8:00 AM
Trump - 276, Harris - 223
Trump leads the popular vote 71.3 million to 66.2 million
Wisconsin put Trump over the top. Harris picked up New Hampshire.
Senate: GOP - 52, Dems - 41
Andy Kim has won in New Jersey.
Ted Cruz won easily in Texas.
Kari Lake is losing in Arizona
House: GOP - 203, Dems - 178
The GOP has flipped 5 seats and the Dems 2 so a 3 seat gain so far for the GOP.
Josh Gottheimer has won in NJ5.
Or at least he's so close to winning as to make no never mind about it. Being Trump he declared victory after winning Pennsylvania rather than waiting to hit 270. Well, I suppose I'm doing the same thing.
4:00 AM
Trump - 266, Harris - 219
Trump leads the popular vote 69.7 million to 64.4 million
Trump has taken Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. He leads in Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Maine 2 and Alaska so it's only a matter of time. We appear to be heading for a 312-226 Trump victory. It also looks as if he might be the first Republican to win the popular vote since George W. Bush in 2004.
Senate: GOP - 51, Dems - 41
Andy Kim has won in New Jersey.
Ted Cruz won easily in Texas.
Kari Lake is losing in Arizona
House: GOP - 200, Dems - 172
The GOP has flipped 5 seats and the Dems 2 so a 3 seat gain so far for the GOP.
Josh Gottheimer has won in NJ5.
So we're heading towards a worse case scenario beyond which even I predicted. Oh well, I hope the stock market is happy.
I'm not going to stay with this very long. I'll take it to around 10 PM and then call it a night.
7:00 PM
Trump - 19, Harris - 3
Senate: GOP - 39, Dems - 28
House: GOP - 5, Dems - 1
8:00 PM
Trump - 90, Harris - 27
Trump's total includes Florida so the idiots that thought that state may have been in play can go and sit in the corner and STFU.
Senate: GOP - 42, Dems - 31
House: GOP - 40, Dems - 20
8:30 PM
Trump - 105, Harris - 30
Trump leads the popular vote 18.8 million to 15.7 million
Senate: GOP - 42, Dems - 33
Andy Kim is ahead by about 160,000 votes.
House: GOP - 54, Dems - 28
Josh Gottheimer is losing by 11,000 votes. That's not good.
9:00 PM
Trump - 154, Harris - 30
Trump leads the popular vote 22.5 million to 18.9 million
Senate: GOP - 42, Dems - 33
Andy Kim is ahead by about 200,000 votes.
House: GOP - 76, Dems - 35
Josh Gottheimer is now winning by 33,000 votes. That's better.
9:30 PM
Trump - 168, Harris - 62
Trump leads the popular vote 30.6 million to 27.6 million
Senate: GOP - 44, Dems - 34
Andy Kim is ahead by about 250,000 votes.
House: GOP - 105, Dems - 66
Josh Gottheimer is ahead by 33,000 votes.
10:00 PM
Trump - 201, Harris - 81
Trump leads the popular vote 38.0 million to 33.7 million
Senate: GOP - 44, Dems - 34
Andy Kim is ahead by about 256,000 votes.
House: GOP - 131, Dems - 84
Josh Gottheimer is ahead by 31,000 votes.
This is it. I'm going to call it a night. I will pick up whenever I wake up in the morning.
We voted this morning a little before 9 AM. We just beat a small surge of voters and basically walked right in with no wait. My daughter voted at 6 AM before going to work.
The new voting machines take a while and print out a paper ballot which you have to feed into a collection box. I liked the old machines better. They were faster and easier to use but I suppose these are more secure.
I'm not going to go crazy tonight since, despite what some sites are saying, I don't see this as much of a nail biter. I will probably sign off around 10 PM.
I figured that I would wait for the eve of the election to post my final pre-election thoughts.
Electoral Vote
Trump -246 (-32), Harris - 276 (-+35), Toss Up - 16 (-3)
Real Clear Politics
Trump -219 (NC), Harris - 211 (-4), Toss Up - 108 (+4)
Real Clear Politics - No Tossups
Trump -287 (-25), Harris - 251 (+25), Toss Up - 0 (NC)
Polling Map
Trump -219 (NC), Harris - 226 (NC), Toss Up - 93 (NC)
Polling Map - No Tossups
Trump -287, Harris - 251, Toss Up - 0
538 Model
Trump -262 (NC), Harris - 226 (NC), Toss Up - 50 (NC)
JHK Forecasts
Trump -262 (NC), Harris - 226 (NC), Toss Up - 50 (NC)
Polymarket Odds
Trump -287 (-25), Harris - 251 (+25), Toss Up - 0 (NC)
I don't see enough to change my opinion that Trump will win probably with a 287-251 electoral vote victory. Electoral Vote flipped back to Harris but the overestimated Biden in 2020 by quite a lot so I don't see that as significant.
I added "Polling Map - No Tossups" and it came in at 287-251 as well. The only glimmer of hope that I see for Harris is things slid slightly in her direction but I don't see enough of a change especially given the amount of early voting that has occurred.
Now let's look at the Senate and House for a second. Electoral Vote has the GOP taking the Senate 52-48 and Real Clear Politics has them also winning 52-48. RCP has the GOP ahead in the House 201-192 with 42 tossups.
I'm FREE, FREE I say, FREE!
In other words my ankle is healed and my brace has gone the way of the boot.
Now I need to figure out when to put my house back together. I'm thinking I'm going to wait a while because I still need to rebuild the strength in both legs. Maybe next weekend.
In the meantime It's a beautiful Halloween day and we got zero trick or treaters. We're usually good for about 20 or so. Even during Covid we got a fair number.
I suppose Trunk or Treat is the new king.
I went to see the thoracic surgeon yesterday to get the results of my CT Scan. Apparently the area that was his biggest concern shrunk in size. It shrunk so much that he thought the Infectious Disease doctor he sent me to last time had given me an antibiotic.
No, she didn't. Maybe all of the gallons of blood that I choked up after the biopsy had something to do with it. The bottom line is I get another six months of freedom and then I get to do it all over again.
I got my Covid shot today. I had gotten the flu shot two weeks ago. Getting the vaccines is pretty painless. I make an appointment at my local CVS which is five minutes away then I walk in and get the shot pretty much immediately. They don't even make you wait the 15 minutes after the Covid shot any more.
Tomorrow I see the ankle doctor. My ankle feels good and, incredibly, after not having any physical therapy for a week my left leg is also feeling a lot better.
My session with the ankle doctor could go very smooth if he tells me I'm all healed and good to go. If he tells me just about anything else then we're going to have a problem because this brace I'm wearing is beginning to irritate my foot and clearly the physical therapy may have helped the ankle but it's destroying my left leg.
I tried to count the number of different doctors that I've seen in the past year and gave up at 12. That was before I got to the two orthopedic dudes I saw. Getting old sucks but I suppose the alternative is worse. The problem is that may not always be true in the future. Maybe I should go looking for that bridge?
This sounds more and more like 2016 again. The momentum for Trump is definitely there just like it was there in 2016. I check the data on a weekly basis and the shift to Trump has been very clear.
I was at the early voting site yesterday and the number of voters made it complete chaos. But I saw very few young voters. That's bad. Older voters were out in force and younger voters were no where to be seen.
The voter turnout in 2020 was 66% of voting eligible population (63% of voting age population) and it will probably be about that again. The states that depress voter turnout numbers are actually the red states which rarely get above 60%. This is possibly because red states make it harder to vote.
Blue states have much higher turnout which is probably why the Democrat candidate wins the popular vote even though they lose the electoral vote.
The REAL problem though is that 72% of people over 65 vote but only 48% of those between 18 and 24 vote. I'm 76 so trust me on this, if you're young and just starting out building a career and a family you DO NOT want my age group making decisions for you.
So Trump wins and the Republicans probably hold the House and take the Senate. How much damage can they do? They didn't do a lot last time because they're not only bat shit crazy but incompetent. Things that I do expect to happen are:
(1) Trump's 2017 tax cuts will be extended if not made permanent.
(2) We'll get another corporate tax cut and may get another tax cut across the board. If we do then it will drive the debt through the roof because tax cuts never pay for themselves.
(3) As laid out in Project 2025 they will replace many, possibly thousands, of civil servants with political appointees. This will be the most dangerous thing to happen because it removes lots of sanity checks.
(4) Ukraine is probably going to see US support dry up but other countries may step in to fill the void. Hopefully that war will end before too much more damage occurs.
(5) Israel will probably get more support. There may or may not be a crack down on the crazies claiming to be pro-Palestine when they have no idea of what the real issues are in the Middle East.
(6) The GOP will try and fail to get national abortion restrictions enacted but it will be a messy fight.
(7) Religion, especially conservative Protestantism, will get a boost in influence. How long this will last is unclear.
(8) LGBTQ, and especially trans, rights will take some hits. At the very least trans women probably won't be competing in woman's sports any more.
It's going to be an uncomfortable four years but I doubt we'll turn into Nazi Germany.
Yesterday my oldest daughter was in town. She was driving a borrowed Jeep truck with Texas dealer plates that she had taken from work for a road trip to Virginia. While she was here she decided that she would go to early voting in town. I went with her, not to vote, but just to take a ride in the Jeep truck.
I'm not sure what I expected but not what we found. There were seven places in the county open for early voting and one was in our town community center. Now it was Saturday and I'm sure that had an effect. It was chaos.
There was a line of cars waiting to get into the parking lot which was not only full but had cars parked in illegal spots and others looking for a spot like the mall at Christmas time. To say that the parking area was inadequate would be a gross understatement.
My daughter was a bit nervous about maneuvering the Jeep truck in the tight quarters because she hadn't had the need to do that before.
While we were waiting to get into the lot a woman, complete with a bleached blonde Karen haircut, got out of an Audi in front of us. I didn't think much of it at the time. I figured she was getting out to go vote on foot. Little did I know that this was going to be my first encounter with a Karen in her natural habitat.
We followed the Audi down a row of parked cars in the lot. There were maybe fifteen cars on either side plus a row of cars parked head in at the top of the row with a narrow lane, one car wide, separating the cars at the top of the row from the cars on either side.
The Audi had come to a complete stop, the Karen was standing in a parking space on the top row and another car was in the lane trying to turn into the space. That's when it dawned on me that this woman had gone on foot in search of a parking space to reserve for the Audi.
We were stuck. The Audi was in front of us and another car was behind us. My daughter got out to see what the hold up was.
The hold up was the Karen was refusing to move out of the space and the woman trying to turn into the space wasn't about to give it up. My daughter, naive child, asked if there was a problem because everyone was stuck. The woman in the car said "there wouldn't be any problem if this one would more her fat ass."
At that my daughter said "I don't need this" and beat a hasty retreat back to the Jeep.
At that point the laughing gods decided they had enough amusement for the day and the following occurred.
(1) The driver of the Audi realized someone was trying to get out from a space on the left so he backed up to let the car back out and then took that space.
(2) The Karen, seeing the Audi get a space, surrendered her prize.
(3) The car in the lane took the space that the Karen was trying to save for the Audi.
(4) A car in the top row also left allowing my daughter to simply drive straight into that spot with no awkward maneuvering required.
Sometimes the gods work in mysterious ways.
There was about an hour wait to vote and my daughter's initial reaction was to leave and come back but I convinced her to get it over with give the lucky break with the spot, because I didn't want to anger the fickle gods by spurning their gift, and she had no idea what it would be like later.
I waited outside with my cane and made lots of new friends. I even saw my dentist but he didn't see me. Since this was Northern New Jersey even with the craziness in the parking lot people just laughed it off. Except for the Karen and the woman she was blocking.
It was pretty crazy. I think the craziness was due to there only being a few early voting spots in the county. The rest of us are planning on going Election Day when each town will have its traditional polling place open. But we're planning on going early just in case.
OK, I got lazy or depressed or both this week. I'm two days late with this but things haven't changed much.
Electoral Vote
Trump -278 (+22), Harris - 241 (-10), Toss Up - 19 (-12)
Real Clear Politics
Trump -219 (NC), Harris - 215 (NC), Toss Up - 104 (NC)
Real Clear Politics - No Tossups
Trump -312 (NC), Harris - 226 (NC), Toss Up - 0 (NC)
Polling Map
Trump -219 (+1), Harris - 226 (NC), Toss Up - 93 (-1)
538 Model
Trump -262 (+16), Harris - 226 (NC), Toss Up - 50 (-27)
JHK Forecasts
Trump -262 (+16), Harris - 226 (NC), Toss Up - 50 (-16)
Polymarket Odds
Trump -312 (NC), Harris - 226 (NC), Toss Up - 0 (NC)
If anything the election has shifted more in Trump's direction. Electoral Vote now has him winning with 278 electoral votes.
All of the ontological arguments are basically word salads attempting to trick the listener into accepting the argument. That makes them about the most dishonest arguments as well.
As for Godel, his Axioms are a big problem. First of all he never defines what he means by "positive." Some who defend his argument sometimes claim that this doesn't matter but most people disagree. Something that is so central to the argument has to be defined.
Axiom 1: If property A is positive, and if property A entails property B, then B is positive.
Why? Does there never exist a trade-off where one "positive" property requires the acceptance of a "negative" one? How about a military tank with light armor which allows it to move quickly but makes it vulnerable to armor piercing shells?
Axiom 2: If property A is positive, then the property not-A is not positive. So is the property "Red" "positive?" Some people would say so (especially given that Godel never defines "positive), does that make "non-Red" not positive? Or are the property of "Red" and "non-Red" simply neutral? How do we tell if properties are "positive" or simply neutral.
Axiom 3: The property G is a positive property. (G is the property of being "God-like"; an object with property G has all positive properties)
This is total gibberish. Define "God-like" and why must someone with this property have all "positive" properties? Is jealousy a positive property? What about vengefulness?
Axiom 4: If a property is positive, then it is positive in all possible worlds.
Why? There are probably possible worlds where the property of being a Nazi is considered positive because the Germans won WW II while in most worlds the property of being not-Nazi is positive.
Axiom 5: Necessary existence is a positive property.
Again, define "necessary existence" and demonstrate that it must be "positive" whatever the hell positive may be.
