Biden didn't 'take the lead' in Pennsylvania. If he wins, he always had it.
Biden didnt take the lead in Pennsylvania. If he wins, he always had it.
By Philip Bump
November 6, 2020 at 10:24 a.m. EST
In the weeks before Nov. 3, millions of mail-in ballots were submitted by voters in every county in Pennsylvania. On Election Day itself, millions more voters went to polling places to cast ballots weighing in on a slew of political contests, none receiving more scrutiny than the race for president. It seems almost certain by now that more of those votes will have been cast for former vice president Joe Biden than President Trump, handing Biden a victory in the state.
Given the allegations being made by Trump in his desperate bid to hold power, its important to reiterate this point. Its not that Biden on Friday morning moved into the lead in the state; its that the counting finally caught up with reality. ... This reality was obvious days ago. On Wednesday morning, about 12 hours after polls closed in Pennsylvania, I noted that the outstanding vote in the state was more than enough to give Biden a healthy lead, based on the number of ballots and where they were cast. Over the next 48 hours, those ballots were slowly counted, and, sure enough, Biden received more of them.
We like to think about the vote-counting process the way we consider sporting contests, a jockeying back-and-forth between competitors. But its not that. Its as though, instead, a football game took place in private with the scoring plays released to the public after the fact, in random order.
Say that the Pittsburgh Steelers are playing the Philadelphia Eagles in a closed stadium, with no television cameras. The Steelers quickly score four touchdowns, giving them a 28-point lead. The Eagles score three field goals and two touchdowns, each time having the Steelers score another touchdown in response. Final score, 63-23 Steelers.
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This is all artificial! The ballots were already in and, in each case, counting them necessarily leads to the same place. Just as with that hypothetical football game, its just the order of the counting that generates a sense of flow.
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Philip Bump
Philip Bump is a correspondent for The Washington Post based in New York. Before joining The Post in 2014, he led politics coverage for the Atlantic Wire. Follow https://twitter.com/pbump
BusyBeingBest
(8,052 posts)bullimiami
(13,074 posts)exboyfil
(17,862 posts)of the process.
TwilightZone
(25,426 posts)Rather than a lack of knowledge. We've had about five years of that.
genxlib
(5,518 posts)Or deliberate misleading of idiotic followers.
I honestly don't know.
exboyfil
(17,862 posts)Take your pick. Both disqualify him to be President.
genxlib
(5,518 posts)Simply because of all of the sequence of events.
1. See mail-in advantage to Dems
2. Deny the state ability to count early by lawsuit
3. Knowingly set up logjam in manufactured delay
4. Declare winner when the red mirage appears
5. Stamp feet loudly to disallow the ongoing count.
Too much going on there to be simple stupidity. Perhaps Trump himself falls under the stupid category but somebody certainly orchestrated this series of events.
consider_this
(2,203 posts)as I posted elsewhere, I am so tired of the terminology of broadcasters saying that a particular state is the one to decide the election, because that is just not true - it is just the one, or one of a few, that still have results outstanding to be reported. They are not the ones determining the election - all states are.
genxlib
(5,518 posts)If Pennsylvania had been allowed to start counting the mail-in votes in the weeks and days before election day.
They wanted to but were stopped. Who was it that stopped them again? Oh yeah, the same cynical, evil bastards that are trying to make it seem like they are improper because they are "late"
The whole scenario was manufactured to playout this way.
Binkie The Clown
(7,911 posts)PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)That is the author's error - no, "we" do not think of the vote counting that way.
Biden has now taken the lead in the count in Pa.