Looks like the probability of a 'nightmare scenario' for the election is increasing: Democrats are using the mail-in ballot option far more often than Republicans in the key battleground states (including here in NC). Thus, it's possible that on Election night, Trump could have a narrow lead here, for instance, only to lose that lead over the following 2-3 days as the mail-in ballots are counted. These ballots must be postmarked on Election Day here fwiw.
Thus, unless it's a landslide in these states (unlikely), it's pretty much a given that Trump will claim "fraud" in NC and elsewhere if he ends up losing by a narrow margin under these circumstances. He will then likely challenge the results all the way up to SCOTUS. In sum, Trump will NEVER concede the election, and we will likely be in a state of flux through December. Of note, Gore conceded the 2000 'hanging chad' election on December 12th.
WaPO:
"Democratic voters who have requested mail ballots — and returned them — greatly outnumber Republicans so far in key battleground states, causing alarm among GOP party leaders and strategists that President Trump’s attacks on mail voting could be hurting the party’s prospects to retain the White House and the Senate this year.
Of the more than 9 million voters who requested mail ballots through Monday in Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Maine and Iowa, the five battleground states where such data is publicly available, 52 percent were Democrats. Twenty-eight percent were Republicans, and 20 percent were unaffiliated.
Additional internal Democratic and Republican Party data obtained by The Washington Post shows a similar trend in Ohio, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Wisconsin.
Even more alarming to some Republicans, Democrats are also returning their ballots at higher rates than GOP voters in two of those states where that information is available: Florida and North Carolina."