November 7, 2020 6:14am by David Farrar

Biden now leads in PA and GA

Biden now leads in states worth 306 electoral votes. Here's how the map will probably finish pic.twitter.com/jsriBmroWb
— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) November 6, 2020

If this eventuates, then Biden will have won the Electoral College by the exact same margin Trump won in 2016 (which Trump of course called the greatest landslide ever etc).

Let’s look at the four main uncalled states:

Nevada: Biden ahead by 22,000 votes or 1.8%. Around 9% of votes remaining to be counted. They are mainly from Clark County which is heavily blue leaning.
Arizona: Biden ahead by 44,000 votes or 1.4%. Around 7% of votes remaining to be counted. Trump would need to win 60% of them to win.
Pennsylvania: Biden ahead 9,000 votes or 0.1%. Around 5% of votes remaining to be counted. Trump would need to win 52% of them to win. They are mainly from Democratic-leaning counties (Bucks and Lehigh) or heavily Democratic areas (Philadelphia and Allegheny counties)
Georgia: Biden ahead by 1,600 votes or under 0,1%, with only absentee, provisional and military ballots uncounted. Half the absentee ballots left are from Gwinnett County which is heavily Democratic

It is important to note the vote counts showing Biden ahead in states like Pennsylvania are all from votes received on or before election day. The ballots received after election day have not yet been included so Trump’s lawsuit in Pennsylvania won’t affect the outcome.

Also worth reflecting that the talk of candidates being ahead, and falling behind etc is a bit misleading. The actual number of votes has not changed in the past three days – just which ones have been counted so far. Some states count advance votes first (as we do in NZ) and some states count them last. If Pennsylvania had counted the advance votes first, then the vote count would have shown Biden leading the entire time.

It is not unusual for advance votes and on the day votes to vary. Take NZ for example. National got 30% of election day votes but only 25% of advance votes and 20% of special votes.

So there is no real chance Joseph Biden will not be the 46th President of the United States. It is just a matter of when those last four states are called. Biden wins with Arizona and Nevada alone.

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