Election Results: Can Trump maintain absolute majority, Reps one seat away from preserving House majority

[leetp]

Reps look to have 218 sewn up with AK district 1, but might also take AZ 6 by the skin of their teeth. CA 49 and a few others look promising as well.

EDIT: AK does ranked choice voting, so if the majority vote winner does not have an absolute majority, then it goes to the ranked-choice system where things can get weird.

​	208​	​	217​	​	​	​	​
District​	Democrat​	Pts​	Republican​	Pts​	Votes​	Diff​	Change as of 10:00 AM Monday, Nov 11​
AZ 6​	Engel​	48.5​	Ciscomani​	49.1​	81%​	0.6​	Was 48.5/49.2 @ 77%​
CA 21​	Costa​	50.5​	Maher​	49.5​	64%​	1.0​	​
CA 47​	Min​	50.5​	Baugh​	49.5​	82%​	1.0​	​
CA 27​	Whitesides​	50.4​	Garcia​	49.1​	84%​	1.3​	Was 50.4/49.6 @ 81%​
CA 45​	Tran​	48.9​	Steel​	51.1​	80%​	2.2​	Was 48.7/51.3 @ 79%​
CA 9​	Harder​	51.2​	Lincoln​	48.8​	61%​	2.4​	​
CA 13​	Gray​	48.7​	Duarte​	51.3​	57%​	2.6​	​
CA 41​	Rollins​	48.6​	Calvert​	51.4​	76%​	2.8​	​
CA 49​	Levin​	51.7​	Gunderson​	48.3​	80%​	3.4​	​
AK 1​	Peltola​	45.4​	Begich​	49.5​	71%​	4.1​	​

Data Provided By: NEP/Edison via Reuters

 

[leetp]

The House is flakey. Given that it is hyper-local and faces reelection every two years, you want as much vote cushion as possible.

Too bad the Senate could not get to 60 (wasn't even in the realm of possibility).

The thought though does make me think back to Obama's first two years when he had a 60-seat Senate supermajority and a 236-to-199 House majority. This was the 111th Congress; the congress that gave us Obama care...and it still required massive amounts of political maneuvering to get in through.

 

[leetp]

CA 49 now a DEM hold putting Dems at 209 to the Reps 217. It's a 435 Seat house, so 218 seats are needed for control.

 

[leetp]

Changed thread title to discuss broader elections results...namely, can Trump hold the absolute popular vote majority...

As of now he is at 74,675,486 votes and 50.3%. per Reuters and Edison Research.

The AP has it at 74,838,166 votes and 50.4%.

If AP is to be believed, a Trump lead growing with the vote count is at least a little surprising on the surface given that the bulk of the remaining vote to be counted is in CA, a state with only 72% reporting and healthy 58.5/38.6% vote split between Harris and Trump, respectively. In essence, there is nearly 5 million more votes to be counted CA alone. Extrapolating CA's voting trend, there should be about 2.8M more votes for Harris out of CA and about 1.9M for Trump. If the total national vote count comes in around 148.49M as the numbers imply, a tenth of a percentage point swing is only about 150,000 votes. Again, using AP's figures, Trumps absolute majority rests only on about 600,00 votes.

Still, there are a lot of states that Trump won handily that are still counting too...so there is quite a bit more vote to pick up for Trump than just what is in CA.

 

[leetp]

There have now been about 148.48 million votes counted, and Trump still maintains 0.4% absolute notional popular vote majority. His total vote count now stands at 74,845,955 but remains at 50.4% of the vote total. Kamala has gained on him, but only by just over 3 thousand votes.

 

[leetp]

RCP has called a few more house races and the Repubs have control at 219 and counting.

 

[leetp]

The seat count not sits at 209 (-1) for the Dems and 219 (+1) for the Reps.

These were the latest seats to fall:
AZ 6: REP Hold
CA 41: REP Hold
CA 27: DEM Pickup

Here's where the remaining competitive seats stand:
CA 9, 21 and 47: Dems lead
AK 1, CA 13 and 45: R's lead

It looks likely that the Reps will have least maintain their 220-seat majority from last congress and could even increase it to 222.

 

[leetp]

Trump popular vote majority continues to dwindle as a little less than 20% of the vote in the west coast states remains to be counted. Trump is only pulling around 38-39% of that vote.

Reuters: 75,004,953 votes (50.2%)
AP: 75,120,910 votes (50.3%)

I would take nothing from the differences between the two...specifically, I would not assume that Trump lead is growing with the count just because AP had him at a higher vote count and a higher percentage of the popular vote.

Note also that votes are literally tricking in by the dozens as I type this. Now 75,005,265 and 75,120,924 between Reuters and AP, respectively.

 

[leetp]

Back to the Trump absolute majority... IF the left coast vote continues go to Trump in their present margins of 38.9% in WA, 41.4% in OR and 38.1% in CA, Trump should pick up at least 1.8 million votes and hold on for an absolute majority of no less than 50.14%

Keep in mind this number 'should' be slightly higher given that no state is reporting 100% of the vote count and when factoring out CA's 17.2 million votes--nearly 60% of which are Kamala's, Trump has comfortable absolute majority of nearly 52%.

 

[Clemtron]

Boom

 

[leetp]

By my very rough calculation, we should see a final national vote tally of about 155 million votes, of which Trump should get at least 78 million votes.

Here are 2020's election numbers for comps:
Over 158 million were votes counted
Over 81 million went to Biden
Over 74 million went to Trump

 

[dpic73]

 

[leetp]

Not sure what is up with the vote count in CA, but at one point there were projected to be a little more than 17 million votes to count, now that total is well under 16 million. In CA, ballots needed to be post marked by Nov 5th and received by Nov 12th, so I'm guessing they are not getting the volume of mail-in ballots they expected.

Anyway, based on that I'll need to revise my total vote count estimate down from around 154.5 million to under 154 million with Trump getting at least 76.9 million total votes.

 

[leetp]

Here's an update on the House.
It looks like some news outlets are finally calling the House for the Reps.

For what its worth, here's where RCP has it:

​	211​	​	219​	​	​	​	​
District​	Democrat​	Pts​	Republican​	Pts​	Votes​	Diff​	Change​
AK 1​	Peltola​	45.9​	Begich​	49.0​	93%​	3.1​	Was 48.5/49.2 @ 77%​
CA 9​	Harder​	51.8​	Lincoln​	48.2​	72%​	3.6​	Was 51.2/48.8 @ 61%​
CA 13​	Gray​	48.8​	Duarte​	51.2​	75%​	2.4​	Was 48.7/51.3 @ 57%​
CA 21​	Costa​	51.7​	Maher​	49.5​	77%​	2.2​	Was 50.4/49.6 @ 81%​
CA 45​	Tran​	49.9​	Steel​	50.1​	84%​	0.2​	Was 49.3/50.7 @ 84%​

Most recent move was CA 47 being called a DEM hold...which was no surprise.

And what the heck is going on in CA 9, 13, and 21? They just flat aren't counting ballots. Thier numbers have barely ticked up in days and all mail-in ballots had to be received by yesterday, Nov 12th!

A tight race in CA 45 is only getting tighter with the Rep candidate only having a 0.2% lead that narrowed from 1.3% lead a few days ago.

Reps should take CA 13, but AK 1 is going to go to ranked choice as it looks like the Rep candidate will not get to 50%. I've got no clue how that going to go.

 

[CUTiger1977]

 

[leetp]

House race update.​

Given a 211/219 split, here are the remaining seats too close to call:

District​	Democrat​	Pts​	Republican​	Pts​	Votes​	Diff​	Change​
AK 1​	Peltola​	45.9​	Begich​	49.0​	93%​	3.1​	Was 48.5/49.2 @ 77%​
CA 9​	Harder​	51.8​	Lincoln​	48.2​	83%​	3.6​	Was 51.2/48.8 @ 61%​
CA 13​	Gray​	49.5​	Duarte​	50.5​	85%​	1.0​	Was 48.7/51.3 @ 57%​
CA 21​	Costa​	51.5​	Maher​	48.5​	79%​	3.0​	Was 50.4/49.6 @ 81%​
CA 45​	Tran​	50​	Steel​	50.0​	90%​	0.0​	Was 49.3/50.7 @ 84%​

Despite having 219 seats, due to cabinet picks pilfering the House control actually still hangs in the balance. Unlike the Senate, House seat replacements CANNOT be appointed--even temporarily. They can only be filled by election. Gaetz has already resigned his seat, so this election can get underway pretty quickly.

CA 45: Momentum is not good for Reps; while it reports 50/50, Reps have a razor thin 236 vote lead (152,021 to 151,785).

AK 1: I still have no read on how this one is going to go. Again, being a ranked choice election, there is nothing to take from Reps sitting on a 4-pt lead. All that matters is that it is not 50%. The Dem could very well run away with it during the first round of ranked choice.

CA 9: lead and momentum continue to favor Dems--no change.

CA 13: more votes for the Reps but slightly more still for the Dems.

CA 21: Slight improvement on a slim lead for the Dems. Late votes always seem to favor the Dems, so I don't expect this to Reps to take this one either.

 

[leetp]

Absolute Majority Vote Update​

tldr;
I am reasonably confident Trump holds on to win an absolute popular vote majority.


There are about 2.5 million more votes to count nationwide, with about 1.5 million of those being in CA. Harris will get at least 900k of these remaining votes, but Trumps should still pull a respectable 900k. This will bull Trump's notional vote tally down. IN fact, the CA vote alone would pull Trump's national popular vote down to just a 0.028%--or just over 42k votes above the threshold for an absolute majority

Parsing out the other million or so votes, it is reasonable to assume the remaining nationwide vote favors Trump if only by the fact that he held an appreciable national vote majority when most of the CA vote was still out.

 

[leetp]

House race update​

House now sits at 213 (-1) for the DEMS and 220 (+1) for the REPS.

CA 9 and 13 went to the DEMS, as expected. However, AK 1 fell to the REPS as pickup.

CA 13 and 45 are the only seats left still in doubt.

CA 45: REPS have a ridiculously miniscule 36 vote lead in CA 45 with 90.5% reporting and around 32,000 more votes to count. The vote count trajectory thus far does not favor the REPS in this one. I expect it falls to the DEMS

CA 13: Here REPS have a 2,000-vote lead with about 27,000 more votes to count. Early vote trajectory did not favor the REPS, but it has since flattened out with the REPS maintaining a little more than a 1 percentage point lead since the vote count was at 50%.

District​	Democrat​	Pts​	Republican​	Pts​	Votes​	Diff​	Change​
CA 13​	Gray​	49.4​	Duarte​	50.6​	87%​	1.2​	Was 48.7/51.3 @ 57%​
CA 45​	Tran​	50​	Steel​	50.0​	91%​	0.0​	Was 49.3/50.7 @ 84%​
AK 1​	Peltola​	45.9​	Begich​	49.0​	93%​	REP Pickup​	Was 48.5/49.2 @ 77%​
CA 9​	Harder​	51.9​	Lincoln​	48.1​	88%​	DEM Hold​	Was 51.2/48.8 @ 61%​
CA 21​	Costa​	52.3​	Maher​	47.4​	89%​	DEM Hold​	Was 50.4/49.6 @ 81%​

 

[scotchtiger]

It’s been 2 weeks. How the hell are we still counting votes?

 

[leetp]

Absolute Majority Vote Update​

Trump is in real danger of falling below the absolute vote majority once all the votes in CA are counted. CA still has just under 800,000 votes to count, and Trump is getting less than 38% of these. Of these near 800,000 votes, Trump probably only gets about 300,000 of them. Projecting on just those numbers, Trump will fall just below the 50% threshold to 49.987%. Of course, these numbers are nowhere near accurate enough to go so many places beyond the decimal. Neither Reuters, the AP, nor DDHQ are reporting the same numbers.

 

[leetp]

It’s been 2 weeks. How the hell are we still counting votes?

Only about 8 states are reporting 100%--one of them being SC. Most are 99% and have been these since about a week after the election.

My guess is they're working extra hard to cure ballots with discrepancies--but that's just a guess.

 

[leetp]

Absolute Majority Vote Update #2​

I predict Trump falls short of wining the absolute majority vote by about 218,000 votes, or about 0.14%. :sadtrombone:

I did a more comprehensive estimate of the total vote using NBC's website. It reports that there is around a little over 2.4 million votes left to count nationwide. It breaks the remaining vote count out by state, where I extrapolated Trump's remaining likely vote count by multiplying Trump's current vote percentage lead by the remaining vote for each state. With nearly 2.5 million votes left to count nationwide, Trump will likely only pull between 1 million and 1.1 million of these remaining votes.

Vote totals should look something like this: 155,681,000 total votes nationally, with about 77,624,000 cast for Donald Trump. This vote total represents about a 63.68% voting-eligible turnout.

Compared with 2020, Joe Biden got 81,268,867 votes out of the 158,429,631 cast--or an estimated 66.8% of the entire voting age population. Not since the 1900 election of William McKinley has there been a higher vote turnout.

 

[Dadar]

Absolute Majority Vote Update #2​

I predict Trump falls short of wining the absolute majority vote by about 218,000 votes, or about 0.14%. :sadtrombone:

I did a more comprehensive estimate of the total vote using NBC's website. It reports that there is around a little over 2.4 million votes left to count nationwide. It breaks the remaining vote count out by state, where I extrapolated Trump's remaining likely vote count by multiplying Trump's current vote percentage lead by the remaining vote for each state. With nearly 2.5 million votes left to count nationwide, Trump will likely only pull between 1 million and 1.1 million of these remaining votes.

Vote totals should look something like this: 155,681,000 total votes nationally, with about 77,624,000 cast for Donald Trump. This vote total represents about a 63.68% voting-eligible turnout.

Compared with 2020, Joe Biden got 81,268,867 votes out of the 158,429,631 cast--or an estimated 66.8% of the entire voting age population. Not since the 1900 election of William McKinley has there been a higher vote turnout.

The Trump MO will likely at some point declare he won in a landslide regardless of any actual facts. Keep repeating and the herd will echo it as truth

 

[CUT93]

The Trump MO will likely at some point declare he won in a landslide regardless of any actual facts. Keep repeating and the herd will echo it as truth

Who would you say had the last landslide victory?

 

[leetp]

The Trump MO will likely at some point declare he won in a landslide regardless of any actual facts. Keep repeating and the herd will echo it as truth

Things are so much better we can engage on issues 🙄

But still, it was the first time a Republican crossed the 76 million vote threshold. Trump also carried nearly every border town in TX, flipping some districts that haven't voted Republican in more than a century. He broke new ground with multiple demographics. Trump was outspent 3-to-1. Nearly all the popular media and television entertainment sector was against him. Almost all the popular punditry had Harris winning, some had her winning by a lot. No one had Trump winning the popular vote, except the famous polymarket better. Despite all of this, it was a resounding victory. By at least some measure, perhaps an historic victory.

 

[TigerFlow]

It’s been 2 weeks. How the hell are we still counting votes?

You new to elections? This is how it always goes. It's not an easy task; for some reason people think it is.

You could attempt to go 100% digital if you want all this to truly be fast and have results in 24 hours. That'll never happen in the foreseeable future. You could try to simplify the ways people are able to vote to limit things like absentee and mail in vs in person; ie, do it all one way. That would streamline the counting process, but then you disenfranchise segments of voters, like overseas military who have to vote absentee.

I don't have time to dig in, but I'd guess there is a correlation between the States who offer more methods to vote thus having higher voter turnout amongst their populations and taking longer to process the results in totality.


Good stuff @leetp. I always appreciate fact-based, comprehensive, quantitative analyses.

 

[leetp]

House race update​

There are only two remaining seats in doubt. Both are in CA.

CA 13: out of about 201,543 total votes, Reps lead by just 227 votes with a about 5,000 to count. Vote count trajectory remains relatively flat with Reps with holding a very narrow two-tenths of a percentage point lead from about 70% of the vote count wo where it is now at 97.4%

CA 45: About 318,138 votes counted with a 314-vote lead for the Dems. There remain around 9,100 votes to count. Vote count trajectory is decidedly with the Dems in this one as the Reps were in the lead in the initial 50% of the vote count but saw it diminish before being overtaken with around 85% of the vote count completed. Vote count stands at 91.7% right now.

 

[leetp]

Absolute Majority Vote Update​

NBC News has total vote count at around 153,763,000 votes with about 1,877,000 left to count. 1.5 million of the outstanding votes are in CA, IL, NJ, WA, MA, CO, and MD, where Trump pulls less than 46%--way less in the case of CA, WA, MA and MD, which accounts for more than half of the outstanding vote.

I still have Trump ending with 77.6 million votes to Harris's 75.2 million out of 155.6 million votes cast, giving Trump a 49.86% national popular vote majority.

 

[leetp]

Thursday AM House race update​

CA 13: Just 500 votes have been added to the vote tally in the past 24 hours with still around 5k votes to count; but at least their vote count is going up, not down like CA 45 Anyway, I went county by county in CA 13 and if vote split for each county holds, Reps will win by more than 300 votes out of more than 212,000 cast. So, there'll no doubt be a recount. Here's to hoping that is actually what CA is doing right now and the numbers they are reporting is recount numbers.

CA 45 somehow went from 318k votes counted and 9,100 more to count to 311k votes counted and 27,000 more to count. None of that math maths. 🧐 Dems still lead by 300+ votes.

WARNING! Going to engage in some conjecture here...
I get vote counting can be hard and laborious...especially if we are dealing with a lot of handwritten ballots and making every effort to cure ballots or otherwise discern voter intent....but come on. CA 45 is Orange and LA counties....not rural and dispersed counties of the desert southwest or the forested northwest. What the heck are they doing over there?