If Fairfax County, VA reported results first...

Last edited Wed Nov 6, 2013, 03:01 PM - Edit history (7)

...we would have different narratives because people form views of elections based on the experience of election night drama and the punditry generated by election night drama. (This is not picking on Fairfax County, or on Virginia. It's a common phenomenon. For practical reasons, big entities usually take longer to count, with cities coming in later than farm districts.)

Obama did not come from behind to beat Romney in VA in 2012. The polls in VA all close at the same time. Obama had won VA at 7PM, but Obama votes were reported later which created that nail-biter VA drama, but Obama won by 4%. It wasn't all that close.

Obama took the lead, however, at a point in time that taking the lead in VA had the potential power to "decide" the national election (making OH unnecessary if O took NH, IIRC)... with "decide" actually meaning reveal. It was already decided. No voting was ongoing.

McAullife didn't do great in 2013, but he didn't do horrible. He did "meh." No 1% nail-biter. No 7% romp. 3%. A very boring result, really. But he did not take the reported lead for 3-4 hours after polls closed so all punditry was about him being behind in a race he was expected to win.

But he was never behind. Never. As of 7PM last night McAuliffe had won the race by 3%. (And when we look at the sun we are actually seeing how it looked 8 seconds ago... be we tend to privilege when we find out about things.)

But imagine if Fairfax (and Arlington and Alexandria, beltway Virginia, and Richmond city) reported first. McAuliffe would have been up by 6-8 points when the race was called because the analysts would see that McA had gotten what he needed to get and that cooch was a little too far behind to catch up in the rural vote, and that total would have then been whittled down to 3% after folks went to bed. And with the race called long before, nobody would have cared that it was closer than they thought.

But these are effects of reporting votes, not of voting.

Dole did better in 1996 than his polling suggested, but it wasn't written into our national narrative because the horse-race was over early anyway. Had states reported in a different order then the narrative about 1996 might have been different because it would have been a longer election night and Dole's over-performance would have been a topic, but the votes are the votes are the votes. Clinton won, as expected, no matter what order states report.

Be we (nationally, journalistically) watch election night like a movie, and only a few pros bother with the numbers after the ending has been given away.

Remember the power of Bush being declared the winner in 2000. Once it is called, most folks tune out the numbers. But if Gore had a big lead in FL and Bush then crept to a 0.001% vote advantage at 4 AM it would have been perceived as Bush taking away Gore's victory, not visa-versa. Exact same votes, but a different narrative.

Caring about percentage points is what people do on election night. After election night it is just who won.