Welcome to the 2020 U.S. USA Election Hub on Cake! I figured I would set this up tonight so that when election day comes, there will already be a place for us to discuss the election as it is unfolding. I do have my official election prediction coming your way, which will be a separate thread, but I'll link to it in here as well.

Anyways, hope you all find this thread to be useful! We got a wild week ahead of us, I'm afraid.

It’s such an important historical election and the stakes are so high that I have tried to read less election news for fear of getting depressed if Trump doesn’t lose by a landslide. Lots of what I read are attempts to understand Trump voters. I think the main factor of his supporters is their concern that America is changing too much and immigrants are a huge problem. Fingers crossed for this one.

Yeah, I'm on edge as well. Hopefully all turns out for the best.

It looks like Wall Street slightly favors a Biden win. That is to say, they think it’s slightly more likely than a Trump win, although Goldman Sachs analysts predict a blue wave.

Also, it’s interesting that they think the economy would do better under Biden.

The stock market has made its prediction about who will win the electionThe presidential election is just two days away and the stock market has locked-in its prediction, according to one indicator.www.cnn.com

I think Biden is going to win, too. I'm just trying to figure out the exact score. More to come!

But yeah, interesting that Trump's biggest selling point according to him (the stock market) favors his opponent.

Polling indicates more people think Trump is better for the economy than Biden, but I’m not aware of credible economists who think so. I could be missing some.

Reliably, however, the economy during democratic administrations has outperformed republican administrations. I just don’t think tax cuts, cutting infrastructure spending and blocking health care + blocking minimum wage hikes works for the economy as a whole. It mainly makes a few people really rich like Bezos and Trump.

I thought the top graph was interesting. (Included the bottom graph because the source is cited underneath.)

Edit: Oh dang. Just remembered Cake doesn’t allow photo magnification. :(

left side

right side

My 2020 election prediction is here...

What do you make of those? My issue is the S&P is one indicator taken in isolation that doesn't reflect the picture that really matters. For example, you can do a huge tax cut for corporations and the CEOs will use the proceeds to buy back their stock, driving the stock price up, and they do it because their compensation is based on stock performance and shareholders are the ones who control whether they will be CEOs for long and all they care about is the stock price.

So you can do things to harm the economy — for example, ballooning the national debt — and optically it looks fine because the S&P is going up even when unemployment is rising, you're not spending on science and infrastructure that builds the economy over the long term, yada. It's like companies who grow by going into debt (ahem, Trump businesses) so you think they are great until they have to declare bankruptcy.

Here's another measure, GDP:

I agree with you that these snapshots are interesting but not particularly insightful. Heh. The thing that made the graph above interesting to me was that the numbers were analyzed with the majority in the two Congressional bodies factored in.

Election result certification deadlines are set in state law. Once results are certified, the result of the election may go into effect. Certification deadlines for the 2020 election are as follows:

The certification deadline in six states is within one week of the election. In 26 states and the District of Columbia, the certification deadline is between November 10 and November 30. In 14 states, the certification deadline is in December.Four states (Hawaii, N.H., R.I., and Tenn.) do not have deadlines for results certification laid out in state statute.

For more, see ballotpedia.org

Someone in the UK has put their money where their mouth is for Biden winning.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/02/business/us-presidential-election-million-pound-bet/index.html

...and may I just say: if America had not ratified the 19th amendment 100 years ago, all Trump’s white male homies would be giving him a slam-dunk victory tomorrow. 😳

A judge has tossed out a Republican Harris County drive thru voting law suit in Texas. 127K ballots were on the line. Harris County is a Democrat stronghold of Texas. Huge news.

A little pre-election humor courtesy of Studio C...

Bailout helps the rich more than the poor. Your comments are right on the money.

Five ballots have been recorded in tiny little Dixville Notch, New Hampshire. 12 people is the population. It's a tradition for them to cast their ballots at midnight on election day going back to their days trying to accommodate railroad workers. All five votes went to Joe Biden/Kamala Harris.

Millsfield, New Hampshire went 16-5 Trump/Pence. So, kinda the opposite there.

I should add, of all the northeastern states, New Hampshire is the one Trump could in theory win.

So what time will results start to come in? Include the time zone so I can translate it to NZ Time.

so I can translate it to NZ Time.

It probably won't go back to 1973.

@eddieb they should start to get something meaning full about 3:00pm your time 1:00pm Sydney time.

I don't expect we'll know the full results for several days.

Election Night Viewer's Guide: Why You May Need To Be PatientYou're probably anxious about the results, but patience may truly be a virtue on election night. Here's how to approach the evening.www.npr.org

I'm in New Hampshire today, there's a lot of energy even for a very small town like Cornish where I am. A line of 20 people this morning at 10AM patiently waiting to vote, all wearing masks while another ten we're inside, that's like 1.5% of the city population right there :)