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TODAY IS A momentous day across the Atlantic as the American public (well, the ones who haven’t voted already) go to the polls in the US Presidential Election.
Over 90 million Americans have already cast their vote in the race between Republican incumbent Donald Trump and his Democrat rival Joe Biden with turnout expected to exceed the 136 million who voted in 2016.
The opinion polls have consistently pointed to a Biden win, but Trump will be hoping he can retain those key states he won over four years ago when he beat Hillary Clinton to the presidency.
TheJournal.ie will be with you overnight this evening as our team brings you all the latest updates, insights and analysis from the US Presidential Election.
The battlegrounds
Tens of millions of people are voting across the 50 states, but who the actual winner is will come down to the results in a small number of states.
Each state has a number of electoral college votes allocated. In almost all cases, if you win the state, you win all of those electoral college votes.
To win the election, either Trump or Biden will need to reach 270 electoral votes.
And it’s those states that frequently switch between Republican and Democrat that will decide the election.
There are two states, in particular, where all eyes will be focused – Florida and Pennsylvania.
Florida has 29 electoral college votes and Pennyslvania has 20.
Based on the current projections, it appears that Trump absolutely must win Florida if he is to have any chance of retaining the presidency.
Early on election night 2016, news of a win for Trump in Florida set the tone as he began to beat Hillary in all the vital states.
Between them, those 49 electoral college votes would go some way towards winning the White House, but Biden could afford to lose Florida if he was to win back the so-called Blue Wall – Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Other important places to watch are Iowa, Ohio, North Carolina, Arizona and Georgia.
It’s important to note that the way the counting may go for all these states may not be giving the most accurate picture during election night.
The counting is done differently depending on the state so the mail-in ballots that are expected to favour Biden may not be factored into initial counting. This could happen in the likes of Pennyslvania.
Axios reported on Sunday that Trump has told confidants he’ll declare victory if it looks like he’s “ahead” in a number of the important swing states, even if all of the votes haven’t yet been counted.
It’s important to note that Trump has denied that he would do this, but also told reporters at the weekend that it’s a “terrible thing” that we “can’t know the results of an election the night of the election”.
The polls
Nationally, Joe Biden has consistently led Donald Trump for months.
According to an average of polls collated by FiveThirtyEight.com, Biden has an 8.5 point lead on 52% to Trump’s 43.5%.
However, this national lead will count for little on election day. As indicated above, it’s those crucial swing states where the election will be decided.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton received more votes than Trump did, but the latter won the key states needed to win the election.
Biden leads the way in many of these states, but Trump has been making some gains and, of course, it is entirely possible the polls are wrong.
Here’s what way the polls in those swing states currently look heading into election day:
If – and this is a big if – these polls were correct, Biden would easily win the election. If Trump was to take Florida and at least six of the remaining eight states on the above list, that’d be his route to victory.
The timings
The first main thing to look out for is what times the polls close in the individual states.
A large number of states – including Florida, Pennsylvania and Michigan – close their polls between 1am and 2am Irish time.
As mentioned, different states have different methods of counting postal ballots so we can expect to see a sharp divergence in when we begin to see initial results from states.
Florida will be the one to watch early in the night as, along with Arizona, it has already been processing the mail-in ballots that have been sent in.
Wisconsin and Pennsylvania could take quite a while – perhaps even days – to give us results as they don’t start counting the mail-ints until election day. Such a deluge of mail-ins due to the Covid-19 pandemic brings an unprecedented situation so it’s difficult to be sure of timings here.
It’ll be important not to be duped into thinking a state – or even the entire race – is going a certain way based on early tallies – particularly in states that are slower to count their mail-in ballots.
As opposed to the kinds of national exit polls we would see in elections here and in the UK, networks and news outlets in the US make projections on who they believe the winner is.
They do this using sophisticated models to estimate who is winning based on all the available data. When enough data becomes available, an outlet will then declare a winner in that state.
In 2016, for example, the Associated Press called Pennysylvania for Trump at around 6.30am Irish time meaning that he was about to pass the 270 electoral votes needed.
Given the uncertainty, networks may be conservative in calling states and the overall race – unless it becomes clear early on it’s a landslide.
What happens next
Counting may take days – or even weeks – to definitively give us a winner. But we could also have a winner by tomorrow morning.
A US presidential election during a pandemic – with all the complexities involved – has no parallel in living memory.
And this has been a presidential race unlike any in living memory given – unlike in 2016 – we’ve actually had four years to see what a Donald Trump presidency is like.
Given how Trump has repeatedly sought to cast doubt on the validity of mail-in ballots, the possibility remains that he may dispute the result if it doesn’t go his way.
This would lead to a completely unprecedented situation which would leave the US in a constitutional crisis and potentially cause significant civil unrest.
Whatever happens, it’s clear that a tumultuous few days and weeks are ahead in America.
After the months of lead up, the day is finally here.
And the whole world is watching.
Planning on staying up late on Tuesday to watch the results roll in? TheJournal.ie will be liveblogging through the night to bring you all the developments as they happen. Our team of reporters and columnists will be breaking down what the results mean (and what happens next) from well before dawn on Wednesday morning.
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The Greek government is really frustrating not only has Europe bent over backward to help them while Ireland like the mugs are government are pay the full price of a bailout but now they do this, I never agree with sarkozy but on this occasion I do!!
Let’s be honest, the Greeks deserve little sympathy for the disgraceful way they cooked the books to get into Europe, the way they continually run their country in the awful manner and in the way they have been expectibg everybody else to sort out their problems with no negative ramifications.
But I don’t have a problem with them having a referendum on what will be a huge financial decision made by a country that could effect millions for decades. It is a truly democratic act. Irrespective of whether or not the Greeks caused their own downfall , it’s an act of oppression for European leaders to force savage cuts without the agreement of the Greek people.
Don’t want to hear that Greece signed up to this with eu as nobody who signed upto join Europe envisaged this scenario.
While it annoys and puts the rest of us out, I think the Greek government gave its people the choice to take harsh medicine or go down a potentially harder route. For me that’s very much less efficient then taking the tough choices for your country but it’s as democratic as it gets.
Stable door, horse bolt, shutting afterwards …. Etc etc
what an outrageous suggestion to let the people affected by the austerity measures decide their fate …thank god our government aren’t that foolish and continue to do our thinking for us
I’d welcome a referendum here. It’d be good to see those who advocate a rejection of the IMF and a unilateral default lay their cards on the table. I think the response of the Irish people would be interesting when they see the figures.
ok to all the people who may have had a sarcasm by pass… i will spell it out plainly… we should have had a referendum 2 years ago but those in power (in their wisdom) decided that they know whats best for US and we should just put up and shut up and take the austerity medicine …in order to protect their own elitist asses….
Where do they expect the money to come from? Is it not a clever tactic by papandreou to make them tow the line a bit? Surely they’ll have to vote yes whether they really want it or not and then he proceeds effectively with the support of the nation, rather than taking the blame for the decision himself, the whole country make the decision which in turn might diminish the civil unrest……either that of they kick off big style, vote no and then he’s F*****d!!!
The wording of the referendum will be vital. They probably won’t define what No means. If it was defined as ‘Greece unilaterally defaults and leaves Euro’ then Greeks might vote Yes. If it is defined ‘Greece will reject this deal and look for a better one’ then it will probably be a No vote.
But I can see the ECB etc getting rightly frustrated with this. They might frame the No vote as being a rejection by Greece of the Euro and just accept that Greece is defaulting and leaving the Euro. it’d be very tempting to be rid of the Greek problem once and for all. Taxpayers in Germany would love the idea. But the worries about how bad Greece might get would probably be too much. However bad Greece is, it could get a hell of a lot worse.
I Presume a referendum will take months to arrange (and probably be lost) and all the while the rest of Europe suffers more Market turmoil. I also presume no mention was made by the Greeks of a referendum when agreeing to an extremely generous bailout package. If that be the case, the deal should be taken off the table and let Greece paddle it’s own (very leaky) canoe outside of the Eurozone. Better to stand back and watch Greece burn rather than fiddle while the rest of us do.
We are watching what will be the end of euro. Greece will never be able to service there debt, Italy is now in trouble with Portugal,Spain,Belgium & Ireland all waiting in the wings. Hopefully they find away for members to return to there own currency’s and dissolve the euro. Not an easy task I know.
We all know this going to end in tears, so why keep dragging it out. Let’s ended it know and start the rebuilding process sooner rather than later.
Europes grand fudge began to unravel yesterday before Greeces referendum announcement.
China’s official statement on Sunday that it will not be bailing Europe out put the initial spanner in the works.
EU leaders proposal is heavy on aspiration but light on concrete measures.
Europes crisis may well overtake events before any Greek poll.
At long last.. the turkeys will have a say on Christmas.
This is brilliant move. Watch the suits shaking in their boots and remember keep laughing when they start the scaremongering. The fairy story called capitalism a la brothers Grimm is coming to an end.
End it now guys and put away your lovely lecterns over there in Brussels. Professional unelected bullying is not a real job anyway and I fear you will all find it quite hard back with the rest of us in the real world here on planet Earth
Home of democracy allows its citizens exercise democracy at the ballot box. Seems reasonable. How many in Ireland would have voted through the Cowen-Lenihan bak guarantee?
Depends on the alternative. No doubt you wod paint No, and unilateral default, as being fantastic. Let’s have your vote nw and see how things stand. Let’s see if the unions are happy with the bailout or want a default. Lets see if the multinationals are spooked by a unilateral default. Let’s see how Sinn Fein plan to balance the books when the country has no access to borrowing.
Let’s see some facts and figures. I want to see this populist message that telling the IMF to get stuffed will mean that the government will be able to spend more money really get explained in detail to the Irsh people.
The Cowen-Lenihan bank guarantee shifted the private debts of the banks onto the sovereign balance sheet, the taxpayer balance sheet in effect. The knock on effect has produced NAMA, the majority of its debt is due to just 650 borrowers, and bumper bank recapitalisations. Meanwhile, in the midst of all this ‘recovery’ and fixing ‘systemic’ banks such as Anglo and INBS, credit is tighter than ever, property prices are still falling, mortgage distress is worsening, insolvencies in SMEs are ‘levelling out’ after four years of a flood, unemployment is topped at an artificial ‘low’ of 450k due to emigration, record numbers in third level and in various schemes. Having referendums on policies that carry the risk of bankrupting one if not two generations, and tearing up the social fabric of families for decades, do not strike me as unreasonable.
3 holes in EU’s debt plan. Not including any hint as to how renewed growth is to be achieved.
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2011/10/31/european-debt-deal-holes/?section=money_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fmoney_topstories+%28Top+Stories%29&utm_content=Google+International
Only growth will resolve Europes crisis.
http://ukhousebubble.blogspot.com/2011/10/only-economic-growth-can-resolve.html?m=1
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