What A Day - No Sleep Til Votes In

Episode Date: November 3, 2020

After four long hard years, we’ve made it to election day… now we just need to make it through the next 24, to 48, to 100-plus hours. We discuss when the results will come in and what we’ll be watching out for. Plus, a look at some key Senate races in states that could flip. And in headlines: battleground states were hit hardest with misinformation, voter preferences by first name, and a whale statue saves a train.Show Notes:If you run into any issues voting or witness voter suppression or intimidation, call the voter protection hotline: 1-833-DEM-VOTE — 1-833-336-8683Make a plan to vote: votesaveamerica.com/planSign up to volunteer: votesaveamerica.com/volunteerListen to Akilah's Spotify playlist "Chill Times Bro" https://open.spotify.com/playlist/69Sif17z5Lec1TTDudahnz?si=lET8v3wxRKKtkKmOGK-6Iw

It's Tuesday, November 3rd. I'm Akilah Hughes. And I'm Gideon Resnick. And this is What A Day, your resolute, determined, and only 70% terrified Election Day companion. Yeah, don't even focus on that 70%. The 30% is like cool like a cucumber, warm like an omelet, just chilling and enjoying the vibes. Yeah, 30% has game day face on. It's got the black paint under the eyes, ready to tackle, you know? We plan on tackling the election.

On today's show, we're going to go over what to expect when you are expecting election results edition. Then some headlines. But first, the latest. Fear myself. Do you know this one? You want to sing it with me right here?

Who's off the deep end? Who's off the deep end that Joe Biden needs to be president of this country? Are you ready? Come on, put your hands up. Ready? Let's sing it. One, two, three, four. I'm off the deep end.

Watch as I die in. I'll never meet the ground. Go out and vote. Wow. Go out and vote. That was Lady Gaga in Pennsylvania last night getting out the vote for Joe Biden and begging the question why he didn't join her to sing the other part of the duet. Like it was just right there. You know, I want him to ask me if I'm happy in this modern world. And he didn't join her to sing the other part of the duet. Like it was just right there. You know, I want him to ask me if I'm happy in this modern world.

And he didn't. And these are real problems in my life. But in news, the day is here. The day is here. We here at Crooked have been beating a drum in preparation for this day for years. It's finally time to make good on our promise to get a new damn president. And it seems a lot of people feel that way, too. Going into today, nearly 98 million Americans have already cast their ballots in this incredibly important election, according to the U.S. Elections Project. That's 71% of the

total turnout for the 2016 election, even before ballots are cast today. If you haven't voted yet, please, for the love of God, grab a jacket, some comfy shoes, some water, a mask and get down to the polls. Yesterday was the final day of campaigning and Trump zigzagged across the East and Midwest, stopping in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. In the hand-shaped state, Trump held his final rally in Grand Rapids, the same place he ended his 2016 campaign. Yeah, a lot of things feel eerily similar to last time. Lady Gaga was campaigning for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Dave Chappelle was set to host SNL the following Saturday. I guess we've all, as a culture, decided he's the go-to post-election calm-down guy.

Interesting. But a lot differs from last time as well. I have a beard because I'm slovenly in quarantine. Akilah isn't at the Javits Center. And what a day is here. That's right. What a day. And the WOD squad.

We're all here. And for what it's worth, Biden was also campaigning yesterday in Ohio and Pennsylvania, where he finished the last full day before the election with John Legend and Lady Gaga, the same state where he launched his run last year. Trump was clearly jealous, tweeting some grumbles about Gaga in a way that I don't think any president should, to be honest. Yeah. And also, Jon Bon Jovi slights, which will not stand, folks. And we have one more voting rights update. So in Harris County, Texas, which is home to Houston, a federal judge has denied the case against drive-thru voters.

And this comes the day after the Texas Supreme Court also denied the case. That federal judge is known to be very conservative, as is the Texas Supreme Court. So people are hoping that the ruling will stand up if it is appealed, in spite of a newly more conservative U.S Texas Supreme Court. So people are hoping that the ruling will stand up if it is appealed in spite of a newly more conservative U.S. Supreme Court. All right. So let's talk about election results. At long last tonight, we'll start getting some returns. And we thought it might be a good idea to guide you through this a bit. We at WOD unfortunately don't know what's going to happen, but we can say there are a range of outcomes you can be prepared for. Of course, we won't get full certified results by the end of the night. You know, we never do. As our listeners know, one of the possible outcomes this year is that by the end of the night, media organizations won't be able to project winners in

certain states as votes are still being counted. That's democracy at work, and it happens every time. It's also possible that a much clearer picture could emerge tonight. So let's go through a little bit of what to watch for as the night goes on. That is right. So first off, there are about a dozen or so states that we and everyone else will be watching. They include the upper Midwestern states that Trump narrowly flipped last time. That's Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. One thing to note about these states is that full results could take longer because they don't start counting mail votes until today, or in some cases, just yesterday. And then there's the kind of loosely arranged Sunbelt states, if you will, like North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Arizona, and Texas, all of which Trump won in 2016. And

it would represent a massive voter realignment if they went blue this year. These states are expected to count full results faster because they have been pre-processing their mail ballots. So if we look at it chronologically, in the first couple hours of the night, i.e. from 7 p.m. Eastern to 9, we're going to see polls close in several Sunbelt states first, Florida, North Carolina, and Georgia, for instance, as well as a couple of Midwestern states in that block of time, Pennsylvania and Ohio. So some of the biggies right off the bat. Yeah. So let's imagine you're sitting looking at Wolf Blitzer or the New York Times needles, whatever masochistic stuff that you're into, and you're thinking to yourself, what do these results mean in the larger picture? I will not be looking at the needles,

but let's start with Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida. So in all of them, there's some processing of these ballots before election day. So we can likely expect a lot of results from those states to be reported the night of. Ohio is a bit more up in the air in terms of when we might get a fuller picture, but at the very least, ballots cast before Election Day are expected to be announced quite quickly after the polls close there. Then the outlier of this bunch is Pennsylvania, where absentee ballots won't start getting processed until 7 a.m. this morning. So the expectation there is that it's going to take time, possibly days, to know the full picture.

All right. So everyone at home is a few hours in. They're trying to keep it together at this point. What will these states tell us, if anything, about who may actually win the election overall? This is something I've been thinking about quite a bit. So to put it simply on those first four, that's Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, and Ohio. If Biden ends up winning those or even half of them, we can anticipate he's likely to have a really strong night overall. Remember, going into the day, we knew that Biden was leading national averages by about eight or more points. So wins in these states would reflect that and would give us an early window into how

accurate these polls have been across the board. And to put a finer point on it, Biden winning Florida alone would make Trump's slim path to 270 a lot slimmer. Remember, Trump could still win. He really could, but he has a much narrower path. For Democrats worried about other states that may take a few days to count all the votes too, winning Florida would also make it so the Trump campaign's much-discussed litigation plans for after Election Day would hold even less water. Something else to be aware of with these states too, Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio are going to report early in-person and mail ballots first. Then same-day Election Day results will come after that. So there will be

waves of results. And the expectation is that mail votes will skew towards Biden. That's due to a combination of things, including Trump's lies about mail voting, a giant push to mail voting by Democrats because of concerns about the pandemic and concerns about the Postal Service. And we won't know until we see more information tonight, but it is just a word of caution to not be deceived by only a partial count. Yeah, be your own lies about the mail. Well, vote totals could shift depending on what's reported first. That's why you might have heard terms like blue mirage and states that report mail votes first and red mirage and states that report mail votes last. But getting back to

our timeline for the night, you know, what's the next big moment? Yeah, so 9 p.m. Eastern is very huge. That's when polls will close in two more Sunbelt states, Arizona, Texas, and then two more Midwest states, Michigan and Wisconsin. In Arizona, officials have been allowed to count mail votes starting a full two weeks before Election Day, meaning we're likely to see a lot out of that state on election night. Again, though, with the first results maybe looking a little bluer than the final ones. Then officials in Texas are also anticipating that a good chunk of their results will be known election night. The fact that these two states are even in this kind of swinging category tells you a lot about how this race is looking going into today.

So big picture here, Biden is having a historic night if he gets Texas. He's having at least a good to great night if he gets Arizona. If Trump gets both, he still has a ways to go before this thing is locked up for him. So that gets us through our sunbelt states. Roughly speaking, they're the ones that Biden doesn't need to win. But if he gets some or all of them, we're looking at a race that could be over on the relatively fast side. My dream. And, you know, that brings us back to the Midwest. Back to the Midwest where it all began. So similar to Pennsylvania and Michigan,

we can expect that the processing of their ballots won't start until today or in some parts of the state actually began yesterday. Wisconsin is also not going to process until today, though officials there have indicated that they think they'll be able to wrap things up by Wednesday, actually. So as we're watching these states start to report tonight, it's possible that we see more election day totals first, which could possibly favor Trump and Republicans. Another note of caution there. And if these states are very close and we don't have a clear answer, the remaining count of the ballots could change the trajectory of the race. That is completely normal, despite what the Trump campaign might say and do. But overall, what Democrats don't want is for there to be too many outstanding questions about who won various states by the end of election night, because that is when Trump has indicated that he's going to attempt to intervene with

lawsuits and try to undemocratically stop the normal counting of votes. In other words, Democrats are hoping not just for a victory, but a clear, decisive, and fast one. Yeah, not just the Democrats, but everybody, including me. And before we go, let's talk about the Senate briefly. That's obviously going to be crucial if Biden is successful tonight, or even if he isn't, determining how much power the next president has. Right. So Democrats need to net three seats to get a majority. And at this point, it seems like they're going to lose one that they have already, Senator Doug Jones in Alabama. But among the likeliest to flip from Republican and Democrat are Colorado, North Carolina, Arizona and Maine. Then there are a bunch of other possible options to competitive races in Georgia and a lot of other places like South Carolina and Mississippi,

where if the night is going extremely, extremely well, there could be some major surprises. But like we talked about with the presidential race, it's entirely possible that we don't know the results in some of these by the end of the night. That's particularly possible, if not likely, in Georgia and Maine. We will, of course, touch on all of this in the days and weeks ahead, too. Don't you worry. Yeah, hopefully it's just days, but it could be weeks, y'all. Well, we'll be out with the show tomorrow morning with all the latest results, but we're absolutely not just going to leave you all to fend for yourselves as the returns come in tonight. You can join the hosts of Pod Save America at Crooked.com slash election for a pre-show with Jon, Jon, Tommy and Dan starting at 630 Eastern, 330 Pacific Time. Then stick around for commentary and result updates and Crooked's group thread. There's no one we'd rather be with on election night than the Crooked team, even if it's only virtually. And

we'd love to have all of you join us. Again, it's crooked.com slash election. Please go vote. And that's close to all of our hearts. Election Day stress. We've already talked a lot about what we can expect today and where things stand. But Giddy, on a personal level, what are you doing besides volunteering to stay grounded and keep from spinning out on election day? So in the past week or so, I've been less kind of like in the weeds of what's happening. Like I've been like slowly starting to detach and just be like, you know, everybody has built up to this and done what they need to do to get to this moment. And it is now going to show the results of that. And me sort of refreshing

various social feeds over and over again and seeing, you know, the latest update from Donald Trump at his 17th rally of the day is not going to do much in terms of mental mood. So this this kind of like slow detachment until I can be very obsessively refreshing tonight. Yeah, I mean, I think that sounds really healthy. The more you're just watching things reload and you're consistently you know scrolling and refreshing your twitter feed i think the worse you're gonna feel so i totally admire that yeah i like i get to a point also where i like need to physically move to like move through space to stop looking at stuff um and so i'll get up and walk or run. And that is my bad advice for people. That's the thing that everybody does already.

But same question for you, Akilah. What is keeping you somewhat grounded right now? Oh, I mean, I have like a whole list of things to do that don't involve looking at my phone. I'm going to be playing piano for about an hour. Try to set up this projector because I'm going to watch it on the projector. And so I'm like, that'll eat up some time having to set up all of that stuff. Oh, yeah. You know, I got a good playlist so I can listen to some music and just read a book.

I'm trying to do a lot of stuff that's offline until the reports start coming in, because I know that there's going to be just a lot of news just to freak us out. Like, I literally just got a text on my screen that says, be honest, how worried are you? And I'm like, see, we're not doing that. We're not talking about worry. We're just gonna let that roll off and listen to some good playlists. I have one called Chill Times Bro on Spotify, posted it to my Twitter if you need some chill jams. But that's

kind of where I'm at, you know, just trying to avoid it to the last possible minute. Right. If you replace every single post that you see with just the chill times, bro, you're putting so much good possible energy into the world. You know, it's such a net positive because you're taking away the bad and filling everybody with chill times. And that's the way that we should all be viewing our lives, frankly. You know, thank you so much for saying so. I think Sufjan will agree because he's going to get a lot of royalties off of being on that playlist just so frequently. Just like that, we checked our temps. If you're looking to quell your anxiety by taking action, as always, head to VoteSafeAmerica.com slash volunteer to find some Election Day stuff to do.

Stay safe. Vote. And we'll be back with some headlines. Headlines. The Supreme Court sent back a lower court's ruling against a Black Lives Matter organizer on Monday. The case involves a Louisiana police officer who wanted to sue DeRay McKesson for injuries that he sustained during a BLM protest that McKesson organized in 2016. Just to clarify, McKesson did not directly hurt the officer, but the person who did remains unidentified. A federal appeals court originally

allowed the officer's suit to move forward, which civil liberties groups like the ACLU were not too happy about. Critics argue that this was a huge infringement on the First Amendment and that peaceful protesters should not be held liable for the unintended actions of others. The Supreme Court justices yesterday decided to send the case back down to the lower courts to further review Louisiana law before getting to those big constitutional questions. Amy Coney Barrett did not participate in the decision. Note, DeRay McKesson is the host of a podcast on Crooked's network, Pod Save the People, which launched in 2017. If you live in a battleground state and recently read something like Democrats are using mail ballots for anti-American paper mache projects, that might actually not be true. Vote by mail misinformation has been everywhere this election, but it was most pervasive in swing states. That's according to a media insight company called Signal Labs, which tracked misinformation mentions on news sites, cable TV, print media and social media.

The lies related to things like ballot tampering and voter fraud, neither of which is an election threat. Pennsylvania saw the greatest number of voting by mail falsehoods with over 200,000 cases. Many of those stemmed from an incident where a contractor for the State Elections Bureau accidentally threw away a small number of military ballots. That story was amplified and twisted by many conservative outlets, along with elected lying man, Donald Trump. Make sure to always check your sources,

which we did for this headline, since Zignal sounds fake and our instinct was to not trust it. Yeah, that's great advice and we will stick to it. Polling this election has been great, but there's been a glaring hole in the field of name statistics. But that is solved now after the New York Times gave a look at its polling data when sorted by first name.

So the first big takeaway is pretty unsurprising. Donalds are going for Donald Trump by a huge margin, with 68% supporting him and 19% supporting Joe Biden. These men are single-issue voters, and their single issue is, I don't have enough room in my brain to remember both my name and the president's. Of the 20 most common names in America, the most likely to support Trump is Richard, commonly shortened to Dick. Dicks, I know that you are hurting. Please do not take your anger at your rude name out on our country. And lastly, in a stunning upset, the least Trump supporting name in the top 20 by a margin of three to two is Karen.

Incredible. In the centuries old battle between good and evil Karens, the good Karens might finally have the upper hand. So this bodes especially well for the suburbs where Karens are packed like sardines. Polling stats on the names Gideon and Akilah were excluded from the Times list, which means the whole thing should be treated with extreme skepticism and possibly thrown out. Yeah, I mean, if it's based on percentage, I think 100% of Akilah's are going by it. Well, last night, a Dutch sculptor achieved every artist's dream that his work would play a role in preventing a train accident. The piece in question is a 30-foot tall structure called Saved by the Whale's Tail, and it lived up to its name on Monday when its placement at the end of a set of raised tracks in South Holland allowed it to catch a metro train that didn't stop when it was supposed to. Real whales take note. Fake whales are beating you at rescuing trains, and it's not even close.

The story's not over, though, because as we go to record, the train is still hanging off the edge of the tracks, being gingerly held by the whale statue as experts figure out how to get it off. Based on what I've learned from this story, they should just let it drop, then let a statue of a squid swoop in and save it at the last minute. The squids need this win. Yeah, they do. Give them a W for once. Come on. And those are the headlines.

All right. One last thing before we go. Millions of people are heading to the polls, and the last thing we want is for anyone to run into any problems while voting. So if you do run into any of these issues or witness any attempts of voter intimidation, call the National Voter Protection Hotline at 866-OUR-VOTE. That is 866-OUR-VOTE. We've posted this info along with the local state numbers to call in our show notes and on Votes of America's social media accounts. Share that info and tell everyone you know to stay

in line. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, drink chamomile tea, and tell your friends to listen. Ooh, and if you're into reading and not just election returns with a calm and tranquil mind like me, What A Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at cricket.com slash subscribe. I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. And we'll see you after the election.

Oh my gosh. Can you believe it? That's my sound. That's my, that's the sound of my day what a day is a production of crooked media it's recorded and mixed by charlotte landis sonia tun is our assistant producer our head writer is john milstein and our executive producers are katie long akilah hughes and me our theme music is by col Gilliard and Kashaka.