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Is it just me, or is this "paths to victory" metaphor for presidential elections commonly used by US media a pretty strange way to "narrate" an election outcome, all things considered?

The outcome is effectively fixed, although unknown, once the last polling stations close, so what's with all the evocations of physical phenomena ("blue wall", "battleground states" etc.) when everything that's still happening is a gradual discovery of a completely determined outcome?

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It's a way to make sense of chaos and generate a narrative to follow, also how millions of individual votes get reduced into large scale trends (gen alpha men want X, Boomer women living in suburbs want Y, etc).

People are invested in the outcome and want to know if things are headed in the direction they desire.

I think the parent is trying to point out that it's not "are headed", it's "were decided, over 5 hours ago".

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