How is election day going? What we know so far

Key takeaways from election day so far

America is on edge. To a lesser extent so is the rest of the free world. We want answers. 

But getting real information in the partisan-charged atmosphere of the Twitterverse is a major challenge. Here’s the best that we’ve found through 2 pm EST.

First with a word from the wise is from Nate Silver at ABC News/FiveThirtyEight: “You're not going to learn anything useful about the election outcome on here until 7pm (EST), i.e. when they start counting votes.”

But we do know the early vote. 

The final tally, or at least as close to it was we’ll get on election day, was 99.7 million, according to the Los Angeles Times. 

If the poll on 1 November was correct that this vote was 66 per cent Joe Biden, that would mean 65.8 million votes had been cast for Biden before election day, or almost exactly the total of all the votes Hillary Clinton received in the last election. 

Read more: US election results live

However, more Trump voters could have turned out early among the 10 million who early voted after that poll was completed. There’s no way to know.

As for the swing states, according to NBC’s Peter Alexander: “Early concern inside Trumpworld about Election Day turnout activities in PA: A person with direct knowledge of the campaign's operations tells me, ‘The team in Pennsylvania was not as prepared as it should be in a state that could decide the presidency.’”

This is critical because, as Dave Wasserman of the non-partisan Cook Political Reports puts it, “What tonight has boiled down to: Trump likely needs to win *both* Arizona and Pennsylvania, while Biden only needs to win one to get to 270”.

Hopes for the Democrats in Texas, which has not voted for the party’s nominee for president since 1976, hinge on Harris County, the home of Houston. 

“Harris County is on pace for 225K votes on Election Day, which would put final turnout at about 1.66 million, or about 67%.” 

For perspective, according to Michael Li of The Brennan Center, “Harris County hasn’t had turnout above 60% since 1992.”

Moving to Florida, the early voting estimate was Biden by about 565,000 votes, more than FiveThirtyEight said was needed for a Biden victory.

The (very) early returns said Biden was doing better than expected in heavily GOP-leaning Sumter County. 

According to Cook's Wasserman, Biden is tracking 33 per cent there.

“I think Trump needs at least 67% (and likely 68%-70%) in Sumter to win FL. The few EDay ballots (~12k max?) could lift Trump's final share there by 2-3%, but Trump's % in the first expected dump of 84k at 7pm could give us a big clue,” he said.

Two leading political analysts, the New York Times’s Nate Cohn and ABC News/FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver are not fans of RealClearPolitics late polling. 

“One small casualty of this election: the RealClearPolitics average. It's never been perfect, but I've cited it in the past as a simple no-questions-asked average. Unfortunately, that's not possible anymore,” Cohn tweeted. 

And Silver concurred, adding, “It parallels other problems in media coverage too, in that while there (are) spammy D-leaning pollsters (and there would probably be more in an election where Biden was trailing) there was more of it on the R-leaning side, especially toward the end of the race.”

We’ll soon see if RCP’s Trump lean to tightening the race rather dramatically at the 11th hour proves prophetic.