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TODAY IS A momentous day across the Atlantic as the American public (well, the ones who haven’t voted already) go to the polls in the US Presidential Election.
Over 90 million Americans have already cast their vote in the race between Republican incumbent Donald Trump and his Democrat rival Joe Biden with turnout expected to exceed the 136 million who voted in 2016.
The opinion polls have consistently pointed to a Biden win, but Trump will be hoping he can retain those key states he won over four years ago when he beat Hillary Clinton to the presidency.
TheJournal.ie will be with you overnight this evening as our team brings you all the latest updates, insights and analysis from the US Presidential Election.
The battlegrounds
Tens of millions of people are voting across the 50 states, but who the actual winner is will come down to the results in a small number of states.
Each state has a number of electoral college votes allocated. In almost all cases, if you win the state, you win all of those electoral college votes.
To win the election, either Trump or Biden will need to reach 270 electoral votes.
And it’s those states that frequently switch between Republican and Democrat that will decide the election.
There are two states, in particular, where all eyes will be focused – Florida and Pennsylvania.
Florida has 29 electoral college votes and Pennyslvania has 20.
Based on the current projections, it appears that Trump absolutely must win Florida if he is to have any chance of retaining the presidency.
Early on election night 2016, news of a win for Trump in Florida set the tone as he began to beat Hillary in all the vital states.
Between them, those 49 electoral college votes would go some way towards winning the White House, but Biden could afford to lose Florida if he was to win back the so-called Blue Wall – Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Other important places to watch are Iowa, Ohio, North Carolina, Arizona and Georgia.
It’s important to note that the way the counting may go for all these states may not be giving the most accurate picture during election night.
The counting is done differently depending on the state so the mail-in ballots that are expected to favour Biden may not be factored into initial counting. This could happen in the likes of Pennyslvania.
Axios reported on Sunday that Trump has told confidants he’ll declare victory if it looks like he’s “ahead” in a number of the important swing states, even if all of the votes haven’t yet been counted.
It’s important to note that Trump has denied that he would do this, but also told reporters at the weekend that it’s a “terrible thing” that we “can’t know the results of an election the night of the election”.
The polls
Nationally, Joe Biden has consistently led Donald Trump for months.
According to an average of polls collated by FiveThirtyEight.com, Biden has an 8.5 point lead on 52% to Trump’s 43.5%.
However, this national lead will count for little on election day. As indicated above, it’s those crucial swing states where the election will be decided.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton received more votes than Trump did, but the latter won the key states needed to win the election.
Biden leads the way in many of these states, but Trump has been making some gains and, of course, it is entirely possible the polls are wrong.
Here’s what way the polls in those swing states currently look heading into election day:
If – and this is a big if – these polls were correct, Biden would easily win the election. If Trump was to take Florida and at least six of the remaining eight states on the above list, that’d be his route to victory.
The timings
The first main thing to look out for is what times the polls close in the individual states.
A large number of states – including Florida, Pennsylvania and Michigan – close their polls between 1am and 2am Irish time.
As mentioned, different states have different methods of counting postal ballots so we can expect to see a sharp divergence in when we begin to see initial results from states.
Florida will be the one to watch early in the night as, along with Arizona, it has already been processing the mail-in ballots that have been sent in.
Wisconsin and Pennsylvania could take quite a while – perhaps even days – to give us results as they don’t start counting the mail-ints until election day. Such a deluge of mail-ins due to the Covid-19 pandemic brings an unprecedented situation so it’s difficult to be sure of timings here.
It’ll be important not to be duped into thinking a state – or even the entire race – is going a certain way based on early tallies – particularly in states that are slower to count their mail-in ballots.
As opposed to the kinds of national exit polls we would see in elections here and in the UK, networks and news outlets in the US make projections on who they believe the winner is.
They do this using sophisticated models to estimate who is winning based on all the available data. When enough data becomes available, an outlet will then declare a winner in that state.
In 2016, for example, the Associated Press called Pennysylvania for Trump at around 6.30am Irish time meaning that he was about to pass the 270 electoral votes needed.
Given the uncertainty, networks may be conservative in calling states and the overall race – unless it becomes clear early on it’s a landslide.
What happens next
Counting may take days – or even weeks – to definitively give us a winner. But we could also have a winner by tomorrow morning.
A US presidential election during a pandemic – with all the complexities involved – has no parallel in living memory.
And this has been a presidential race unlike any in living memory given – unlike in 2016 – we’ve actually had four years to see what a Donald Trump presidency is like.
Given how Trump has repeatedly sought to cast doubt on the validity of mail-in ballots, the possibility remains that he may dispute the result if it doesn’t go his way.
This would lead to a completely unprecedented situation which would leave the US in a constitutional crisis and potentially cause significant civil unrest.
Whatever happens, it’s clear that a tumultuous few days and weeks are ahead in America.
After the months of lead up, the day is finally here.
And the whole world is watching.
Planning on staying up late on Tuesday to watch the results roll in? TheJournal.ie will be liveblogging through the night to bring you all the developments as they happen. Our team of reporters and columnists will be breaking down what the results mean (and what happens next) from well before dawn on Wednesday morning.
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Ah no! This is the only station I listen to …
As a lover of indie music, it really didnt engage me sadly. When you can use the radio option on spotify you tend to hear much more new music…which is the staple of indie/alternative fans. This is the station that heralded mumford and sons afterall. A shame…they compromised too much.
Ah great the only half decent station out there. At least we have Nicky Byrne to console us.
:( listen in every day….there’s no other station I could stand.
Ahhh sh*te! The only good radio station. Sad for all the DJs who just liked playing their favorite tunes.
Ah no way,hopefully Mr.Maher gets the contract and rebrands it,there has to be an alternative to shyte like Dermot and Dave,Spin,2fm….all of the others except Newstalk.
His 8radio online station is very good….
To be fair Dermot and Dave do a lot for Irish bands with their homegrown heroes slot. Bring back phantom the way it was before the licence.
Dave Moore just started doing a metal show on TXFM recently as well
Cheers,just listened to it there for the first time,good set list.
it’s a shame because they actually played real music unlike most commercial radio stations 98fm , fm104 , SPIN 103 etc .. even though I think generally Irish radio is very good
Will have to disagree with you there lukey. I find Irish radio to be generally awful with with ridiculous amounts of advertising that is even more awful and djs than are idiotic and parochial. There are some exceptions such as this station that is closing.
That’s a shame. …most of the stations here are awful. ..lots of boy band and reality nonsense with huge amounts of very amature annoying advertising. This is a good station
Txfm never quite lived up to phantom but still the best station by a mile, hopefully they can resurrect phantom in some form, I can’t handle the thoughts of driving around all day listening to the mind numbing nonsense the rest of the stations dish up
It looks like Internet radio is the only option for decent music now…
Internet radio, Buffering-breaks as well as ad-breaks
Ah balls! Only music station worth listening to here!
Ah FFS!
Balls…don’t listen to any other station and for good reason. What counts for music these days on other stations is piles of monotonous bull****.
Joe Donnely I will miss you :’( every day 3-7 it’s txfm drive here
Best station in the country..
Balls, the only half decent station. Hopefully somebody else picks up the license. Phantom was always better than TXFM anyway
Heart breaking news, no more fungey on the drive to work and Joe D on the trek back. I’d nearly listen to George Hook before turning on 104 or Spin. Grim
I listen from 7 in the morning,until 10 at night. There’s going to be a big void in my life. Sad day for the listener and hosts alike.
It’s A shame that.Pity The English channels like Fm104 and Dennis ob Newstalk /RTE couldn’t follow
Are you aware that Denis O’Brien was involved in TXFM?
Best radio is at night
That’s helpful for people who listen during the day then
God I feel sorry for you having to put up with endless ads, annoying DJs, banter and basically crap music
Joe Donnelly was great in the afternoons. Very funny and likeable DJ, which is a rarity on Irish radio and I hope he gets a gig elsewhere. But I only listened to the station in the car…at home it’s Spotify subscription all the way and no radio station can compete against that.
Goddamn it. They have a really excellent balance of older and new alternative music. Gonna have to go satellite now because the rest of Irish radio is godawful.
I didn’t realise it was Phantom FM’s predecessor. Why did they rebrand? Nova is pretty decent, if they just stopped those annoying sound clip competitions.
TXFM was the only think that kept me listening to the radio.
I’ll turn it off forever knowing that FM104′s still going.
Major pity, I’ve been listening since it was called Phantom.
The name changed to TXFM which lets face it sounds like what you’d name an American country & western station. Bad call on whoever came up with that name.
I listen to Joe Donnelly every afternoon and will miss his musical knowledge. Hopefully the original owner will retake the reins.
Good
Yeah, people loosing their jobs is great news isn’t it!
That’s a shame. The only station you could escape the drudgery of the bieber generation and get real music.
This will rock the radio industry
Looks like bbc 6 music all day now
Sad to read that this station is closing…… The BAI need to reflect on their part in this station’s demise. The rules around commercial broadcasting need to be loosened and the public service remit on commercial stations removed. Whatever about city stations, local radio in Ireland is a pedestal for politicians, awful country music, death notices, bingo, community notices and badly paid presenters, something else the authority turns a blind eye to. The standard in the last fifteen years has gone down the pan as “new blood” cannot be found. “New Blood” knows the level of pay is appalling at local level (some stations) and has been very sensible in persuing a career at facebook or Google. This brilliant medium can survive if the “shirts” leave it alone and leave it to broadcasters to create and programme great radio, let the accountants look after the unpaid bills.
Gutted :( :( :(
Noooo only station I listen to!!
I’ve only just found this radio station in the past year and was thoroughly enjoying it. The day of David Bowies death, their dedication to play his hits, discussions and messages really made it easier to get through the commute and breaks in work.
I will miss it.
I think the name was crap. Everything else was spot on. Pity there are so many musical illiterates about the place
“Alternative Rock”
What’s that supposed to be? That could be anything at all really. Niche stations are a bit of a waste unless they are national. They don’t get the listenership figures.
Perhaps now’s your chance to listen to TXFM while you have the chance. Still, TXFM like most stations have live streams online.
Very annoying – hard to believe Ireland can’t sustain even 1 indie music station. Terrible choices for discerning music listeners especially during day. Hopefully Simon maher will win the licence after gettin shafted the last time.
Ireland, in particular Dublin, prefers to sustain radio stations that all sound the same with Hotline(God rest his soul) wannabes during the day and phone in shows for taxi drivers at night.
I didn’t enjoy TXFM as much as Phantom, but that’s not to say the music was bad. Maybe it was that at times it felt automated, at least in its initial form. As time went on it did feature more presenters, but I think many had their mind made by then.
It does make you wonder what has most of the Irish public still tuned into the awful RTE radio programming or the interchangeable Spin/98FM/FM104. Nova is still good, but it needs newer blood for music, and Raidio Na Life is great at night. One more great indie station would be appreciated.
Realising now how ‘Dublin’ that comment sounds, none of those listed stations available outside the greater Dublin region.
Nova is one of the most monotonous repetitive play lists playing the same song by the same artists day after day. Barracuda by Heart? FFS…. It’s annoying because it could be good but they only seem to be allowed play one or two songs from an artists repertoire and it’s way too repetitive.
Ah no :(
Ah balls. Hopefully Simon Maher will do the business, he was great on Phantom FM.
Joe Donnelly definitely one of the best alternative DJs around .
Good luck with finding a new gig to all of them !
It must be the best job in the world , being able to play your own music for a few hours
A bit too cool for school. Dublin city FM live drive program play great music
Spotify is yer man
Will miss Parklife on Saturday and Sundays… Great tunes and great sports coverage
Gutted that TXFM has gone. That and NT were the only stations I’d tune-in to.
Hope the staff can find work off the back of this!
Delighted it’s off. Get stuck listening to same shit every day!
Youre delighted people are losing their jobs? Sound.
Pity it’s the only station that promoted up and coming or Irish indie rock bands with pride. I won 3 sets of tickets for Oasis ham sandwich and foals as well as a Xmas hamper cos I’m clevar ◀
Lived in Dublin for 15 years before finally moving back home to the west of Ireland, beyond Phantom’s range, two years ago. Amazing even to myself, I found it was the only thing I missed about Dublin! Sad day for fans of real music!
Go back to Phantom for the next few months. What you got to lose
Bugger.
Thank God i won’t have to land on that station any more flicking from iradio to today fm.
I’ve never heard of it. You pampered radio listeners from inside the pale don’t know how good you have it
oh dam, what will i do now! I suppose i will just have to listen to one of the other 4000 radio stations in ireland.
Mid Whest radio it is so… Whist.. the death notices are coming on…
lol….. whist paddy the Angeles is on…. ha.
The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary….. mumble mumble mumble….
whist paddy whist….lol
Thanks TXFM you exceeded expections :) but now it’s time for Phantom’s and Richie’s return!!!
No one likes rock music.
What a thick comment.
Slim shady got it wrong bout techno…
RT #SAVETXFM #TXFM change.org/p/management-o…
Don’t forget us,Ireland’s newest station broadcasting worldwide
Z1
http://www.Z1now.com
My car stereo has never actually locked onto it and I usually run through the entire band at least twice a day going to and from work – where there signal / transmission issues?
I can’t say it is the radio itself as it can lock on to BBC from around Edgeworthstown…
“the day the music died” sniff sniff.
The Tom Leykis show for me !
Escaping DOB clutches and control may not be a bad thing.
Here’s to a relaunch and back to Phantom style and output.
Positive thinking for a true independent station x
Sad news
I was really hoping this was just an early April Fools joke, what am I going to listen to now
Not surprised, how can you compete with Nova 100.3 , addictive music !
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