Put aside the core contests for a minute, hard as that is.

Here's a question that doesn't seem to even get asked, and which is deeply puzzling about American society.

Not, 'Why are we so divided?'

But, 'Why are so many individual states _perfectly_ divided?'
2/ It's so bad for the way our politics works, and it is so odd.

Massachusetts makes sense. 59% Biden.

Arkansas makes sense. 62% Trump.

Illinois: 56% Biden.

Missouri: 57% Trump.

But we have 7 to 12 states on a knife's edge of division politically. Year after year.
3/ How do places as complicated, as big as Wisconsin and Michigan end up divided by 0.7 percentage points?

Wisconsin, votes in, right now: 3,239,977

97% counted.

Margin: 20,697.

That's a 2-vote margin out of 323 cast.

Except 3,239,977 votes have been cast!
(+3% points more)
4/ Michigan, votes in, right now: 5,387,503

95% counted.

Margin: 76,737.

That's an 8-vote margin out of 539 cast.

Except 5,387,503 votes have been cast!
(+5% votes more)
5/ And in American politics, this happens over and over.

In Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania — it happens cycle after cycle. Florida.

Then the states that come and go, like Arizona and N. Carolina.

These margins are not 100,000 votes or 1,000,000 votes.
6/ 'Random' geographies with to some degree 'random' mixes of people end up absolutely perfectly divided.

Maybe the political science folks know this phenomenon & understand it, study it, talk about it.

You never hear it even mentioned in popular journalism or analysis.
7/ And yet often the political future — and the economic and social future — of the United States turns on it.

Are the people of N Carolina, in fact, perfectly divisible by two in political terms?

Of Michigan? Pennsylvania?
8/ Obviously, the electoral college system enhances the importance of this.

But if you wave a magic future-wand and eliminate the electoral college system, many Senate races end up the same way, even House races that are competitive end up the same way.
9/ It's a dynamic.

All these places change significant election cycle to election cycle.

And yet the razor thin margins keep appearing. It's not some kind of natural phenomenon, like the geography of Michigan or North Carolina.

Our politics in part powers it & re-creates it.

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More from @cfishman

6 Nov
Trump: ‘There’s been a lot of shenanigans and we can’t stand for that.’

Jake Tapper: ‘Pathetic.…A feast of falsehoods.’
2/ Brett Baier, Fox News: ‘We have not seen the evidence. We have not seen the hard evidence.’
3/ Anderson Cooper, CNN: ‘The president of the United States, flailing like an obese turtle in the sun on his back.’

Dana Bash, CNN: ‘If this was such a big plot by the Democrats, why didn’t they do better?’
Read 5 tweets
5 Nov
If you're a parent, one thing you surely want in your children is the skill of losing well.

Play hard, strive for what you want — in sports, in school, in things like theater or newspaper.

But…
2/ …But if you don't get it, if you fall short, if someone else is better, if someone else is chosen, you don't want petulance, defiance, tantrums.

That's a hard emotional skill to teach as a parent — accepting 'defeat' in all kinds of circumstances with grace & resilience.
3/ Pro-tip: Filing lawsuits when you don't get what you want is a sign that you (or your child) doesn't have that skill.

The furious tactics of the Trump campaign are a lesson in many things — how not to be a leader, how not to be a small 'd' democrat.

...>
Read 5 tweets
4 Nov
An interesting fact to absorb this morning.

Total vote for Donald Trump:

2016: 63 million

2020: 66 million (so far)

Americans watched Donald Trump for 4 years in the White House & yesterday millions more of them voted for Trump than did before seeing him as president.
2/ Biden has 69 million votes.

It seems likely at this point that Biden will, in fact, be president.

But if there's any doubt about the sense in which the 2020 election was a referendum on Trump and the Trump presidency, there was no repudiation.
3/ …Trump's vote total yesterday in fact exceeds Hillary Clinton's vote total in 2016.

• Trump, 2016: 63.0 million votes
• Clinton, 2016: 65.9 milllion
• Trump, 2020: 66.5 million (and rising)
• Biden, 2020: 69.2 million (and rising)
Read 7 tweets
3 Nov
I enjoy the heck out of election day, part 2.

One of the things I love are the surprises.

100,000 hours of cable TV commentary leading to today.

1 million words of reporting. Another 1 million of analysis & commentary.

But some unexpected things are happening right now.
2/ The unexpected things are happening in voting booths from Maine to Texas. From North Carolina to Nevada.

Will Susan Collins lose her seat or retain it? Either way — at this point — will be a surprise.

Could Joni Ernst lose? Lindsey Graham?
3/ Could Cal Cunningham, the romantic, adulterous texter, lose in N. Carolina, even as the polling holds up?

Which states will Trump win that the polling suggests he won't?

Will Georgia flip? Will Texas flip?
Read 4 tweets
3 Nov
Went to visit the new 'wall' around the White House this morning.

Here are a few views.

This 1st is of the fencing as it passes in front of the Old Executive Office Bldg., which is part of the White House complex, next to the White House.

Note Jersey barriers behind fence. Image
2/ To be clear — that fencing isn't normally there. The Jersey barriers up against the base inside of the fence, aren't normally there.

All installed overnight, starting late yesterday afternoon.

The fencing runs around the entire White House, Ellipse, Treasury, Old EOB. Image
3/ The fencing is metal, tight weave. There are a few entrance and exit points.

But the streets around the White House have now all been blocked off as well.

From H Street NW (running on N. side of Lafayette Sq.) down to Constitution Ave NW. Image
Read 8 tweets
19 Oct
You know who has crushed the coronavirus?

The University of Arizona (@uarizona).

Exactly 1 month ago, the campus was recording 10 cases of covid-19 *an hour.*

Friday: 0 positive tests

Last 10 days: 44 positives on 6,867 tests
—> positivity rate of 0.6%
2/ At one point, UArizona had 400 students in its quarantine dorm at once — each in individual rooms, receiving food deliveries & Zoom check-ins from student health services.

Today: 0 students in quarantine
3/ Perhaps most revealing, UArizona is one of the places in the US pioneering wastewater coronavirus testing — collecting raw sewage from its students, testing for coronavirus, to track & anticipate outbreaks.

They test 20 on-campus manholes 3x a week.

Today: All negative.
Read 14 tweets

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