Hold tight, people. Keep your hand on the plow. Don’t panic.
Republicans elected and appointed officials are behaving terribly. It is democratically corrosive. It is very bad. But here is what’s going to happen.
(1) States are going to finish counting their votes.
(2) Litigation challenges to their efforts to do so are going to fail.
(3) States will certify their results within the safe harbor deadline—making them dispositive for congressional purposes.
(4) Electors, having been elected, will vote and send their votes to Congress.
(5) Congress will count the votes, entitling Joe Biden to become president.
(6) Biden will take the oath of office.
A lot of bad and scary things will happen along the way, but don’t lose sight of that trajectory.
There is a certain automaticity to the process once the votes are cast. Let that automaticity play itself out. The president actually has no control over the process from here.
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Models.
The big analytical winners here are the modelers. If you look at @NateSilver538’s model, for example, this results is at the edge of the fat part of his distribution. @micahcohen
I bought this shirt one day in 2015 on which I had back-to-back meetings with two heads of NSD: the incumbent, John Carlin, at DOJ, and @DavidKris, one of his predecessors, whom I was meeting for a drink at the Hotel Sofitel afterwards.
It was cloudy out, but I decided to walk the several blocks between DOJ and the Sofitel, which is right next to the White House. Mistake. A few blocks into the walk, the sky opened up, there was not a cab in sight, and I and my suit were completely drenched.