By midday Wednesday it already seemed difficult for Trump to retain the presidency.
It had taken us 18 hours to count enough votes to confirm that Biden was going to get at least 253 of the 270 required delegates to the Electoral College.
But then time froze.
A good friend would ask me that same night what was going on.
"They are counting votes," was my reply.
And so it was.
The votes that remained to be counted were not many: between 10% and 20% of the total in five key states.
Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania.
The trend in four out of five (all but North Carolina) was solidly in favor of Biden.
But they were all decisive.
Pennsylvania in particular could hand over the presidency to the Democrat itself.
With Trump and his lawyers trying to pursue fraud lawsuits (for now, all unfounded), taking his supporters (sometimes armed) out to the streets and to polling places, an early declaration of winner could be counterproductive, even catastrophic. for the credibility of the electoral process.
The proper criteria was not to designate a winner until his victory was not simply probable, not even highly probable, but incontestable.
It would take us three more days to turn Pennsylvania for the blue.
The apparent criterion was that the difference of the winner exceeded what the laws of the State mark as the minimum threshold to avoid an automatic count: 0.5 points.
And even now, when all the media and analysts assume the triumph of Biden, these are the margins by which the ten key states have been decided: just a handful of votes.
The problem was not the slowness as much as the tightness of this election.
What's missing
At this point, and California have counted less than 80% of the vote.
In New York, not a single postal ballot has yet arrived.
Alaska is breaking records for delay due to the pandemic.
We do not look at those States because there the victory of one or another party was always certain.
But the situation is not very different in the three that are still considered in play, and that could extend Biden's lead to 306 delegates.
This is the most likely scenario right now, but not certain until every vote is counted - and, in the case of Georgia, a recount has taken place that has already been announced by the authorities.
This matters to define the size of Biden's victory, sealing the credibility of an election that his rival insists on contesting through the media and legal channels.
We already know that his advantage in the aggregate popular vote of the entire country will be around 3%, somewhat above Clinton's unsuccessful victory in 2016. But if he also adds to his payroll the States that for now opt for his side, his Electoral College margin will be nearly identical to Donald Trump's in 2016. If Biden's distance does not depend on one or two states with tight results, the outgoing president's strategy is much weaker.
On the one hand, a multiple fraud is much more incredible (fraud of which, in any case, you have not been able to present any evidence accepted by state and federal courts).
On the other, the pressure that Trump can exert on the Republican authorities becomes weaker with every millimeter he loses to his rival.
It is true that his vote is above what the polls expected, and this gives him the ability to influence the future of the conservative movement.
But that is qualitatively different from dragging a party into a political, media and legal contest.
A party that aims to remain recognized and competitive, both at the polls and in the institutions.
Every additional vote Biden wins, every extra delegate he wins in the Electoral College, digs a little deeper the hole that Donald Trump may end up digging himself into in the next few hours, days, weeks.
The election is over, but his hangover remains.
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