for almost a decade, brandon finnigan, a conservative blogger and elections data enthusiast, had obsessed about republican failures in pennsylvania in presidential races. the state had been a white whale of sorts for the g.o.p., and capturing it would mean a way back to the white house. he wrote about a winning path in a national review article last year . but just when it seemed that pennsylvania was within reach this past spring, he began to wonder about the cost of victory . the reason? donald j. trump was set to become the republican nominee. mr. finnigan, a 31-year-old baltimore native, reached another crossroads this year. he had been working for 10 years as a truck dispatcher in rancho cucamonga, calif., writing in his spare time for the conservative blog ace of spades. four years ago, he created decision desk hq , rounding up a volunteer army of the blog<u+2019>s readers to give an alternative to the associated press in reporting election results. (the project is nonpartisan in its aims to deliver accurate results.) one of the volunteers, varad mehta , a historian who lives in suburban philadelphia and who also writes about the great pennsylvania quest , described via twitter one of the attractions of joining besides the camaraderie and <u+201c>fun<u+201d>: <u+201c>a lot of us are dissatisfied with how the g.o.p. and conservative establishment handle data operations. there<u+2019>s a sense that the establishment and donor class don<u+2019>t take analytics seriously.<u+201d> mr. finnigan also saw the project as a way to increase election transparency, perhaps even to debunk claims of <u+201c>rigged elections,<u+201d> a warning that mr. trump has sounded repeatedly in recent days. mr. finnigan took what he called a leap of faith last week and quit his truck dispatcher job to <u+201c>immerse<u+201d> himself in decision desk hq, hoping he could find major funding to expand operations. [ update: buzzfeed announced thursday that it would work with decision desk hq on election night and stream results on twitter.] i recently chatted with him about the significance of pennsylvania and some of his other passions, including his family and astronomy. this is a condensed and lightly edited transcript of our email conversation. toni pennsylvania has been a fixation for a subset of politics fans (me among them). the state has been trending slowly red , and mitt romney came within five percentage points of victory there in 2012 despite not investing much in campaign resources. it was setting up as a decisive state this year, which meant that pennsylvania could decide things like who controlled the supreme court, which americans would receive health insurance, questions of war and peace. now the latest polling shows pennsylvania <u+2014> and the election <u+2014> slipping out of the republicans<u+2019> reach. brandon pennsylvania was the canary in the coal mine for mr. trump<u+2019>s candidacy, reflecting both his opportunities (with noncollege whites who were skeptical of romney) and his serious disadvantages (his demeanor and statements driving away suburban moderates, particularly women). if he couldn<u+2019>t carry pennsylvania because either a) he couldn<u+2019>t turn out enough noncollege whites to outweigh losses in the suburbs or b) he couldn<u+2019>t persuade enough college-educated whites he<u+2019>s not nuts, then he wasn<u+2019>t going to win the presidency. it was a matter of math and voting blocs. you could have gotten trump to 266 electoral votes with iowa, nevada, ohio, florida, all of the romney states, and maine<u+2019>s second district, but without pennsylvania, where could he hit 270? he<u+2019>s not winning colorado, which has a democratic plurality in voter registration for the first time in decades <u+2014> and its denver suburbs rejected cory gardner in a wave year. he<u+2019>s not winning wisconsin, where republicans rejected him strongly back in april and barely favor him over clinton in the milwaukee suburbs . new hampshire has plenty of independents but many of them are moderates, and his polling there was worse than it was in pennsylvania. there was no alternative. more college-educated voters, wealthy voters and suburban voters are drifting away from the republican party, while noncollege whites and residents of rural and exurban areas are moving toward it. diversity has hit the suburbs themselves: once overwhelmingly white, the inner suburbs of philadelphia, in delaware and montgomery and bucks, have seen an explosion in nonwhite residents, just like they have in virginia, california, colorado, illinois, michigan, heck, nearly everywhere. toni do you think someone like john kasich, who could have been more acceptable to suburban women in the state, could have reached the republican holy grail in pennsylvania? brandon republicans needed to turn out disgruntled white voters and needed to improve their numbers with suburban ones. there are trade-offs: different candidates turn on or off different groups, but i cannot imagine a single alternative republican candidate who could have blown things this badly in a state already moving in their direction. john kasich, marco rubio, jeb bush, rand paul, and i<u+2019>d even say ted cruz here <u+2014> any of them would be outperforming trump right now. toni you<u+2019>d like to be known as a <u+201c> nonreactionary conservative .<u+201d> can you explain the mixed feelings you had about the possibility that trump could win pennsylvania? brandon i<u+2019>ve had a longtime back-and-forth with my decision desk partner andrew mccoy about the <u+201c>untapped<u+201d> voters in pennsylvania. (he and john ekdahl helped develop the decision desk website and business). i argued that those voters could be persuaded to vote republican, and because of their numbers, it could be enough to tip the balance. he asked me if they aren<u+2019>t motivated to vote already, would i really want to see what does push them into the ballot box? well, when i watched the changes in registration, and i saw trump<u+2019>s surprising strength in the state, it was encouraging because i felt vindicated: it<u+2019>s happening. but the <u+201c>why<u+201d> for a lot of these voters concerned me. a lot of these people are desperate, their communities riddled with prescription drug addiction and stunted incomes, and their family structure has broken down. nobody, regardless of what catchy sound bite or big smile, is going to fix their problems for them. if trump gets elected, their lives aren<u+2019>t going to improve. once he<u+2019>s out of office, they<u+2019>ll end up even more jaded and disconnected than they already are. toni i suspect one of the reasons that trump is being rejected in pennsylvania is that many moderate voters don<u+2019>t want to be associated with appeals to racism. trump can hem and haw before disavowing david duke, but the issue of white supremacy has run aground before in pennsylvania (on a much, much larger scale, at gettysburg ). your wife is african-american, and you have a cute baby boy. i know this because of the pictures you proudly display on your entertaining twitter feed . how has the personal affected the political for you <u+2014> if at all? brandon my wife and i don<u+2019>t think of race when we see each other, but we aren<u+2019>t blind to the reality that we, and our son, get looks. ninety percent of americans are fine with interracial marriage, which is quadruple the number it was when we were born in the mid-1980s. as long as people want something, anything, to blame on others, or to make themselves feel superior to others, you are going to encounter racism and racial resentment. trump<u+2019>s campaign strategy mirrors a parody of conservatism: angry, afraid, racially motivated, terrified of inevitable change. this is clearly turning off moderates and even conservative suburbanites, and not just in pennsylvania. unchecked, it will reverse the impressive gains republicans had enjoyed recently in many purple and blue states like wisconsin and maryland. as the overseer of the decision desk, i have to separate the personal from the political with regards to operations, but from my own twitter account, i<u+2019>ve made it clear how i feel about the blatant racism expressed by the alt-right. but my greatest animosity isn<u+2019>t targeted at them, because you will always have a small contingent of people with radical beliefs that won<u+2019>t gain lasting traction outside of forums and anonymous trolling. my disappointment is saved for the websites and institutions that employed a lot of these writers, linked a lot of their material, even promoted some of it, and only became outraged when they themselves became the target. toni some conservative right-wing radio talkers and trump himself have stoked the fear of a brown nation <u+2014> saying this is the last race the republican party can win because of the future population changes from immigration. within that thought, of course, is the deeply pessimistic notion that blacks and hispanics could never be persuaded to vote for republicans. you live in california, which already has the diverse demographic that many on the alt-right view as a nightmare. what<u+2019>s your view on the republicans<u+2019> prospects for broadening their base? brandon republicans effectively have no choice but to adapt: my son was born the year when annual white births were a plurality, no longer the majority. even if you halted immigration completely, my generation is having kids, and it is the most diverse of any the nation has seen. barring a massive population growth initiative within the alt-right yielding turn-of-the-last-century-size families, the era of a majority-white population is ending. the changing makeup of the country isn<u+2019>t the real problem the republicans face. they must have a very clear set of unifying goals. what<u+2019>s the goal for the party these days? one wing wants no amnesty, the other wants an open border. social conservatism is seeing uneven success and was outright rejected in many ways in favor of a new yorker<u+2019>s populism. what does the party, as a whole, even believe in anymore? perhaps instead of either writing off minorities or blatantly pandering to them, the party needs to examine itself carefully and ask what it really wants to achieve. look at state-level successes: arguably the most popular governor in the nation is larry hogan. he ran against runaway taxation and government excesses coming at the expense of suburban marylanders, won, and is the favorite next year in no small part because of the way he has governed since. people of all stripes will be more attracted to a party with a clear goal, making the party less vulnerable to the inevitable changes occurring in this country. toni tell me a bit about decision desk hq. it reads a bit like a disney movie: a ragtag volunteer team takes on the mighty associated press. what is the goal? brandon decision desk hq provides a stream of election results collected via fax, email, phone and in-person contacts, across all 50 states and d.c. i<u+2019>ve long felt that there are ways to improve the process and coverage with regard to election returns, and we utilized the rise of social media to amass a network of volunteers and election enthusiasts from both sides of the aisle to do just this. initially, we focused on competitive races, and worked to obtain the data rapidly, report it accurately, and call the winners ahead of traditional outlets. with our new team, database and api , we can now provide these numbers for all of the races making up the meat of election night: presidential, senate, governor and the house. all of this was done through incredible dedication and financial sacrifice on the part of its core members and followers, as we still lack any major benefactor. the associated press already provides numbers for 99 percent of the media, but our work matters for several reasons. first, there is an over-reliance on a single source for reporting that, despite its solid track record, can still fail: the voter news service debacle in florida was only four elections ago. second, the public<u+2019>s growing obsession about <u+201c>stolen this<u+201d> and <u+201c>fraud that<u+201d> gets squashed with an independent real-time count. during the democratic presidential primary in kentucky, we had numbers out of jefferson and fayette before the a.p. did, so our tally had mrs. clinton ahead of bernie sanders nearly the entire night, while the a.p. had the reverse. in the end, the final numbers were identical. third, we are very open about our gathering and reporting process, frequently utilizing periscope to give a peek behind the curtain and openly discussing the oddities we encounter when results are reported. fourth, when you are basically powered by election junkies, your group notices things along the way: inconsistencies in the process, flat-out wrong historical results (that we<u+2019>ve forwarded to derek willis<u+2019>s open elections project ). we<u+2019>re america<u+2019>s second pair of eyes on election night, and feel that with enough support, we can give the public a more comprehensive understanding of how their vote is counted. toni how are you able to organize people to do this for free? and you have to admit there have been some growing pains: you<u+2019>ve been criticized for some premature calls. in one case, you wrote a post explaining why <u+201c>we should wait just a tick on future races.<u+201d> brandon the lure for many is this: they are part of a new project that they believe in. for others, it connects them to an aspect of the election process long locked away. and for still others it<u+2019>s an opportunity to hitch their wagon and get their own analysis, visualizations and thoughts on the races out there. even those who started with a rather indifferent <u+201c>well, he writes for a blog i like, so i<u+2019>ll help him out this weekend<u+201d> catch the bug: we have a volunteer in central illinois who drove for hours up into wisconsin to conduct a survey. we<u+2019>ve been at this for just a few years, and we<u+2019>re extremely proud of what has been produced. our focus these days is on the stream of data, rather than the calls. but all throughout, when there is a close or wrong call, we don<u+2019>t pretend it away , but publicize it and work to improve our methods to avoid repeating the errors. our inbox then fills up with another dozen people saying, <u+201c>hey, i<u+2019>m a retired x or i<u+2019>m a grad student with a background in x.<u+201d> more volunteers flood in to make things even better. toni you said earlier that you lack a major benefactor. how can you continue to do this after the election without money coming in? brandon we have pushed hard to get our database and api up and running for the general election, so that we can provide an election feed to interested media and private groups. we have to cover development costs and servers, and ultimately we want to share a little something with the folks who have been participating in decision desk hq over the long haul. so to answer your question bluntly: we can<u+2019>t continue this project without the money to support it. we have a few prospective clients for the feed. but i can<u+2019>t let the post-11/8 world affect me too much: there<u+2019>s work to do! our general election coverage will be great, and that night memorable regardless of the outcome. toni the other passion that you share on your twitter feed is astronomy, and it helps put things in perspective. i mean, pennsylvania is meaningful, but nothing in the grand scheme of the cosmos and <u+2026> wait, who am i kidding <u+2014> pennsylvania is the sun and the moon and stars. it<u+2019>s everything, right? let me close with these two questions: 1) in what year will republicans win pennsylvania? 2) what<u+2019>s the best astronomical metaphor for donald trump and this 2016 election campaign? brandon 1) 2020 or 2024. democrats win this time, but eventually the desire for change will outlast even their favorable demographics. when the republicans win the white house back, they carry pennsylvania with them. ahab will get his whale. 2) trump is eta carinae a entering the silicon- burning process , and the republican party is its binary companion. toni that silicon-burning process doesn<u+2019>t sound so good. brandon with a star the size of trump? buy a welder<u+2019>s mask and sunscreen. the upshot provides news, analysis and graphics about politics, policy and everyday life. follow us on facebook and twitter . sign up for our newsletter.
a politics nerd and amateur astronomer on why pennsylvania is center of universe
toni monkovic