Crunching numbers on PA. Looks great. Want to dive in to #s?

[Fahrenthold451]

I've been following the trends as PA returns are coming in. NYT calculated this morning that with a 78% D advantage for Mail in Biden would win PA by 100k votes. That was with 1.4 M outstanding and a deficit of 700k votes for Biden.

Here's the quote from the Upshot NYT

President Trump leads by nearly 700,000 votes in Pennsylvania as of 5 a.m. on Wednesday, and Mr. Biden’s chances depend on whether he can win a large percentage of the more than 1.4 million absentee ballots that remain to be counted.

So far, Mr. Biden has won absentee voters in Pennsylvania, 78 percent to 21 percent, according to the Secretary of State’s office. The results comport with the findings of pre-election surveys and an analysis of absentee ballot requests, which all indicated that Mr. Biden held an overwhelming lead among absentee voters.

Now, some hours later with 1.1 M ballots remaining, per NYT, Trump's lead has shrunk to 321k. This is astonishing, because per math, you can't shrink a lead by 379k after counting 300k votes.

So, there is an explanation. There have been more outstanding Mail ballots than the experts thought. And/or Philly is absolutely crushing it above the 78/21. For the math to make sense it's probably 85/15 and there were 1.5 M outstanding Mail ballots.

Conclusión? Nate Cohn's math had Biden up 100k in PA when it's all said and done. If the trends hold, however, we might be looking at Biden netting 616k more votes which would put Biden up about 300k at the end of counting.

I had to run the numbers a bunch of times to get to that conclusion. If any geeks want to take a look at it correct me.

As of 4:53 EST in PA
Trump +320k

84% of Vote in at 5.9 M votes.
5.9/.84 = 7 million total.

7M - 5.9 = 1.1M outstanding to be counted.

1.1 x .78 = Biden's remaining 858
1.1 x .22 = Ts 242 (Im rounding him up to .22)

858-242 net 616 to Biden

616B - 320T a = 294,000 winning margin for Biden.

That margin is too big to take to the Supreme Court.

[calimary]

1. I love your screen name, btw! As well as your calculations!

[Fahrenthold451]

3. Thanks! Fahrenthold is my spirit animal.

[calimary]

34. Yeah, I love him, too!

He reminds me of my years working at the A.P.

Wall-to-wall nerds in that newsroom but smart and thorough as can be! Nobody cared about glamour, meticulous coiffed-hair, perfect makeup, or cool hip fashions, especially when they were busy on a story. Quite a few qualified for the word "rumpled." But they sure knew their stuff. Serious newspeople. If they never had to "get ready for their close-up" it wouldn't bother them a bit.

David Fahrenthold would fit in there perfectly!

And heck, in the AP L.A. bureau, I had the HUGE privilege of working with at least TWO Pulitzer Prize-winners (in AP Photos), and a distinguished gent named Bob Thomas who was considered the dean of the Hollywood press, had been for years, knew everybody, had a Rolodex worth a million bucks, and a distinguished resume including being THE guy who broke the story to the world about Bobby Kennedy getting shot at the Ambassador Hotel in L.A. right after winning the California primary in 1968. First to call it in. I felt unworthy even to sit near him in the newsroom.

And all three of these fellows were people you wouldn't even notice in the produce section off your local grocery store. You'd never know what accomplished men and leaders in a highly-competitive industry they were. Totally Undistinguished. Utterly ordinary and unremarkable. Like a handful of dads in the park trying to coach their kids' Little League team.

There was one time when I had to cover Cybill Shepherd getting her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. So there I was in the press pen behind the red velvet rope craning my neck and reaching out with my microphone to try to get comments from Shepherd's celebrity friends on hand. At one point, I looked downward and who should be crouched on the pavement below the red velvet rope, immediately in front of me? Nick Ut - one of those two AP Photo guys I described above. You wouldn't know him if he fell on you, but you DEFINITELY know his work. Aside from the spot news coverage he photographed, and the disasters and dignitaries and history-making events, his probably-most unforgettable photo was of this agonized little Asian girl, running, screaming, down a desolate country road, naked, because she'd just been napalmed. She was right smack-dab in the middle of the frame. There was a little boy closer to the camera who was also running in equal panic, and he was screaming in terror too. Nick Ut took that photo when he worked in the AP Saigon bureau early in his career. He won a Pulitzer Prize for that shot. And he'd recall the discussion in the bureau after he brought that photo in - lots of serious concern and debate about the propriety of publishing it, because the little girl was nude. The editorial decision was made that the photo had such a powerful impact - REALLY showed the anguish of war on innocent civilians - many of whom were children, that it told a story that needed for the world to see. That photo packed a big punch. I remember seeing it in LIFE magazine and I never forgot it. And lo and behold, years later, there he was scrunched down in front of me, taking photos of Cybill Shepherd for Pete's sake, getting a star on the Hollywood Blvd sidewalk. I remember that day. The very thought, at that moment, the total randomness and irony and incongruity of it, just blew my mind!

Nick Ut's colleague, Reed Saxon, was honored for another memorable photo - of Bill Clinton wearing sunglasses and playing saxophone on the Arsenio Hall show, and you could see Arsenio in the shot, over to the side, with a big grin, pointing toward Clinton, who was doing an appearance to promote his candidacy for President of the United States. That shot of his was in a Campaign 1992 photo package entered by the AP into that year's Pulitzer competition - and the entry won.

And as for the aforementioned Bob Thomas, he had such stature that he had his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, too.

STILL can't believe I was actually lucky enough to work with these people, back in the 1980s and 90s.

[onecaliberal]

2. Thank you for this. Thank you, thank you.

[Dr. Jack]

4. Senator Casey says Biden will win by at least 100,000

That was from this morning so the numbers may have changed and he is a Democrat so take it with a grain of salt but Dems out if Pennsylvania seem very confident by what they are seeing.

[Fahrenthold451]

5. I saw that too, didn't believe it so did my own trendline

Numbers check out for 100k+ victory.

[DeminPennswoods]

12. Sen Casey knows Pennsylvania voting

He's been steeped in it all his life.

[Maraya1969]

6. I just don't understand; if you say there are 1.1M votes left and Biden

should take 78% of them that is 858,000 votes for Biden

Why did you subtract the 22% that is supposed to go to trump? That would be 242,000 votes for Trump.

858,000 + 242,000 = 1,100,000 total votes left.



OH: I didn't include the lead Trump has right now. But that would be

858,000 - 700,000 = 158,000 for Biden.

[Fahrenthold451]

9. This afternoon Ts lead is 320 Im using current time #s

It's down to 303 now.

[Mike 03]

7. Thank you for pulling this data together and analyzing it.

I feel good about PA. But the waiting is excruciating.

[cry baby]

8. So glad you like math! Thank you 😊

[Tommymac]

10. I Like It! Science!

[BumRushDaShow]

11. The state tally isn't as updated for Philly as the actually Philly tally

https://results.philadelphiavotes.com/ResultsSW.aspx?type=FED&map=CTY

https://results.philadelphiavotes.com/VoterTurnoutDetails.aspx?&cat=PREC

Tabulated so far (the "total ballots cast" number is the "total" for all candidates) -

Unofficial 2020 General Election Results
November 3, 2020
Results Last Updated11/4/2020 3:46:43 PM EST

Voter Turnout
51.41%
Total Ballots Cast 580,612
Registered Voters 1,129,308
Ballots Cast by Mail: 233583
Ballots Cast at Polling Place:347029

Some benchmarks -

457,773 - 2020 (for Joe Biden so far at time noted)

584,025 - 2016 (for Hillary Clinton)

588,806 - 2012 (for Barack Obama)

595,980 - 2008 (for Barack Obama)

[DeminPennswoods]

13. 51% turnout is really disappointing

for Phila.

[tarheelsunc]

15. Is that 51% votes cast though or is it 51% of registered tabulated so far? eom

[DeminPennswoods]

17. 51% of registered voters

It's right in the blockquoted text.

[BumRushDaShow]

18. That number continues to change as they update the results

There was supposedly record turnout so it will be interesting to see what the final numbers are. It's weird how they set up this site and it is brand new (maybe from the grant money) because they used to do more rudimentary reporting in the past.

[DeminPennswoods]

19. Will be interesting to see the final number

477k votes seems awfully low to me given the Philly is only getting more Dem, not less.

[BumRushDaShow]

21. They are still counting

You can actually drill down and see where they are so far - https://results.philadelphiavotes.com/VoterTurnoutDetails.aspx?

They are about halfway through the absentee ballots and I think the crew that are working at the moment may be sorting the ballots by Ward/Division way in the far end of the facility and i guess once that is done, they get distributed to people who will extract the secrecy envelopes out of the exterior envelopes and then the ballots out of the secrecy envelopes and on to flattening them and stacking for scanning -

[Dem2]

14. Margin down to 277k

and falling. 51.6 Evil to 47.1 Biden or 4.5%. It was as high as 15% yesterday

[radius777]

16. We got this - Scotus won't save him.

The same day vote and rurals heavily favored Trump which was reported first (the 'red mirage') but the early vote and urban vote heavily favors Biden (the 'blue shift').

PA also has a Dem Gov/AG/SoS who made it clear that they were well prepared for Trump/GOP's fake arguments.

The blue wall has held and Biden will be the 46th President.

[bucolic_frolic]

20. Maybe Trump can get Jerome Powell to print him half a million votes

Quantitative Squeezing

[reACTIONary]

32. +10 nt

[Locrian]

22. hope to gods you're right - any idea "when"? n/t

[DallasNE]

23. The Media Did A Crap Job Of Reporting Last Night

Not sure where they got some of their numbers either. Last night they had percentages remaining that indicated average turnout at best because of the number of ballots counter and percent of remaining ballots made it impossible to overcome an 800,000 deficit, especially since they said ballots from both Pittsburgh and Philadelphia remained to be counted. It now looks like they were seriously underestimating the remaining ballots and where they were coming from. Same problem with Wisconsin - there weren't enough remaining ballots to overcome the Trump lead, except they did by 20,600.

[DENVERPOPS]

33. It's the Republican

owned media just trying to do their job to help the party and Trump........

[Laura PourMeADrink]

24. Backing up a second, trump's lead dropped from 700k to 321k.

That means Biden gained 379k votes. While the remaining votes dropped from 1.4 to 1.1 remaining.

Could it be just that Biden's gain of 379k could consist in some regular votes, i.e. late precinct reporting. IOW he got a percentage of the 300k mail-ins plus residual regular vote?

[Wiz Imp]

29. That was surely the case

In addition to all the uncounted mail-in ballots at the end of the night on Tuesday, there was still about 15% of precincts not yet reporting their in-person election day votes. Almost half of those were in Philadelphia and Allegheny (Pittsburgh) and Montgomery Counties - the 3 largest counties in the state. I'm sure some of the cutting into the deficit was because some of those in-person votes got counted.

[gopiscrap]

35. welcome to DU

[gopiscrap]

36. welcome to DU

[ancianita]

25. Heck, yeah! Dive away! Thanks for your conclusion. That there is why numbers win against

made up shit every single time.

[Mr. Sparkle]

26. Trumps lead is down to 250k with 86% reporting.

[58Sunliner]

27. Another 11,000 in mail system not delivered. Another sweep has been ordered.

"including more than 11,000 in Pennsylvania, nearly 16,000 in Florida and more than 6,000 in Michigan."
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-11-04/judge-new-usps-sweeps-election-mail-in-ballots

[mvd]

28. I have a question

PA voter here. I looked up my mail ballot status, and it still says “vote recorded.” Does it change to something like “vote counted” when they open the envelope?

[George II]

30. About an hour ago I did similar calculations for Nevada and Arizona. Biden wins BOTH:

He increases his lead in Nevada from 7,965 to 12,685 and in Arizona from 93,016 to 129,778.

Georgia might also be in play , too!

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100214449051

[George II]

31. Biden is now only 204,000 behind, shrinking by the hour (it was 492,000 this morning)!