Americans in record-high early voting as polls show Biden ahead
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| Biden has a slight lead, according to the polls, with 48.1 percent for him and 46.3 for Trump |
If the final sprint to Election Day appeared superficially familiar, with President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden making their closing arguments to swing state voters, there were plenty of reminders that the 2020 campaign has been anything but normal.
There were the staggering early vote totals, with a record number of people already casting their ballots by mail or in person - a tectonic shift away from one-day voting that's been the staple of the American electoral system - and predictions that the total turnout would break the record set in 2016, when nearly 139 million people voted.
Kim Doyeon is at our Election Center with a breakdown. Doyeon, what is the early voting count at this point and how do the polls look like?
That's right. Some polling stations are just now opening on the east coast, where right now it's a little after 5 AM. First, let's take a look at what happened in early voting. These numbers are from U.S. Election Project. The early voting count at this point is more than 99 million as of 6 PM, Korea time. This includes both in-person and mail-in ballots.
We won't have the total voter turnout until later, but we can compare this number to 2016. Now, mail-in ballots were big this year because in the pandemic some states let anyone request a ballot by mail. But in previous elections, voters generally had to have a special reason to get one, so you can see the surge here.
This could be more favorable for Biden as Democrats are thought to be more likely to vote by mail. President Trump, on his trail, said multiple times that this system could lead to fraud, and he encouraged his supporters to vote on Election Day in person.
In-person early voting is higher than 2016 as well which may be because some wanted to avoid large crowds on the day. So early voting this year accounts for over 70 percent of total turnout in the last election, which was estimated at 138 million, and experts say that it's likely to surpass 150 million in this election for the first time.
One of the reasons behind the surge is COVID-19, which touched upon every aspect of this process. Also, COVID-19 hit the country when it was already POLARIZED on other issues.
That being said, let's take a look at how the results might look by bringing up the polls. While former Vice President Joe Biden has more solid states on his side, none of them will matter unless he can get to 270.
So that's why he and President Trump have focused on six swing states, all of which were taken by Trump in 2016. First, we go down to the Sunshine State, President Trump's second home.
Biden has a slight lead, according to the polls, with 48.1 percent for him and 46.3 for Trump. That's a lead of just 1.8 points, so this doesn't confirm anything.
Remember, this state has 29 electoral votes… and is one of the most diverse states in the union with a high number of Hispanic voters. Back in 2016, it was Florida turning red that first put Trump ahead of Clinton. Next is North Carolina with 15 Electoral votes. President Trump leads here by just two tenths of a point, and it's his only lead out of the six.
Now we head north around to the rust belt area for a closer look at these three states. First, Pennsylvania is where both candidates spent a lot of time. Biden's hard work may have paid off because he's got a lead of 2.6 percent. Over to the Mid West, we have Michigan, where biden leads by 5.1 percent.
He's up in Wisconsin, too, by 6.7.
These three are significant because first, Pennsylvania and Michigan depend heavily on industrial jobs, which Trump promised to bring back. Also, these three states were considered part of the so-called "Blue Wall" before Trump took them in 2016.
They were called the Blue Wall because they'd all gone to a Democratic candidate for almost 30 years until 2016, so we'll have to see if Trump can carry them again this time.
Lastly, we go down to Arizona Stricly speaking it's not really a swing state, but this time it's a cliffhanger. The average of polls show that Biden is leading but we can't be too sure. Bill Clinton was the last Democratic candidate to win here and before that, it was Harry Truman.
For the past few days, it was a tug-of-war here, but as of midnight local time, these were the numbers. The voting booths will close at 7 PM local time, which is later than the other swing states, so we'll really have to keep a close watch on this one.
So these six states make-up 101 electoral votes.
Again, in 2016, Trump took them all. He wasn't ahead in the polls back then either, so we'll see if he can prove the polls wrong again.