Election Watch Party: More updates, and more tension

The current summary is this: It looks like the Kamala Harris path to victory is to win the trio of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin—exactly what we thought it would be 24 hours ago, though we all certainly hoped for better. Let's pick up our updates where we left off.

Nathan Bernhardt: "regardless of how this turns out, conventional wisdom says a campaign that's so completely derelict on the ground game shouldn't be not only close but leading. some things have be rethought even if trump eventually loses on the merits."

I'm going to repeat my own theory of this, which is that "political reporting" has become so devoid of substance, and the media in general so devoid of substance, that most Americans can't vote based on the issues. They are surrounded with more disinformation than information; they couldn't tell you if Trump is pro-abortion or anti-abortion because all they hear is an endless pie fight of claims, not his actual record. The same with "inflation" and "immigration" and every other supposed "issue"; to a large extent, they're made up. They're fictions of campaign strategists and the media—none of it is based on fact.

Add to this the ability of billionaires to outspend the entire American public in order to promote their own preferred versions of these lies and media owners who go to great contortions to pretend that even felonies and a violent attempted coup isn't a serious enough mark against the pro-billionaire candidate to justify national condemnation. Democracy now exists in a soup of disinformation so thick that you have to be a skilled interpreter of the news to be able to decipher what, if any of it, is true. And that isn't sustainable. It will also be almost impossible to fix without a good chunk of these power brokers deserting their contemporaries and joining the cause of democracy rather than the cause of me first.

Oregon now called for Harris, also as expected. But a tough, tough blow as North Carolina is called for Trump; Democrats had real hopes for the state.

Another blow: NBC is projecting Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown has lost his reelection bid to challenger Bernie Moreno.

Harris picks up Virginia.

One explanation for Brown's loss: $40 million in crypto money.

Again, I don't see how a government counts as a "democracy" if the wealthiest citizens get to buy the government outright. And this is a result of the Supreme Court's multiple past decisions insisting that such purchasing power wouldn't count as corrosive. It turns out they were lying about that!

Republicans have flipped control of the Senate, projects AP. The senators that twice blocked Trump from impeachment for transparently criminal behavior will be back in charge to further enable criminal acts by party leaders.

Basically my own point of view:

AP says it still sees a "very narrow" possible path to victory for Harris in Georgia, and that's why it's not called yet. "Harris is bettering Trump in the votes cast before Election Day, and there are still potentially enough of those kinds of votes left to be counted to push her ahead of the former president. The race is still too early to call."

Whoops. And now, not five minutes after saying that, they've called Georgia for Trump after all.

All right, we're not going to know presidential results tonight, that much is clear. Here's what we know:

• The Senate will be in Republican hands in 2025.
• Democrats are slightly favored at the current moment to gain control of the House of Representatives.
• The presidency is still up for grabs.

That last one is the sketchiest. Kamala Harris still has a path to victory—but only if Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin all come through. And the margins in the last two aren't looking too good at the moment. It could well be that massive votes from urban areas bring her over the top, but that is not the likeliest outcome right now.

We'll know more in the morning—or maybe not. But torturing ourselves waiting for information that won't be coming isn't good for any of us, so let's call it a night and come back to see what the morning brings. By all means, though—keep the comments coming if you need to vent. Heaven knows it's going to be a long, uncomfortable night.