Poll: Spread between Trump and Biden (popular vote)

[gerontocrat]

Without checking the facts, it looks as if you're both right.

Obama's 2012 margin would be bigger in percentage terms, Biden's 2020 margin bigger in vote count (more people voted).

So it's a win-win! Everybody happy?

Not the Republicans

[Tom_Mazanec]

I noticed four of us voted 12-16%.
Sorry for you...

[Tor Bejnar]

From Wikipedia:

2012
Nominee           Barack Obama   Mitt Romney    
Popular vote      65,915,795       60,933,504     difference:  4,982,291
Percentage        51.1%              47.2%            difference:  3.9%

2020 (96% complete)
Nominee            Joe Biden          Donald Trump    
Popular vote      77,400,101        72,266,137     difference:  5,133,964
Percentage        50.8%               47.4%            difference:  3.4% 
(Difference is increasing as CA votes get counted.  NY too?)

Yup, Greylib, my source and Walrus's were both accurate. (I'm not surprised.) 

[crandles]

I noticed four of us voted 12-16%.
Sorry for you...

Electoral college could end up 306 to 232 which is 56.9% to 43.1% which would be 13.7% margin 

[Tom_Mazanec]

Thread title specifies popular vote, crandles.

[karl dubhe2]

I noticed four of us voted 12-16%.
Sorry for you...

For me?   No, I'm not the one you should feel sorry for.  After all, I don't live in the USA.   I voted high because I had hope for the USA.  That hope is dead, sorry.   If 'we' should feel sorry for anyone it's the people who will have to live in the USA.   

[Tor Bejnar]

I feel sorry for the people on Earth whose lives are affected by the US.

I, too, "voted high because I had hope for the USA."  My 11.5-12.5 popular vote difference 'vote' ["12"] didn't manifest.  We're not as enlightened as I presumed we were.

By "enlightened" I mean being so aware of the present and future consequences of anthropogenically influenced climate weirding that voting for anybody who doesn't have an inclination to do something about it or the ability to receive enough votes to do much about it is a no-brainer don't-do-it.

Other people's definition of enlightened will differ.

[AbruptSLR]

Per AP with New York at 80% counted (New York is not required to certify their vote count until December 8, 2020) and California at 93% counted, the spread is now up to 3.5% and increasing:

Biden:  50.9%; 77,708,023
Trump: 47.4%; 72,439,067

[AbruptSLR]

Per AP with New York at 81% counted (New York is not required to certify their vote count until December 8, 2020) and California at 96% counted, the spread is now up to 3.7% and increasing:

Biden:  51%; 78,662,167
Trump: 47.3%; 72,936,343

[crandles]

Current 51.0 to 47.2 spread 3.8%

If remaining ~3.8m votes similar in % terms to last 3 million which were 59.4% to 37.9% then I project votes as 81.46m to 74.86m so 51.15% to 47.01% so spread of 4.14%

Who know which administration that will be? asked Trump

Umm ... Everyone but Trump it seems
and there are 81m reasons why!

[AbruptSLR]

Per AP with New York at 84% counted (New York is not required to certify their vote count until December 8, 2020) and California at 98% counted, the spread is now up to 3.8% and increasing:

Biden:  51.1%; 79,685,131
Trump: 47.2%; 73,701,667

[WildFit]

Per AP with New York at 84% counted (New York is not required to certify their vote count until December 8, 2020) and California at 98% counted, the spread is now up to 3.8% and increasing:

Biden:  51.1%; 79,685,131
Trump: 47.2%; 73,701,667

51.1-47.2 = 3.9 so which of the numbers is incorrect or did i miss something ?

[Tor Bejnar]

From the Cook Report (source provided so you can check my data), I get

Biden               Trump               Other
Votes               Votes                Votes
79,713,868      73,725,300       2,866,967
51.00%            47.17%            1.83%
      
B/T difference:  3.83%   

Biden's percentage went down.  I wonder if the Georgia recount numbers are involved.

[crandles]

Biden's percentage went down.  I wonder if the Georgia recount numbers are involved.

I rather doubt that 51.1% figure coming between these figures

Biden %      Biden votes  Trump votes  Other votes
0.5100354092   79672363   73689996   2847115
0.5100660507   79720247   73724487   2849234

[Tor Bejnar]

From the Cook Report, I get
156,484,522 total votes and ...

Biden               Trump               Other
Votes               Votes                Votes
79,827,499      73,794,344       2,862,679  (hmmm, this 'Other' number went down  )

51.013%            47.158%            1.829%
     
B-T difference:  3.855%   

Will it get to 3.90%?  Biden would need approximately 90% of 90,000 additional votes (or 80% of 125,000) to reach this milestone. 

To reach 4.00%, Biden would need approximately 90% of 300,000 additional votes (or 80% of 400,000) to reach this milestone. 

[Tor Bejnar]

Several thousand more votes counted (none for "Other") since this morning (my time).

Biden           Trump           Other
Votes           Votes           Vote
79,835,585   73,800,546   2,862,679   
         
51.014%           47.157%            1.829%   
B-T difference: 3.856%


So, if 14,288 changes the difference by .0009%, the US needs 2.4 million more votes (at that B/T ratio - 57% for Biden) to make the B-T difference 4.0%; only 734,000 votes to make the B-T difference 3.90%. 

[crandles]

Will it get to 3.90%?  Biden would need approximately 90% of 90,000 additional votes (or 80% of 125,000) to reach this milestone. 

To reach 4.00%, Biden would need approximately 90% of 300,000 additional votes (or 80% of 400,000) to reach this milestone.

NBC https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-elections/president-results?icid=election_marquee
says there is 2.95m more votes to be counted. 1.86m from New York state. So I am projecting 4.2% margin - 51.18%(rounded uo) to 46.97% (rounded down)

[vox_mundi]

... edit: from America's Finest News Source ...

‘Your Honor, I’m Ready To Present,’ Says Giuliani Pulling Rotted Melon, Stray Cat Out Of Old Burlap Sack
https://politics.theonion.com/your-honor-i-m-ready-to-present-says-giuliani-pulli-1845716203

-----------------------------------------

Thx sidd

[sidd]

Re: "most trusted news source"

Careful there. The official motto is "America's Finest News Source."

sidd

[Tor Bejnar]

An additional 27,086 votes counted (per Cook) since I last looked (a couple days ago).  74% went to Biden and 25% went to Trump (1% Other).  At this rate, about ½ million ballots will need to be counted for Biden to lead Trump by 4.00 points.  If there are 2.9 million ballots to be counted, this (74% to Biden) will lead to a 4.66 point difference.  Even at the 57% to Biden rate, with these 2.9 m ballots, Biden will end up leading by a spot over 4.0 points.  Keeping the NY ballots at 74% Biden and the rest at the 57% rate, the final point spread will be around 4.4.  So I think Crandles is on the right track.

[crandles]

Using small numbers of votes reported, the percentages vary wildly eg your 57% to 74%. Hence I am using percentage over last 3m votes 59.97% to 36.91% which is much more stable eg last 660k votes reported Biden had 59.85%.

My projection seems to be drifting upwards slowly. Also yes, it is quite plausible that NY late reported votes will favour Biden more than the states that have reported last 3m votes. I haven't built this into my projection.

[vox_mundi]

[Tor Bejnar]

Cook reports 185,193 more ballots counted: 6% for Other!  65% for Biden (hmmm: right between the previous two figures (57% and 74%).  Crandles is smart to use a larger 'sample' to project with.  Nonetheless, 65% Biden for remaining 2.73 million ballots [derived from a number Crandles posted above] yields a (projected) 4.36 point spread.

The current point spread is 3.9.

I never realized before how long it took for some states to count ballots.  Maybe related to this:  the last time I voted in Canaan, New Hampshire, a town of 3,000+ people, the ballot consisted of five pages of races and ballot questions on photocopied 8½ x 11" paper (single sided); "Mark selected option with an "X".  After I voted I was asked if I was willing to volunteer after the poll closed to help count the votes.  Along with 20 or 25 others (c. 1% of the adult population), the pages were separated and a partner and I 'did' our question, with one of us reading the selected name and the other one of us tallying it (four sides of a square makes 4 and a slash makes 5, we were instructed).  We switched jobs half way through.  It was hard.  It was hard saying the right name sometimes ("Jones, Sabastion, Jones, Sabastion, Sabastion, Sabastion, Jones ...") and hard to mark beside the correct name sometimes.  (After three "Sabastions", moving back to "Jones" could be 'difficult', and after "Jones, Sabastion, Jones, Sabastion, Jones, Sabastion, Sabastion", the last "Sabastion" could be 'difficult', too.  If any race was close, a recount would have been in order.  We had our share of spoiled ballots (an "X" by each name) and "I meant to vote for Jones" which a computer would have missed.  I think most of us were finished around 1 am.  (I think my partner and I 'did' two races; some pairs did 3, but it might have been 3 or 4 per pair.  There were probably about 2,000 ballots cast.  [Canaan cast 2,052 votes in recent election.  Wikipedia says the adult population in 2010 was 3092.)

[crandles]

Caught 4 recent updates to New York votes which have ranged from 65.3% to 74.8% for Biden with the total at 71.46% so it does look like these will come in at higher % than rest of states recently reporting.

Building this in, projected votes could have margin as wide as

Biden 81.75m votes 51.30% Trump 74.68m votes 46.86% so spread 4.44%
a win by 7.07m votes

(also switched to last 2.35m votes which are at 61.17% for Biden for projecting states other than NY. Ought to exclude NY state's votes from these but doubt it is significant but my projection could be slightly biased high now.)

[AbruptSLR]

Per AP tonight:

Biden:  50.8%; 76,071,710
Trump: 47.6%; 71,287,537

So with California only 88% reported the spread is now 3.2% and increasing.

Edit: I estimate that after California is finished counting Biden will lead Trump by over 7 million votes (this estimate includes consideration of the fact that other predominately blue states like New York and Illinois are also not finished counting).

It is interesting that my earlier estimate that Biden would lead Trump by over 7 million votes seem to closely match crandles' latest estimates

[Tor Bejnar]

Cook reports  290,645 more ballots counted (since my last post): 73% for Biden (hmmm: no longer just between the figures 57% and 74%.   Does this suggest it is mostly NY and CA ballots?  (3% of newly counted ballots were for Other.)

73% Biden for remaining 2.44 million ballots [derived from a number Crandles posted several days ago and subtracting Cook-reported 'new ballots counted'] yields a (projected) 4.6 point spread!  Going up!

The current point spread (per Cook) is 3.98.

[AbruptSLR]

Per the AP, with New York at 95% reporting:

Biden:  51.3%, 80,952,796
Trump: 47%;   74,083,911

So we are now at a 4.3% spread, and we are rapidly approaching a 7m vote difference.

[Tor Bejnar]

It's been a week - how refreshing to not be compelled to look daily!

The current point spread - Biden % minus Trump % (per Cook) is 4.39%.

Cook reports 1,071,699 more ballots counted since my last post: 81% for Biden (hmmm: no longer between the boundary figures of 57% and 74%.  (only 1.7% of newly counted ballots were for Other.)

81% Biden for remaining 1.37 million ballots [derived from a number Crandles posted nearly 2 weeks ago and subtracting Cook-reported 'new ballots counted' since then] yields a (projected) 4.9 point spread!   

Might there really be a million ballots to count?  If NY is 95% counted (per AP), then given the Cook reported 8,359,984 votes counted there, there are nearly 418,000 ballots to count in NY.  I read that 99% of California's vote is counted, so there could be nearly 175,000 ballots to count there.  If the total remaining outstanding ballots is actually only 500,000 (and not 1.37 million), at 81% to Biden, the final point spread would be 4.6% and vote difference 7.25 million.  (75% to Biden would give 4.5% spread and the vote difference would be over 7.1 million.)

[crandles]

NBC https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-elections/president-results
say est  1119736 votes to count. It wouldn't surprise if there are fewer than that to come in, the total votes est at 159.023m is reducing which shouldn't be surprising, some will be found to be invalid.

A large chunk of NYork votes came in at 85.8% for Biden nearly 690k for Biden. This pushed up my projections to a 4.7% spread 51.45% to 46.73%.

Is this 85.8% exceptional or will remaining 720k votes from NYork be similar? Perhaps counties with largest numbers of mail in votes tend to report last and they tend to be heavily democrat? So projection creeping up a little more from 4.7% wouldn't surprise me but I am doubting it will reach as much as 4.9% but not totally impossible.

Adding all remaining votes to Biden would just reach a 5% spread, so unless they find a lot more votes, a 5% spread is as close to impossible as makes no difference.

[Tom_Mazanec]

It really feels weird that, in the 21st Century, it takes this long to get the final totals.

[The Walrus]

It really feels weird that, in the 21st Century, it takes this long to get the final totals.

Some blame the Help America Vote Act passed in 2002 for the slowdown in vote counting.  This helped to ensure that the preliminary results, displayed on election night, become the true vote totals.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/qz.com/857419/why-does-vote-counting-take-so-long-in-the-us/amp/

Counting was much faster prior to the increase in absentee ballots.

[Tor Bejnar]

If a jurisdiction relies only on professional (paid and previously budgeted) staff, and 30% of voters chose absentee ballots, it takes time to verify every signature.  If you own or rent (previously budgeted) signature comparison equipment, it would go faster.  In some states, a voter who voted by mail could 'change their mind' and vote in person; in these states not only does the signature need verification but checking to see if the voter voted in person has to also be checked.  Some states allow military absentee ballots to arrive quite late.

[AbruptSLR]

Per AP, with New York 98% reporting, we are up to a 4.5% spread and almost a 7M vote difference:

Biden:  51.4%, 81,150,731
Trump: 46.9%; 74,170,241

[crandles]

Down to 392k votes to count only 22k from New York.

Current 81259500 51.32% to 74207681 46.86% so gone over 7m votes.


Projected 81525k 51.36% 74328k 46.82% for a spread of 4.53% 7.197m vote difference

[Tor Bejnar]

Recent batch of 312,443 ballots counted (per Cook since my Dec. 2 post) were 'only' 69% for Biden.  ('Other' went down 2,575.  It went down once before - something is screwy!  Maybe Trump is on to something?  )  Although Cook's total ballots counted is nearly 20,000 higher than what Crandles just posted, the percentages virtually match (51.31% to 46.86%).  (We must be following the same race!)

Reaching a spread of 4.50 (absolute, not rounded) points will be a stretch, but doable if there are 200,000 ballots to count (at 70% for Biden).

[AbruptSLR]

Per the AP, with 99% of New York reporting, their vote count difference is now 7,059,780

Biden:  51.4%, 81,255,933
Trump: 46.9%, 74,196,153

[Tor Bejnar]

Recent batch of 16,249 ballots counted (per Cook since my Dec. 4 post) were 68% for Biden.  (No votes for 'Other': with a national average of 1.8% there should have been some, and the 'Other' total went down between the 2nd and 4th.  ) 
Biden: 81,281,672   
Trump: 74,221,585   
Other: 2,898,868   
Biden-Trump spread:  4.457%

Reaching a spread of 4.50 (absolute, not rounded) points is unlikely, as it would require 185,000 ballots at 70% for Biden.  New York and most states' elections are now certified.  California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Missouri and New Jersey are not yet certified, though.

(Wikipedia indicates [in side bar] that 2,654 more votes for Biden and Trump have been counted (more than what Cook says), 90% of which are for Biden, but these little numbers affect the B-T spread insignificantly.  I know: every vote counts!)