Welcome to our election night liveblog! It’ll be a while yet before we have meaningful results, so just a reminder while we wait: Beware the mirage.
If you’ve followed election returns in recent years, you know that oftentimes, results can start off leaning toward Republicans only to shift toward Democrats later in the night, or vice-versa. This is often called a “red mirage” or a “blue mirage.” And there are two major reasons for the phenomenon.
One is geographic: If rural counties are the first to report, then the initial results will look redder than the final results, in all likelihood. The reverse is true if urban counties are the first to report.
More recently, we’ve seen a stark divide in which method of voting each side prefers. Democrats have embraced mail voting and tend to like early voting; Republicans greatly favor in-person voting on Election Day. So if advance votes (that is, mail/early votes) get reported first, you’ll likely have a blue mirage; if in-person Election Day votes are reported first, a red mirage.
One added difficulty is that we can’t always tell which type of votes have been tallied first. In some places, the advance votes are counted first; in others, they are counted later (especially when it comes to mail ballots, which in some states can arrive after Election Day if they are postmarked in time). So avoid any prognostication based on early results, because things can and very likely will change later—very possibly a lot!
