Democrats out-voted Republicans by mail by nearly 3 to 1 in Pennsylvania

With 20 Electoral College votes, Pennsylvania is one of the most coveted prizes of election night — particularly for Democrat Joe Biden, whose hope appears to be flagging in swing states like Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina if The New York Times' Election Needles are to be believed. Polls closed in Pennsylvania at 8 p.m. ET, and while results aren't expected Tuesday night, a few early signs might get Democrats encouraged.

Democrats, for example, mailed in nearly three times as many ballots as Republicans, Politico notes, with 1,658,804 cast by registered Democrats compared to 599,494 cast by registered Republicans. Meanwhile, in Montgomery County, the state's third most-populous county, which Clinton won by 58 percent, early numbers had Biden up an eye-popping 89.4 percent with 16 percent of estimated votes reported. "Those are Philadelphia-level numbers," tweeted Ben Forstate, an expert on the state's political landscape, but he added that "I don't expect that margin to hold." Republicans are expected to tighten things dramatically when ballots cast on Election Day are counted.

A similarly enormous margin also appeared in the state's Delaware County (another such large margin in the state's Lehigh County, however, appeared to be a reporting error):

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Pennsylvania has backed a Democrat in seven of the last 12 elections, going to Trump in 2016. "Pennsylvania results are only trickling in, but Democrats are encouraged by the early voting tilt," The New York Times reported at of 9 p.m. ET, with Biden up 66 percent with only 15 percent reporting. "Registered Democrats cast over one million more early votes than Republicans."

But be prepared for "jarring" movement and "slow and inconsistent" reporting, MSNBC's Steve Kornacki warned, with counting methods varying from county to county in the state.