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(CNN) – As election night turns into the morning after, they are still there A lot that we don’t know about the race to be the next president and to control the United States Senate.
For an election that attracted more voter interest than any other in recent memory, the early results were remarkably predictable. President Donald Trump has won victories in traditional Republican states. Former Vice President Joe Biden has done the same in credible democratic states.
The map’s normality, at least Tuesday night through Wednesday morning, in what was one of the least normal extended periods in American political history, created a kind of news vacuum in the early hours. of the ballot.
Twitter was quick to fill that void, with shady Democrats wildly sharing the news that the betting markets had shifted to Trump (which is indicative of not much) and Republicans insisting we were seeing the moment again. global impact. Trump in 2016 (one thing Yup we know for sure: the Democratic dreams that Biden would raze will not come true.)
The truth is that even though the calendar has changed to November 4th, it is simply too early to announce the outcome of the presidential race and the battle for a majority in the Senate.
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Without definitive answers, where should we keep our collective eyes for the next 24-48 hours? Here are some locations.
1) The Rust Belt, again: Since the beginning of Biden’s campaign for the Democratic nomination, he has had a simple argument for the members of his party: if we can take back Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, we can take back the White House. And I am the best candidate in the party to do it. As the day after the election dawns, Biden’s initial promise will be tested. It is not yet clear whether Biden will need to wipe out Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan or win two of three (or one of three) to reach 270 electoral votes. But at this point there is no doubt that his fate (and Trump’s) hinges on the results in that trio of states.
2) The game of perception: As most Americans, including on the West Coast, began turning off televisions and mute phones, Biden led the election vote count but Trump was ahead in several key states thanks to many of them tabulating votes. issued on election day before adding those issued in advance, by post or in person.
How do these mixed signals affect how people talk and think about the race through Wednesday (and beyond)? If the past is a prologue, being ahead, even for just one vote (electoral or otherwise), has a huge impact on the public perception of who is likely to win.
(Al Gore’s campaign has always fought the perception that he was losing the race during the Florida recount because George W. Bush was ahead.) So are people holding on to Biden’s likely election leadership when he wakes up Wednesday morning? Or are they looking at Trump’s possible advantages in raw vote totals in unannounced states?
3) Trump’s tactic: The president’s Twitter account, always the best window into what he’s thinking, was relatively quiet on Tuesday night. But as Biden addressed his supporters in Delaware shortly after midnight ET, Trump tweeted This: ‘We’re going BIG, but they’re trying to STEAL the election. We will never allow them to do that. Votes cannot be cast after polls close! “
This is consistent with his pre-election message: the factless claim that the continual counting of correspondence cards in urban areas is somehow proof that the race is being taken away from him.
Due to fears surrounding the coronavirus, the way the United States voted in this election was simply different, with a huge number (over 100 million) casting votes before election day. This radical change means that the vote count is slower than in past elections.
But this is proof that the system works, not that it fails. Of course, Trump is able to convince his supporters of anything – to hell with the facts – and he seems fully committed to making this false argument even when counting the legally cast votes.
Biden, for his part, said in a Tweet: «We feel good about where we are. We believe we are on track to win this election.
4) Republicans in the Senate feel good: Nothing, as I pointed out earlier, is still near the end. But Senate Republicans feel much better about their chances of getting a majority when they wake up Wednesday than Tuesday. Because? Because, as in the presidential race, so far things have gone as planned.
Yes, Senator Cory Gardner (Colorado), the Republican senator in office most at risk, has lost. But so did Senator Doug Jones of Alabama, the most vulnerable incumbent Democratic senator. Which left the math exactly where we started at the start of the evening: Democrats must get three seats for the majority (if Biden wins) or four seats (if he doesn’t).
The long-standing chances of Democratic rivals ousting Republican rulers in South Carolina and Texas fell by the wayside. And in handover contests in North Carolina, Maine, and Georgia, incumbent Republican senators held positions of varying sizes over their Democratic opponents. Those three states, plus Arizona, where Democrat Mark Kelly has a clear advantage over Senator Martha McSally, will decide which side has the majority in January.
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5) Requests: Remember that over the weekend, Trump said this about Pennsylvania and his plan to keep counting ballot papers for several days after Tuesday: “ Now, I don’t know if that’s going to change, because we’re leaving on the night of … so soon at the end of the election, we will go with our lawyers.
What he and his legal team do, in Pennsylvania and other states that will continue counting votes until Wednesday and maybe Thursday as well, is guessed right. But Trump has long used litigation (or the threat of litigation) to muddy the waters or intimidate people into giving him what he wants.
This, of course, will not be so easy in a scenario where the presidency is at stake.
Biden and his legal team will reject any attempt to stop the vote count or invalidate the ballots. And then, like almost everything, it will be up to lawyers and judges. Something similar to what happened in the 2000 presidential race. In that contest, Bush’s legal team was widely considered to have won the legal battle, allowing the then-governor of Texas to win the political battle (and the presidency). Who will judge history for winning the next legal battle in this election?
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