what are these 'margins' ya'll keep talking about watching and why do you look at them over raw numbers or whatever?
Margins are the % difference between the two candidates.
Person a: 54%
Person b: 46%
margin = 8%
These are more important because they identify trends, for example the margin of victory of dems, in GOP counties, is currently higher than biden. This can be used to back up the idea trump not being on the ticket hurts the gop.
Focusing on the margins also eliminates the illusion created by how the vote is counted versus looking at the raw numbers. For example, if all the GOP counties counted first and you just looked at the raw numbers you will be like "fukk".