Analysis: Don't fall for what could be misleading early numbers or punditry. Be patient until more votes are counted.
www.nbcnews.com
The unprecedented combination of
Covid-19 and sky-high interest in the presidential race have made
2020 an especially challenging one for election administrators. But it could also make drawing conclusions from the initial results reported
Tuesday night particularly hazardous.
It's likely that in Sun Belt battlegrounds such as
Florida, North Carolina and
Texas, the first totals to be reported will be huge tranches of mail and early in-person ballots that break heavily for
Joe Biden, creating a "blue mirage" in the early tallies that could be erased once Trump-friendly in-person
Election Day votes are tabulated.
But the opposite could be true in northern battlegrounds such as
Michigan,
Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where officials are not permitted to begin processing mail ballots until the day of the election (or, in Michigan's case, the day before). In those states, a "red mirage" of Trump-heavy Election Day votes could linger until larger metro counties report huge tranches of early ballots later in the evening.