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Legal Commentary

: Althouse

Axios seems to invent the concept of "the mathematical president-elect" as it treats Biden's plan to declare early victory as wise when just yesterday it treated the same plan from Trump as devilish and deceitful.

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"If news organizations declare Joe Biden the mathematical president-elect, he plans to address the nation as its new leader, even if President Trump continues to fight in court," Axios reports in "Scoop: Biden's plan to assert control."

Biden advisers learned the lesson of 2000, when Al Gore hung back while George W. Bush declared victory in that contested election, putting the Democrat on the defensive while Bush acted like the winner. So if Biden is declared the winner, he'll begin forming his government and looking presidential ? and won't yield to doubts Trump might try to sow.

I'm very interested in the tone of this report because yesterday I blogged an Axios report about Trump's supposed plan to do the same thing. Here's my post. Here's the Axios piece: "Scoop: Trump's plan to declare premature victory" (Axios).

Axios treated Trump as though he'd be doing something wrong to declare victory early. This strategic move was portrayed as premised on "false" and "baseless" claims. But when Biden has the same strategic plan, it's presented as wise and a defense against "doubts Trump might try to sow."

Now, I assume Axios would defend itself by saying the 2 plans are different. Trump's purported plan is to say the election night count should predominate and we should be suspicious of whatever gets counted later. It's expected that more Trump supporters will vote in person on Election Day and more Biden supporters mailed in their votes. Biden's plan is based on something that "news organizations declare" ? that Biden is "the mathematical president-elect."

I think we can expect news organizations to declare things that help Biden, and what exactly is this math?! Is it something like the number of uncounted ballots and an assumption about the proportion of these ballots that should go for Biden? Let's say Biden is behind by 1,000 votes in Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania makes the difference in who wins the electoral college and there are 50,000 uncounted mail-in votes from Philadelphia. Joe Biden is the "mathematical president-elect," right? Is that the idea?

I'm just guessing. Axios uses the term "mathematical president-elect," but doesn't define it. I'm googling this term, and everything just gets me back to this Axios usage. I'm so skeptical. Trump will only be making "baseless" claims, but Biden will be relying on the experts and math.

AND: Here's a good source of percentages for your expert, news-organizational mathematics:

NEW: Our first round of exit polling, taking a look at voters who've already cast their ballots.
Who are they? Women, older people and Democrats are among the most likely Americans to have voted early, per our polling. https://t.co/E4nKsTte9E pic.twitter.com/s6bOzlTzzo
? Eli Yokley (@eyokley) November 2, 2020