California Democrat Zoe Lofgren asked one of Monday’s hearing witnesses, former Fox News political editor Chris Stirewalt, about the so-called “red mirage,” which gave a more cheerful picture. of Trump on election night that slowly faded as Democratic-leaning ballot papers were counted.
This dynamic, also known as the “blue change”, was especially pronounced in 2020, due to the significant increase in postal voting during the Covid-19 pandemic. But this increase did not occur uniformly: Democrats went to the polls in 2020, while many Republicans preferred to vote in person on election day, thanks in large part to Trump’s claims that the vote for mail was a farce.
This division created an interesting phenomenon in counting votes.
That’s what CNN said about it in September 2020: it takes longer to count ballots by mail, and in many states, ballots are still eligible if they have the postmark on election day but arrive later. late. In simple terms, this means that the partial results that will be reported on election night are likely to look worse for then-candidate Joe Biden than the full final count.
“In every election, Republicans win election day and Democrats win early voting. Then wait and count the statistics,” said Stirewalt, who ran Fox News. “… In general, it is the election day votes that count first. You see, the Republican is moving forward.
See our full explanation of the “red mirage” here.