It's the morning after polls closed in the 2020 election. That means it's time to check in on a special edition of the Crud Meter.
It is still unclear who will be the next President of the Untied States. Any hope that the people of this country were going to deliver an undeniable repudiation of Donald Trump died last night, when Florida, Texas, and Ohio all stayed solidly red. Now all we have to do is wait and see if Joe Biden, who is either making up ground or taking the lead in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan as mail-in ballots are counted, can pull out enough narrow victories in enough uncalled states to win the electoral college. It's entirely possible that once every vote is counted, Biden will end up winning the electoral college and the popular vote by a margin of several million votes.
Many of us will spend today hoping that a a 77-year-old man who has trouble speaking in complete sentences and has only ever vaguely promised to "restore the soul of this nation" can eke out a victory against a nakedly racist and corrupt president who is currently presiding over the worst pandemic response in the world, costing the lives of nearly 240,000 Americans. We'll also be keeping an eye on the senate, where it looks like best-case outcome will be the Democrats earning a 50-50 split. The Crud Meter reflects this.
