Election Night Minute-By-Minute Recap
How it went down from my perspective
Back when I wrote about soccer, I used to do “match diaries”, which were minute-by-minute recaps of games. People seemed to like them; I think people enjoyed the experience of reliving the match. So, this is basically a match diary for election night; I’m hoping that “relive the election experience” is a sales pitch with more appeal than, say, “what if you could have a sandwich like the ones you buy on Amtrak every night?”
6:30 PM (all times Eastern): The first big decision of the night: What network should I watch? I’m going with MSNBC for one simple reason: The Kornacki Factor. Steve Kornacki is usually among the first to know which 10,000 voters in the country will actually matter, and I can’t wait for him to tell me which Godforsaken outpost of lead-poisoned pig fuckers will decide this election.
6:50: We probably won’t know about the Upper Midwest states until late at night (or even later), and West Coast results will arrive in late June, but I’ll have my eye on the bellwethers in the South early-on. The biggies, of course, are Georgia and North Carolina; results there will probably give us an indication of what kind of night we’re looking at. It’s possible the a strong signal from the South could end this night early. And with that in mind, I’m introducing this:
It’s not looking good! But I’m hopeful.
7:35: What’s the point of MSNBC saying “30 SECONDS UNTIL A POLL CLOSING!!! DON’T GO ANYWHERE, THIS IS A BIGGIE!!! POLL CLOSING IN 3, 2, 1…every state is too early to call.”? They’re basically saying “30 seconds until we can tell you that we can’t tell you anything.” Except for Vermont, but “Democrats win in Vermont” is the opposite of news.
7:40: Our first results are coming in from the South. Credit to the southern states for countering the “southerners aren’t exactly lightning-fast when it comes to counting” stereotype.
7:50: I’ve just learned that the Harris team has dispatched Josh Gadd to encourage voters who are standing in long lines to encourage them to stick it out. Which goes to show how little I understand marginal voters: If I’m in line, and Josh Gadd shows up to do some Patch Addams-type bullshit to get me to stay, the odds of me sticking around are something less than zero.
8:00: Here’s the first thing that feels like something: Florida was called for Trump right away. I’m not surprised that Trump won — Nate Silver had him winning by 6.4% — but the fact that MSNBC called it right away instead of the network doing some “gee shucks we’ll see” bullshit for an hour seems good for Trump.
8:05: Can we vote on whether it’s “in line” or “on line”? Why isn’t that on the ballot?
Also: It’s definitely “in line”, because you’re part of the line, not standing on top of it.
8:15: Josh Stein will be governor of North Carolina, not obviously nuts self-proclaimed Nazi Mark Robinson. So, let that be a lesson to all of us: When declaring your love for the Nazis on a porn message board, always use a burner account.