How did Donald Trump do so well in New York?

[StevieM]

In 2000 Al Gore had won NY by 25.00%.

In 2004 John Kerry won NY by 18.28%.

In 2008 Barack Obama won NY by 26.85%.

In 2012 Barack Obama won NY by 28.18%.

In 2016 Hillary Clinton won NY by 22.49%.

This year Trump is currently losing NY to Biden by 12.45%. Biden is probably going to win the nationwide popular vote by about 4 points, whereas John Kerry had lost it by 2.47 points. So you would expect Biden to do significantly better in NY than Kerry did.

I do realize that the counting of mail in ballots is skewing things. They have currently counted 6.6 million votes in NY. In 2016 there were 7.7 million votes cast. A greater number of ballots are expected to be cast this year, so maybe additional mail in ballots that have yet to be counted, which heavily favor Biden, will further increase his margin of victory.

But this still seem likes a much closer race than you would expect, especially given the national margin.

Does anybody have an explanation?

[madaboutharry]

1. Upstate

Upstate NY and the NYC metropolitan area are really two different states. Trumpism has taken hold in more rural areas and it is a dangerous drug.

[Boogiemack]

7. Stocks and 401k greed is a motivator. nt

[SheltieLover]

2. Voting machines

Ratfuckery.

The polls were dead oj in PA for mail-in ballots.

Speaks volumes.

Also dejoy's dystopian nightmare might have played a role!

[smirkymonkey]

3. It has to be cheating.

Most New Yorkers hate Trump with a passion. The sparsely populated red upstate counties aren't enough to offset NYC and suburbs, Albany, Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo.

[Laelth]

4. Widespread Russian hacking of vote tabulation computers. n/t

-Laelth

[DonaldsRump]

5. It's the mail in ballots everywhere

Many of those still have not been counted. I think Joe's going to win the PV by 8% or so when everything is counted.

[unblock]

6. I think you answered your own question.

I believe New York hasn't even begun to count the mail in ballots.

[StevieM]

20. I cannot imagine that they haven't even started counting yet.

They have already counted 6.6 million votes. There were 7.7 million votes in 2016. Let's say that turnout increased by 9 percent. That would mean an additional 700,000 votes, or a total of 8.4 million. That means that there are 1.8 million outstanding votes, or about 21.5% of the total. Someone below wrote that only 78% of the vote had been counted, so maybe that estimate is correct.

Still, even if the margin widens, it feels like a much closer race in NY than we would expect, given historical trends. It doesn't seem like Biden's final margin will be any more than 16 points, even if he gets 2/3 of the remaining votes.

[unblock]

23. from what i understand, in new york, mail in ballots are sealed for 3 days after the election

while they validate signatures and such.

[Statistical]

8. Keep in mind a huge number of votes haven't been counted essentially all of them mail in votes.

Those will likely break 70:30 for Biden. Not sure where Biden will stand when the last vote is counted but I guarantee you it won't be only +12.

[democrattotheend]

9. There are a lot of (mostly mail) ballots not yet counted in New York

I don't think the state even starts opening absentee ballots until next week. It takes New York weeks to finish counting all its votes - I remember that from 2012 when I was watching Wasserman incessantly on Twitter as he logged (mostly) New York and California votes until Romney's share of the popular vote fell below 47.5%.

I hope we see a blue shift in NY, because otherwise it looks like my Congressional district (NY-03) flipped to red. But nobody has even mentioned that as a possibility, so I am assuming it will change when they finish counting. It doesn't seem to be on pundits' radar right now. Pretty sure it will shift, because right now Trump is ahead in Nassau County and I can't see that holding.

[Blasphemer]

10. Too early to tell, but he IS from NY so it wouldn't be that surprising

Since Hillary was a NY senator, the "home state" issue probably cancelled out.

[sinkingfeeling]

11. Because only 78% of the vote and 15,500 of 15,546 districts have reported totals?

[gopiscrap]

12. "lost" ballots in the NYC post office

[W_HAMILTON]

13. New York hasn't come close to counting all of its mail-in ballots.

[brooklynite]

14. Go back to the Primary..

...and look at how long it took NY to count ballots.

[Orangepeel]

15. is New York still counting mailed in ballots?

[Bleacher Creature]

16. Give it a week. nt

[msongs]

17. CA still has 3 million to count, NY probably similar due to huge amts of ballots nt

[Cattledog]

18. Biden is wining by 18% as of today with 84% counted.

[StevieM]

21. OK, thanks. I haven't seen those updated numbers.

The site that I went to had Biden up by just 12.45 points, and my rough estimates indicated that about 78.5% of the vote was in.

It sounds like the early vote is going overwhelmingly for Biden and the Democrats. I knew it heavily favored them, but I may have underestimated just how extreme the splits are. So many MAGA people are not the least bit concerned about contracting COVID, and see no need to do mail in voting.

This makes me very optimistic about the outstanding ballots from the remaining battleground states.

[David__77]

19. I'm sure it will widen a lot.

...