[dragonwriter]

> If people agree it was tumultuous why was the race still so close?

It wasn't all that close. Of six elections (including this one) since 2000, at least 3 and possibly 4 (votes are still being counted) were closer in popular vote, and 3 were closer in electoral vote (based on what has been called so far, regardless of how the uncalled states go.

But it was particularly actively contested, with both high turnout and high passions on both sides, which is exactly what “tumultuous” means.

[MrRiddle]

It was incredibly close, so close that we waited for days to figure out who's going to win. Biden has ~50.6%, if that's not close I don't know what is.

The fact some previous was closer, doesn't mean this one wasn't close, not sure how we even need to point this out on a site like hackernews.

[dragonwriter]

> It was incredibly close, so close that we waited for days to figure out who's going to win

We didn't wait for days because it was close; races which were much closer were called much sooner.

We waited because calls are made by projections, which are based on statistical extrapolation, which are sensitive to patterns of comparable comparable ballots, and the high mail in count and partisan divide in mail-in ballot usage made projection much more difficult than it normally is.

> Biden has ~50.6%, if that's not close I don't know what is.

A >3 percentage point margin isn't close by standards that make any sense applied to US Presidential elections.

That said, even if it was particularly close, the bigger point is that that wouldn't be evidence that it wasn't tumultuous, since “tumultuous” isn't in any way opposed to “close”. That it also wasn't particularly close is a secondary issue.

[stjohnswarts]

We waited because of mail in voting. Biden got 50.5% but Trump got 47.7% of the popular vote. That's a pretty big spread. 74.5 million to 70.4 million. So by popular vote it was pretty significant. By electoral votes it's a much wider percentage.