NYT: Biden Appears to Hold Edge in the Key Votes Left to Be Counted

Mod: It is almost over. Here is how The Times' vote guru Nat Cohn sees it breaking down. Based on what you'll read here, all the undecided states but North Carolina will go Biden's way. Meaning Biden finishes with 306 electoral votes, Trump 228. Not close. 

Biden Appears to Hold Edge in the Key Votes Left to Be Counted (The New York Timeslink): The tabulations continue in the states too close to call, but some things are becoming clearer. Joe Biden looks to be on the cusp of winning the election. Here’s a look at where the vote count stands in the key states.

Pennsylvania: President Trump’s lead in Pennsylvania has plummeted to two percentage points as of Thursday morning, as the mail absentee ballot count proceeded briskly across the state. There is every indication that Mr. Biden remains on track to pull ahead when all of the votes are in and counted, whenever that may be.

So far, Mr. Biden has been winning absentee votes, 77 percent to 22 percent, according to the Pennsylvania secretary of state. At that pace, he needs only 288,000 more mail votes before taking the lead. By my count, there are about 500,000 mail ballots left. The secretary of state reported a total of 2.6 million absentee ballots cast as of Tuesday, and so far 2.1 million absentee votes have been counted. If Mr. Biden won those 500,000 ballots by the same pace, he would end with a lead of about 100,000 votes in the state. That’s a pretty decent cushion.

Arizona: Joe Biden’s lead in Arizona fell to 2.4 points Wednesday night, as late mail ballots broke toward Mr. Trump by a significant margin. This runs counter to the pattern we’ve seen elsewhere in the country, but it was expected, or at least not a surprise.

Why are late mail ballots better for Mr. Trump here? Unlike most other states, Arizona has a huge number of permanent absentee mail votes, and they’re slightly Republican by registration. This year, the Democratic absentee voters rushed in their ballots, giving Democrats an unusual lead in the state’s early mail vote. As a consequence, the group of voters who had received but not returned mail ballots was disproportionately Republican heading into the weekend before the election.

Over all, Mr. Trump won the ballots counted in Arizona on Wednesday night by about 23 points. It’s hard to say whether that pace will be enough for Mr. Trump to win, since it depends on exactly how many ballots are left (we don’t know this with the precision necessary for a close race). It also depends on what kinds of late mail ballots are left, and what kinds of votes were counted Wednesday night.

Georgia: The president’s lead in the state all but vanished overnight. Mr. Trump now leads by four-tenths of a percentage point — just under 19,000 votes — as heavily Democratic ballots in the Atlanta area were finally counted. There are still more absentee ballots left for Mr. Biden. It’s not clear exactly how many ballots there are and where; there was conflicting information this morning, and things are so close that even modest differences will be decisive.

This morning, the Georgia secretary of state initially said there were 25,000 ballots remaining. If so, Mr. Biden’s push might fall just short of victory, though he’d still have a chance with provisional ballots. Then, later in the morning, the secretary of state said it was 50,000 ballots. And now, The New York Times is reporting that the state voting system implementation manager says there are 61,367 remaining ballots. The latter numbers come a lot closer to our estimates, and that would be enough for Mr. Biden to be a favorite. But caution is warranted, given the mixed messaging.

Nevada: We didn’t get any new ballots, and Mr. Biden still holds a lead. The remaining vote: mail ballots received on Election Day and provisionals. There’s reason to expect these will pad Mr. Biden’s lead: Democrats were outpacing Republicans by a two-to-one margin in the state’s mail ballot returns, and provisionals lean Democratic just about everywhere. But we’ll wait to be sure. We should get more data today.

North Carolina: We’re still waiting on how many mail ballots arrived after the election, and whether they’re enough to overcome the president’s lead. There’s not much reason to expect it, but here again we’ll wait to be sure.

Mod: Way more information available at the link.

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