US Election Countdown: T-minus One Day – Podcast Round-up

Scenario: Minimal Blue Wave Base Case
The map below is the likely minimal margin required by the Democrats to both send Biden over the top and to win a 50-50 for Dems in the Senate (with VP Harris casting he deciding vote) – from the current 53-47 – as the Dems are likely to lose an Alabama Senate seat, but win seats in Maine, North Carolina, Arizona and Colorado. 

Scenario Three: Blue Tsunami
In this scenario, far stronger than expected turnout and polls overfitted for the 2016 election fail to register the surge in young voters in particular and we get the most lopsided results in the electoral college since 1988. The below map would be a political earthquake with Texas as the chief prize for the Dems (the 2020 census and political district redrawings and new electoral votes added there from population growth and in Georgia would further erode the traditional Republican base). This kind of result would make for a far more powerful Democratic mandate to do everything from massive stimulus to Supreme Court packing and adding Puerto Rico and Washington DC as new states, etc.

Election Night timing
Besides the two websites I have linked to for a basic overview of Election Night poll closings and the more thorough spin on how quickly results might be available, I would just add once again here that Florida in particular, but also North Carolina, are the two states most in the crosshairs in the first two-three hours after polls close. Both states will have tallied their early votes and could dump the majority of these at the closing of the polls. They will start dramatically Democrat, but how quickly that fades towards Republicans after the more Trump-leaning districts close at 20:00 US Eastern Time will be crucial. Over 90% of Florida has reported by 20:30 after which the final 10% came in slowly.

For the Blue Tsunami scenario, I would focus on Texas, results, where early in-person voter turnout has been staggering (polls close there at 21:00 and 22:00 Eastern US Time)

Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan all report in painfully slow fashion and if overall election is a nail-biter, get ready for a long night on their account.

Keep in mind that the market projects results far more quickly than the news networks. At midnight in New York (0600 CET in Europe), the market had predicted the outcome hours earlier, even with decisive states theoretically up in the air and not called by the major networks. (only 64% of Michigan counted at midnight New York / 0600 CET, for example).