, 227 to 213, but no candidate has a lock on 270 yet, and multiple paths exist for both Biden and Trump.
There are a number of projections in key battleground states we’re missing, including Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Maine, North Carolina and Georgia, and we likely won’t have projections there until early today — or later this week.
So we’d caution you at this point to not jump to any conclusions. We can say that Democrats did not have the evening they wanted in the Senate (see Nathaniel’s recap of the Senate races below) and that while Democrats maintained their majority in the House, they do not seem to have gained seats; instead Republicans made inroads, picking up districts like South Carolina’s 1st District, New Mexico’s 2nd District and Oklahoma’s 5th District, per the AP. And Collin Peterson, who was the most vulnerable incumbent in the House, has also lost in Minnesota’s 7th District, per ABC News.
But at this point, keep in mind that both Trump and Biden have multiple paths to the White House — and much hinges on Pennsylvania, the state our forecast puts as the most likely tipping-point state (or the state that delivers the 270th electoral vote). We’ll be back in a few hours, as we continue to track the vote.
Here’s a look at what we know about the outstanding vote in each battleground state:
- Arizona: While some outlets, such as the Associated Press, have projected Arizona for Biden, ABC News has not. Before the election, officials did warn that any super-close races might not be resolved until the last votes are counted on Thursday or Friday. However, the race isn’t that close right now (Biden 52 percent, Trump 47 percent), so we might see a projection sooner.
- Wisconsin: 81 percent of the expected vote is already reporting here, and the rest should trickle in over the next few hours. Earlier tonight, Milwaukee County (expected to be among the last places to finish counting) said to expect semi-final results around 6 a.m. Eastern.
- Georgia: The big holdup here is Fulton County, which as of 2 a.m. was home to most of the outstanding ballots. The count there was delayed by a burst pipe (no ballots were damaged), and election officials told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution their goal was to go into Wednesday with just 20,000 ballots left to count. However, the secretary of state estimated those results would not be released until the afternoon.
- Michigan: There are still hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots to be counted here, and it’s unclear if counting will continue throughout the night. Election officials did say earlier on Tuesday that they expected counting to wrap up by Wednesday night.
- Pennsylvania: Major counties such as Philadelphia and Allegheny have reported their last ballots of the night (although Philadelphia will continue to count around the clock). Going into the election, many county and state election officials predicted that results wouldn’t approach completion until Friday.
- North Carolina: 95 percent of the expected vote has already been counted here, so it seems quite possible that all we’re waiting on are late-arriving mail-in ballots, which have until Nov. 12 to arrive. That means we could be waiting over a week for a call here.
- Maine: Honestly, this is anyone’s guess. Election officials are taking much longer here than they originally expected.