As of about 1:00 am ET, the outcome of the election was clearly going to come down to the following states:

Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada.

With those states left to be decided, the electoral map showed Trump leading Biden 232 to 227.

That was after Trump had won Florida and North Carolina, and Biden had won Virginia and Minnesota.

No real earth-shattering results with any of the four, but Florida and North Carolina were “must haves” for Pres. Trump to have a path to 270.

Georgia — Pres. Trump had built a sizeable lead late into the evening on Tuesday, at one point growing to more than 500,000 votes.  But as the numbers came in, the not all that shocking realization began to take hold that the heavily democrat counties around Atlanta were seemingly incompetent — again — in being able to get their votes counted and reported to the Secretary of State. Well into early Wednesday morning Fulton and DeKalb counties languished around the 80% mark for reported votes, while the balance of the counties went above 95%.  Pres. Trump’s votes were booked, and then the counties around Atlanta decided it was time to get back to work cutting into his lead.

By 4:00 am, all counties were finished reporting — except Democrat Machine counties Fulton and DeKalb. But earlier the NYT website had the final numbers up for those two counties while still showing only 80% of the vote in each was reported.  But the Secretary of State’s website showed the NYT vote totals was 100% for DeKalb County, and 96% for Fulton County — with Trump maintaining a 110,000 vote lead.  So, as of the time I hit “publish” on this story, Georgia was going to Trump.

Trump 248, Biden 227.

Arizona was a puzzle deep into the night. Media covering the numbers didn’t seem to understand that Arizona published mail-in and early voting numbers first, and then began to add to that the in-person voting numbers today as they were reported by the Counties.  Late into Tuesday evening Biden enjoyed a substantial lead — nearly 300,000 votes — while a good portion of the in-person vote was already being reported.  But Arizona’s most populous county, Maricopa — which Trump had carried 46.5 to 43.5 in 2016 — was showing Biden with a 6-8 point advantage.  But as the vote came in — and there were more than 1 million in-person votes in Maricopa County on Tuesday — Trump was winning by a margin of 2-1.  Even in Pima County — Tuscon — although Biden would carry the county overall, the in-person vote being counted on Tuesday was favoring Trump. But, as the early morning hours arrived and the remaining Maricopa vote got smaller, Trump was not able to close the gap. With 97% of the vote in, and Biden holding a 130,000 vote advantage, the AP called Arizona for Biden.  The passing of John McCain has now been followed by Democrat victories for both Arizona Senate seats and now the state being carried by Joe Biden.  That changes things for the GOP going forward with Arizona.

Trump 248, Biden 238

Nevada — seemed to play out according to form.  The Clark County/Las Vegas vote came in giving Biden about a 10% advantage, totaling approximately 75,000 votes.  Biden did a bit better than anticipated in Washoe/Reno, adding about 10,000 votes to his lead.  As expected, Pres. Trump dominated the “Rural Counties” but there just seemed to not be enough votes left from him to overcome the deficit from the two urban centers which was estimated to likely end up around 35,000 when all the votes were in.  But then came a couple of meaningful in-person voting reports from Clark County that held a surprise — a decent advantage for Trump.  Jon Ralston who I’ve touted here regarding Nevada elections tracked Biden’s lead as it fell throughout the night  —  from 61,000 to 44,000 to 32,000 to 25,000 to 9000.  Ralston also noted another 80,000 votes were due in from Clark County, and then threw in a wild card — tens of thousands of provision ballots remained from same-day registration.  New voters who came to the polls.  That dynamic in other parts of the country played out heavily in favor of Pres. Trump.  Until the precise number of provisional ballots is known — and whether they are predominantly from rural counties or elsewhere — Nevada probably can’t be called.

Trump 248, Biden 238

Wisconsin — Trump enjoyed a significant lead, but as was true in Georgia, the major urban center, Milwaukee, would not competently perform the same tasks as the rest of the state.  At approximately 4:30 AM, Milwaukee County dump in 169,000 absentee and early votes, and Biden miraculously had a lead of about 7000 votes.  After a few smaller drops, the lead grew to 11,000 votes.  It looks like some votes remained uncounted in a few strong Trump counties, but whether they would be in sufficient numbers to overcome the late Milwaukee “surge” probably won’t be known until later in the week.  If Wisconsin is lost it will be because of Madison.  Clinton received 217,000 votes from Dane County.  Biden received 260,000.  At 5:00 am., Brown County is only showing 94,000 votes as cast, when in 2016 there were 120,000 votes cast.  So there remain a decent number of votes still to come in from Brown — where Trump’s advantage is 57-42. Kenosha likely has around 15,000 votes remaining, and Trump’s advantage there is 60-38.  This is likely to be Florida Close when all is done.

Trump 248, Biden 238.

Michigan — Similar to Wisconsin, Trump had a sizeable lead throughout Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning.  Individual counties Trump won in 2016 remained in his columns and in general his numbers were even better.  But — just like with Milwaukee and Atlanta — the officials in Detroit could not get their act together and report their vote totals.  Another one-party Democrat run county waiting around to see what numbers might be needed to get the job done?  But this might be too heavy a lift.  The Trump lead is bigger in Michigan than it was in Wisconsin, and Trump’s numbers were certainly helped by the win of John James in the Senate race — which might explain why Trump was running behind only 58-40 in Wayne County — 18% — when Wayne County has a +37% Democrat registration advantage.  Clinton won Wayne County 67-30.  Biden running 9% behind Clinton likely dooms him in Michigan.  No other strong Biden counties left, as Ann Arbor is 100% reported.  Michigan goes for Trump — again.

Trump 264, Biden 238

Pennsylvania — What can you say?  Trump’s returns from Central and Western PA were so strong that Philadephia County stopped counting votes at midnight.  It is pretty transparent the goal was to leave enough votes uncounted to prevent any media outlet from calling the state.  Right now, with my analysis — either Wisconsin or Pennsylvania put Trump over 270.  There were 6 million votes cast in Pennsylvania in 2016. At 6:00 the NYT shows total votes in Pennsylvania at 5.3 million — with Pres. Trump leading by nearly 700,000 votes.  It doesn’t really matter whether the remaining votes are mail-in or in-person votes — even if you project a vote total of 7 million, that means there are only 1.7 million left to count.  To overcome a 700,000 vote deficit in 1.7 million votes, Biden would need to split those vote 1.2 million to 500,000.  That’s 71% to 29% — which seems like a pretty big task for someone who trails through 5.3 million votes by 56-43%.  There are only 9 million registered voters in the state — the idea that the electorate this year is going to approach 7 million is sort of crazy in itself.  But if it’s less than 7 million, Biden task is just more impossible.  Trump wins Pennsylvania handily — AS I PREDICTED HERE!!!!

Trump 284, Biden 238.

Game over.