As the election results come in, many people may experience a wide range of emotions — from pride and optimism to frustration and fear. To help them navigate the outcome, experts recommend taking steps to stay grounded and avoiding over-analyzing every piece of news that comes their way. In addition, a therapist or other mental health professional can be helpful in helping individuals process the results and find healthy ways to cope with them.
The canvass is the process of reviewing the informal results reported on Election Night and in the days that follow to verify they are accurate. This includes adding any outstanding ballots that have been deemed eligible for counting during the canvass (e.g. provisional ballots or mail ballots that arrived by the state deadline). The time it takes for the canvass to occur and results to be certified varies by state.
The final result is the dichotomous variable e1, with values of 1 if a state supports the losing candidate, and 0 otherwise. To control for confounding factors, the model also controls for state-level unemployment rates based on BLS data and local suicide rates derived from annual county-level data. While it is possible that other socioeconomic variables like divorce rates or alcohol consumption could affect election outcomes and suicidal behavior, these are difficult to control for since the effects take longer to accumulate than short-term changes in electoral results. Nevertheless, the models suggest that there is a strong national effect on suicide rate after losing an election, and that this should be taken into account by policymakers.
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