The Fucking News Fucking Election Guide
The Fucking News Fucking Election Guide
A cheat sheet to help you make it through the actual third Election Night in a row of Donald J. Trump
This guide is a work in progress. Like America.
If you want to add something, or you see something The Fucking News fucked up, please flag it, whether you’re standing or sitting (or burning, you magnificent Commie bastard).
Two things will get us through tonight. One, remember that we likely won’t have a (legitimate) projection in the presidential race tonight. And, two, have some sense of how tonight will play out. That’s what this guide is for. So let’s start with a timeline.
Oh but first, the third of the two things to get us through tonight: Remember that early leads rarely mean anything. Don’t sweat or rejoice if things look bleak or great. They’re gonna change. Besides, there’s a ton of bullshit flowing through the info-bloodstream system, so accept nothing until someone credible’s kicked the tires on it, preferably without mixing metaphors.
And the fourth of two things that’ll make tonight go more easily is joining the TFN Election Night Fucking Live Chat right here. (And, of course, you can help make things go more easily for TFN with a donation or paid subscription!)
The Timeline
(Courtesy of other outlets who did the legwork. Thanks, other outlets who did the legwork! All times eastern due to my own narcissism.)
In most of the most-watched states, results will likely not be known as soon as the polls close. Or even today. Most results we get the instant that polls close were likely baked-in to expectations already. You may still boo or cheer!
5pm
Exit polling
New outlets will start releasing exit-poll munchies such as when people made up their mind and how important it was that Joe Biden is 284 years old.
6pm
First partial state poll closings; results possible I said possible
Polls close at different times in Indiana and Kentucky. Some are in the eastern time zone, while others are in the 1952 of their minds. So while some polls will close at 6pm eastern, the rest close at 7pm.
One possible bellwether of suburban red-state voting: Politico IDs Hamilton County, outside Indianapolis, which dropped from a 20-point Trump margin in 2016 to seven points in 2020 and gave Nikki Haley 34% of the Republican vote in the state’s primary two months after Haley bent the knee.
7pm
First full-state poll closings; results possible I said possible
Georgia (toss-up)
Indiana (leans Trump)
Kentucky (leans Trump)
South Carolina (leans Trump)
Vermont (leans Harris)
Virginia (leans Harris)
Partial: Alabama, Florida, New Hampshire
Most Georgia voters likely didn’t see TFN’s reporting that Trump waited to issue a disaster declaration for Tropical Storm Zeta…while Gov. Brian Kemp was deciding whether to certify the state’s 2020 presidential votes. The state ultimately went for Biden, but is seen as a tough nut for Vice Pres. Kamala Harris to crack this time around. I was interviewed by activist and journalist Anoa Changa for her Substack about TFN’s disaster-response story:
Note for Florida: Per Politico, Florida is now a fast counter and most votes are expected to be tallied by the time the polls close at 8pm.
7:30pm
State poll closings
North Carolina (toss-up)
Ohio (leans Trump)
West Virginia (leans Trump)
Partial: New Hampshire
North Carolina’s one of the most fiercely contested presidential prizes and another fast vote-counter. Ohio is a very, very big deal for the Senate and could determine not only whether Mitch McConnell is back in charge of the facilities, if not his faculties, but also whether the Senate still has a progressive fighter for workers in Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.
See the Senate section below for why West Virginia makes me laugh. North Carolina’s gubernatorial race has also provided some much-needed levity, not merely because of the antics of Republican candidate Mark “Black Nazi” Robinson, but because said antics are likely to hand North Carolina’s governorship to current Attorney General Josh Stein. And never forget that Trump predicted he’d win New Hampshire.
8pm
State poll closings
Alabama (leans Trump)
Connecticut (leans Harris)
Delaware (leans Harris)
The District of Columbia (leans Harris)
Florida (leans Trump)
Illinois (leans Harris)
Maine (splits its Electoral College votes)
Maryland (leans Harris)
Massachusetts (leans Harris)
Mississippi (leans Trump)
Missouri (leans Trump)
New Hampshire (leans Harris)
New Jersey (leans Harris)
Oklahoma (leans Trump)
Pennsylvania (toss-up)
Rhode Island (leans Harris)
Tennessee (leans Trump)
Partial: Kansas, Michigan, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas
Politico calls this hour the Blue Wall for Democrats. Cracks in that wall this early bear ill tidings.
Pennsylvania isn’t expected to have results until Wednesday at the earliest. This Wednesday.
See the Senate section for Delaware, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania.
8:30pm
State poll closing
Arkansas (leans Trump)
The state that former Gov. Bill Clinton helped lock in for Republicans by pretending to be one won’t surprise anyone tonight. Go make yourself a smoothie. Fuck it, have an edible if that’s how you roll. In fact, here’s some recommended reading for the Arkansas lull, if you missed any recent TFNs about the election:
One Way Out: No matter who wins, we have to break this cycle
Kamala Harris Does NOT Need a Landslide
America Is an Idea
9pm
State poll closings
Arizona (toss-up)
Colorado (leans Harris)
Kansas (leans Trump)
Louisiana (leans Trump)
Michigan (toss-up)
Minnesota (leans Harris)
Nebraska (splits its Electoral College votes)
New Mexico (leans Harris)
New York (leans Harris)
North Dakota (leans Trump)
South Dakota (leans Trump)
Texas (leans Trump)
Wisconsin (toss-up)
Wyoming (leans Trump)
Politico calls this “The Heartland of the Matter,” because what represents the real, true American better than states that mostly had jack all to do with creating this nation, have fewer people than coastal states, and have fewer of the immigrants who’ve made this country great. And don’t read books.
We probably won’t know tonight whether it tips the scales, but Nebraska may well split its Electoral College votes (like Maine, the only other state to do so). After an intense battle, a lone Republican state legislator — with aspirations in blue Omaha — refused to change the rules and make the state winner-takes-all, quite possibly giving Harris one, lone Nebraska Electoral College vote that may or may not decide the future of America and Earth.
Arizona arannoyingly doesn’t release its results until about an hour after polls close and is expected to be a slow counter. Trump’s enjoyed a teeny-tiny edge in the polls here, but it’s not out of Harris’ reach.
See the Senate section for Arizona, Michigan, Nebraska, and Texas.
10pm
State poll closings
Iowa* (leans Trump)
Montana (leans Trump)
Nevada (toss-up)
Utah (leans Trump)
Partial: Idaho, Oregon
If you bet that fast-counting states would include Nevada, that’s a bet you’d lose. And Iowa, of course, put Harris in the lead in the final and most respected poll of that state, which went for Trump in 2016 and 2020. Your diligent TFN dove into that Iowa poll in a special, Saturday night ***🚨🚨🚨Urgent Breaking News Bulletin🚨🚨🚨***. (NB: Iowa has an asterisk because of conflict reports about when polls close, could be 9pm.)
See the Senate section for: Montana and Nevada. Sen. Jon Tester of Montana is widely seen as the Democrat most likely to get picked off, and potentially cost Democrats control of the Senate.
11pm
State poll closings
California (leans Harris)
Idaho (leans Trump)
Oregon (leans Harris)
Washington (leans Harris)
Some of the most consequential results in this hour could come from states that closed earlier, Politico notes. Namely, we could get projections for Georgia and/or North Carolina. If Harris’s alleged weakness with Black men adds to her definite weakness with all white people, that could cost Harris these states and consign America to another four years of purgatory.
Politico also reminds us that California House races may well determine House control…and we may not know it for weeks.
Midnight
State poll closing
Hawaii (leans Harris)
Partial: Alaska
Politico guesses we still won’t have projections for five battleground states by now. But in this hour strong showings from either candidate may give us results from Michigan or Wisconsin.
1am
It’s all over and ends just like The Bible prophesied: With ALASKA!
Politico expects us to go beddy-byes without knowing the results of three states: Arizona, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. Or of the presidency. The 36 Electoral College votes cast by those states are likely to determine who wins.
TBD
Trump issues false, unsubstantiated claim of voter fraud.
Nov. 26
Trump sentencing scheduled for violating New York state law by fucking with his business records to conceal payments related to his 2016 presidential campaign and the deployment of his penis prior thereto.
The Senate
If Trump wins the White House, and Republicans win control of the Senate, we are so fucked gonna roll up our sleeves and get to work like Happy Warriors!
Republicans are being given very good odds of taking the Senate back. In part that’s because there are only two Senate races where Democrats are widely seen as having any kind of shot at flipping a seat from red to blue:
Florida: Polls have shown former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-FL), a Latina and gun-control activist, giving Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) a run for at least some of his hoard of stolen money.
Texas: Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX) has a non-trivial shot at sending Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) to a lifetime of sitting smugly on corporate boards. The polls say it’s not impossible, but if it happens it’s going to be the story of the night (short of early signs of a Harris blowout).
Everywhere else that’s in contention, Democrats are defending seats and in some cases given short odds of winning.
Arizona: Remember Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), who used to be a well-liked Democrat and then became neither? She started off so cool that she was literally the first (openly) bisexual U.S. senator. Then she imploded and now Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) is favored to beat Trump deadender Kari Lake to hold the seat for Democrats.
Michigan: Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin is competing with former Rep. Mike Rogers to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow. Slotkin is former CIA, while Rogers was FBI, so either way the Deep State wins.
Montana: This is the race most widely expected to break Democratic hearts. Despite/because of running and serving as Republican-lite, Democratic Sen. Jon Tester is unbeloved by half his state, maybe :::gulp::: more. Tester’s best hope: Montanans aren’t familiar with Tim Sheehy — his inexperienced challenger who only moved there in 2014 — and are embarrassed by the steady stream of revelations about his stories ‘n’ bullshit about the war wound he received. Or didn’t. He claims he was shot while serving in Afghanistan. But didn’t report it. A park ranger swears Sheehy shot himself, apparently by accident, in Montana, years later.
Nevada: This used to be less of a nail-biter, but Republicans bet1 millions at the last minute on military veteran Sam Brown in his challenge against Sen. Jacky Rosen. It’s not clear it was enough to get him over the hump or [insert betting cliche here] but if Trump is having a good night, Nevada might number amongst the Republican pickups.
Ohio: Against all reason, this one feels safer for Democrats than all the data say it should. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) — longtime progressive advocate for the working class — is fending off a challenge from Bernie Moreno, whose experience in governance consists of owning car dealerships. You may remember Moreno from such musings as, Why would women over 50 care about reproductive rights?
Pennsylvania: This one feels even safer to me. Pennsylvania Republicans are used to voting against rich guy Dave McCormick, who lost in the last primary to Dr. Mehmet “How Embarrassed Are You to Lose to Me?” Oz. Incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and McCormick have made this literally a billion-dollar race.
Wisconsin: America’s first openly gay senator, Tammy Baldwin, is facing a challenge from yet another guy who’s got zero experience in government but does have money. Eric Hovde is a self-described “100% pro-life” Republican, except recently, when he’s suddenly less committed to the sanctity of life and would like America’s adorable women voters to know he’s more of a 96% pro-life Republican.
Here’s a useful breakdown of those seven GOP challengers:
- Millionaire: Hovde, McCormick, Moreno, Sheehy
- Maybe lied about where they live: Hovde (Wisconsin/California), McCormick (Pennsylvania/Connecticut), Rogers (Michigan/Florida)
- Maybe lied about where they got shot: Sheehy (Afghanistan/Montana)
- No government experience: Brown, Hovde, Lake, Moreno, Sheehy
- Man: Brown, Hovde, McCormick, Moreno, Rogers, Sheehy
- Woman: Lake
In short, a surprisingly high number of races may pivot on where totally inexperienced millionaires actually live and/or got shot, and whether voters are satisfied with or pissed off by the explanation that, “But I have two homes!”
Other Senate races worth keeping an eye on:
Maryland: When Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell got former Gov. Larry Hogan to try to wrest the seat from Democrats after incumbent Sen. Ben Cardin retires, collective-wisdom Washington went “OooOOOoooohhh!” They liked the prospect of old-school, non-Trump Republican Hogan restoring grownupitude to the party. But Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks is benefitting from the Harris surge, so unless Harris’s numbers collapse, it’s likely that Maryland will not elect its first Republican senator in almost four decades.
Nebraska: Incumbent Republican Sen. Deb Fischer’s seat is in jeopardy because of/despite the lack of a viable Democratic candidate. Union leader Dan Osborne is running as an independent. And independently freaking out the anti-union party. Democrats have thrown their adorable Nebraska weight behind Osborne, but he’s said he won’t caucus with either party.
Then there’s West Virginia, which no one thinks Democrats can win. The expected victor is Gov. Jim Justice. Here’s the hilarious part.
There’s a good chance Republicans will have just as slim a majority as Democrats have now. But Justice has a record of skipping school. That’s right, he doesn’t show up for work and his colleagues often can’t even reach him. Successfully banning contraception is 99% just showing up, sir!
The House of Representatives
Literally no one, yours fucking truly included, wants a list of every competitive House race. As your dutiful TFN has noted, control of the House very well may come down to swing-district races in California and New York.
Worth reupping TFN’s lament from March about a member of Congress we’re losing this year. Instead of seeking reelection, Democratic Rep. Katie Porter, she of the wee white board, unsuccessfully ran for the Senate nomination ultimately won by Rep. Adam Schiff. After this year, Porter’s out.
In the unlikely but possible event of an Electoral College tie for the presidency, the House of Representatives votes to break the tie. Not the current House, run by House Speaker Mike Ofjesus Johnson, the new 2025 House that will be seated next year.
Which could be majority-Democratic! The bad news? The House vote will be held not by individual members, but by state delegations, where Republicans outnumber Democrats because the entire concept of states needs to fucking go.
Other Races
Flojaune Cofer is running for mayor of Sacramento, CA, on an actual 21st-century agenda. Like, the politics of Star Trek (The Original Series, obvi). Instead of treating people as bad, as if she’s never read a book about psychology, Cofer is running on a platform of addressing homelessness and gun violence by addressing their root causes. Like an adult. Or a European. Or an epidemiologist…which is what she is.
State Supreme Courts are big drivers of democracy and/or tyranny. Bolts Magazine has a roundup of Boltsian comprehensiveness on those races.
If you want to get really nuts on as many races as possible, Bolts has a terrifying tracking sheet that essentially distills American democracy down to a checklist.
Referenda
There’s some interesting measures on state and local ballots that caught my eye. Please shout up any worth adding:
Arizona - Homelessness. Pushing cities to sic the cops on homeless people and force them into treatment, this referendum would punish cities that don’t…by making them give tax refunds to rich people who’ve “suffered” due to homeless camping, drug use, or public defecation. Again — can’t stress this enough — the rich people have suffered.
California - Factory farming. This is something of a pet issue, since reporting on organic-farming regulations and disappoint Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. Sonoma County is voting on whether to ban factory farms, a measure that factory farms have falsely characterized as an attack on all farms. It would, obviously, protect small, family farms from corporate predation.
California - Slavery. Just because you’ve imprisoned people for breaking your rules does not mean it’s okay to do slavery on them. That’s the wild-eyed hippie commie premise behind Prop 6, which would end forced labor in the state’s prisons. The state Constitution literally has a loophole that says slavery is okay if you gin up a reason to throw them in prison first. In related news, it’s 2024.
Florida - Abortion and weed, not necessarily in that order. After Florida Republicans imposed increasingly Draconian restrictions on abortion, activists finally succeeded in getting a measure on the ballot to enshrine abortion rights. It’s a very popular measure, so it may have teeny-tiny, microscopic coattails that help Democrats elsewhere on the ballot. As might voting to legalize recreational weed.
Ohio - Gerrymandering. Ohio Republicans twisted the language on an anti-gerrymandering referendum to make it read like an anti-anti-gerrymandering referendum. As Bolts reports, some voters got took.
Stealing the Race
If it looks like Trump is losing states he needs to win to win, the entirely made-up claims of voter fraud will start springing from Trump’s forehead.
No one should take claims seriously without evidence. Period. Definitely not from an adjudicated, admitted, have-you-met-Trump liar. And definitely not at a moment when disinformation is flooding our info space.
But, because our media are not good at determining thing-taking-seriously, these claims will likely get some oxygen from the media. So, for those inclined to douse these fires, the Washington Post inventoried the various ways Trump has already cried foul, complete with fact-checks. For instance:
Undocumented immigrants will vote. Let’s see what Republicans say about that…privately. Oh, here’s video of Republicans privately saying it’s not possible.
Mmmmm, video of Republicans privately saying it’s not possible…
But it’s worth noting that some Republican claims of what’s influencing voting are dead on! Even the ones about dead voters! Let’s review!
Trump claims some places have lax voting rules. TRUE!
Why is that? Because voting is your goddamn fucking right as a citizen. Which means there should be a high bar for any measure that might disenfranchise you of your right.
How high a bar? Police officers literally have to tell you that you don’t have to talk to them and if they don’t you get to go free even if you really did kill those people. That’s the kind of burden we put on the government to avoid fucking with our fucking rights.
But, but, if rules for voting are lax, how do we know our elections aren’t being stolen?
The rules for voting are lax. The rules for counting votes are not.
If a vote looks hinky, observers from either side can challenge them. If the shenanigans Trump alleges are real, they’ll show up in the ballots and his observers can catch them. This is not only an easy thing generally, it’s fucking child’s play in the case of wholesale voter fraud.
Media are biased towards Democrats. TRUE!
I mean, not true if you count “media” as including Fox and its progeny. And it was Democrats — the last prominent Kennedy wasn’t perfect either — who helped immigrant Rupert Murdoch take over American media. Now there’s an entire right-wing media ecosphere with no equivalent on the left (hmu, progressive billionaires who wanna change that).
As for the national, legacy media, yeah, they’re obviously biased against progressives and progressive ideas. But outside red-state local markets, it’s fair to say the national media individually prefer Democratic candidates.
Do the media do dumb things that help Republicans candidates? Yes! Without the brainless, undisciplined camera-pointing at Trump in 2016, we probably wouldn’t be here. But it wasn’t because the media wanted him to win. They were just brainless and undisciplined.
And if media are biased towards candidates who recognize reality and uphold norms, well, it was Republicans who killed the Fairness Doctrine, so cry me a polluted river.
Prosecutions are election interference. TRUE!
Being prosecuted interferes with many many things! Getting arrested, prosecuted, tried, convicted, sentenced, and incarcerated will fuck with virtually any job you want to hold that isn’t work-from-cell.
Also fucked with: Child-rearing, hiking, family game night, Netflixing and chilling. The list goes on!
Why should politics be any different? You could even get totes crazy and argue that politicians should be held to a higher standard than other accused criminals.
Wrongful prosecution, however, should be quite easy for a political party leader to prove. They have an entire political party on the defense team. And yet they keep not proving wrongful prosecution.
Democrats will harvest ballots. TRUE!
Also LEGAL! Also SUCK IT!
Dead people will vote. TRUE! Or at least LIKELY!
Virtually anything you can name, any iteration of illegal voting, will probably happen. Even deadness.
The reason it doesn’t mean shit is that it happens in numbers that are statistically insignificant.
Dead people, for instance, voted in 2020 by the ones. Literally one.
And the only documented case of 2020 zombie lever-pulling was a Republican (see: It, suck).
The Federal Reserve helped Democrats by cutting rates. TRUE!
The Fed also hurt Democrats by not cutting rates until then! Also, Trump, not Biden, tried to influence the Fed. Also more also, who appointed the chair of the Federal Reserve? Trump did. You make your Fed, you lie in it. Or about it.
In short…
Yes, reality sometimes “interferes” with elections by influencing how people think. But actual stealing of elections is virtually non-existent, especially compared to the vast machinery of “legally,” systemically depriving hundreds of thousands of citizens of their voting rights through bans on convicts, purging rolls, limiting ballot access, etc.
Election Day Playlist
A newsfucking Comrade shared Michael Moore’s Election Day playlist with me without charging me money for it. And now, as a Commie, I share it with you for free, too.
If you find this guide or the live chat of any value, please consider supporting the work behind them by supporting TFN, if you can. Thanks and let’s go get ‘em, kids!
Correction
Updated to correct mistaken listing of Dave McCormick as having no government experience. Sorry about that!
Cuz Nevada.
"The forth of two things"........you crack me up.
As a South Dakota resident, I'm just hoping for a good president and as many rights as the bred heifers in the feed lot next to my house have. Vote Kamala, yes on IM 29 and yes on G people!