Thread by @mgerrydoyle

now that the election is functionally over, I have a few observations.

first of all, this was not a close contest. biden has a huge lead in the popular vote (4-plus million) that is only going to increase. electorally, the trajectory is roughly the same as trump's 2016 win

that's not a squeaker. a squeaker is 2000, which was decided by lawyers and a few boxes of hard-to-interpret ballots in florida

like... child, come close and let me tell you about the election day that lasted two months

https://twitter.com/mgerrydoyle/status/1324477941405736961?s=20

"closeness," in 2020, was just an illusion, thanks to the enormous number of mail-in ballots and slow counting in key states.

so it seems weird to cast this as a narrow victory for the dems. especially by dems! and they still have a real shot at a senate majority, thx to georgia

down-ballot dems did quite badly relative to expectations *but* huge numbers of progressive measures passed everywhere. in florida, for instance, a $15 minimum wage was approved.

so it also seems weird to say the dems need to tack right to win

also, the social justice stuff that was supposed to hurt them... didn't. minneapolis and kenosha, for instance, went quite blue

polls. man, who knows. they were dead-on in some key states (az, mn, ga) and way off in others (wi, pa)

smarter people than I will need to unpack that one

the electoral college is undemocratic. biden, as noted, is going to win about (perhaps even exactly) as many electoral votes in his victory as trump did in 2016. *trump lost the popular vote that year by several million*

how does that make a lick of sense

speaking of ga, az and mn, whatever the dems did there, they should consider doing everywhere. organizers and activists in that state delivered in a way they did not in places like florida, and seems like they left a lot of votes on the table in texas

anyway. a historic week. and a significant victory for the dems, to beat an incumbent (rare in itself) by historic proportions, despite the aforementioned electoral college

but next time, maybe the states could save folks a few years off their life by counting all at once

one more thing: I have been very hard on the media, my own profession in the last four years. but I think in the end, basically this year, almost every org sort of figured out what they were dealing with. and you could see that in the way "huntergate" was covered

well done