Category: 2020 election

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Philly Mayor: Trump Needs To ‘Put His Big Boy Pants On And Acknowledge He Lost’

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney (screen capture)
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney told reporters Friday that Trump needs to “put his big boy pants on” and acknowledge that “he lost and he needs to congratulate the winner.” “Just as Jimmy Carter did, just as George H.W. Bush did and frankly just as Al Gore did,” added Kenney. “Stop this and let us move forward as a country.” As of 1:24 p.m., Biden leads with about 13,492 votes in Pennsylvania with just under 112,000 mail ballots left to count, according to the secretary of state’s website.

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Election Update: November 6, 2020

L-R Donald Trump, Joe Biden (screen capture, campaign photo)
As of 10 am today, this is the state of play in the race for the presidency via the New York Times:

Mr. Biden, who was winning the popular vote by more than four million votes and has already won 253 electoral votes, pulled ahead of Mr. Trump in Pennsylvania by about 12,000 votes on Friday afternoon. If his lead holds — and it is expected to — the state’s 20 electoral votes would vault him past the threshold to win the election.

In Georgia, his lead was so narrow that state officials said a recount was inevitable.

In Arizona, Mr. Biden maintained his lead as election officials continued to plow through tens of thousands of ballots from Phoenix and its sprawling suburbs. His advantage shrank slightly, but not by as much as Republicans had hoped.

In Nevada, Mr. Biden nearly doubled his lead Friday to around 20,000 votes.

Mr. Biden had already begun to project the image of a man preparing to assume the mantle of office on Thursday, meeting with his economic and health advisers to be briefed on the coronavirus pandemic. He also urged the public on Thursday to show a “little patience” as the vote-counting in battleground states continued.

Note – one media outlet, Business Insider (working with Decision Desk HQ) has called the race for Joe Biden.

(graphic via NY Times)
(graphic via NY Times)

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Greetings From Nevada: Biden Expands His Lead Over Trump

New numbers were finally reported today from the presidential race in battleground state Nevada showing former Vice President Joe Biden expanding his lead over Donald Trump. From the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

In the latest results released by the Secretary of State’s office at 9 a.m. Thursday, Biden built on the 7,600-vote lead he held when counting stopped on Election Night, a 0.6 percentage point advantage over Trump in a race with more than 1.2 million votes cast. Biden now leads Trump by 597,353 votes, 49.50 percent, to Trump’s 585,311 votes, 48.50 percent.

Nevada will continue to count ballots and update at least once daily.

Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, in a statement released late Wednesday, said that the remaining ballots were mail-in ballots received on or after Election Day and ballots from voters who registered at the polls on Election Day, as permitted by state law.

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A Tale Of Two Candidates (In Two Tweets)

L-R President Donald Trump, former Vice President Joe Biden
A tale of two candidates… As Joe Biden called for unity and declaring the office of the presidency “demands a duty of care for all Americans,” Donald Trump was retweeting his demands that states “STOP THE COUNT!”

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Election 2020: Where We Are So Far (With Updates)

(graphic via NY Times)
With six states left undecided in the presidential race, most folks are saying they’d rather be in Joe Biden’s shoes than Donald Trump’s at this point. I’ll be updating this page as states are called. Update 1: Wisconsin was just called for Biden giving him 237 electoral votes to Trump’s 213. Update 2: CNN just called Michigan for Biden taking him to 252 electoral votes to Trump’s 213. The Trump campaign is already calling for a recount in Wisconsin but state law says a recount can’t happen until 10 days after an election. Former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says Biden’s 20,000+ advantage could be tough to overcome in a recount tweeting, “After recount in 2011 race for WI Supreme Court, there was a swing of 300 votes. After recount in 2016 Presidential race in WI, Trump’s numbers went up by 131.”

Here’s an abbreviated version of how things stand according to Nate Cohn at the New York Times: Nevada: Mr. Biden has a narrow lead (7,600+), with only 86 percent of Democratic stronghold Clark County (Las Vegas) has been counted. The remaining ballots look to be Democratic-leaning late mail and provisional ballots. Arizona: Biden leads by 3.5 points and there’s more than 10 percent of the vote yet to be counted in Democratic strongholds Maricopa and Pima Counties. There are late mail ballots, received by the state over the last few days and those ballots usually tilt Democratic. Michigan: Biden leads with over 48,000 and almost 20 percent of heavily Democratic Wayne County (Detroit) remains to be counted. It’s reasonable to assume that much of the outstanding vote is Democratic mail-in ballots. Pennsylvania: Trump currently leads here by 463,000+ votes – but only 80 percent of the votes have been counted. There are many outstanding votes in Democratic-leaning areas like Philadelphia and the Pittsburgh area. The majority of those are mail-in ballots, which Biden has won those by a margin of 78 percent to 21 percent. There are more than 1.4 million absentee votes left to count, according to the secretary of state, plus more that could arrive over the next few days. If Biden wins those by the same margin he’s been winning them so far it would net him 800,000 votes. Georgia: Trump leads with 93 percent of the vote in (83,000+ votes). An estimated 200,000 uncounted votes remain in the state, and most come from left-leaning areas of metropolitan Atlanta, which could mean they’re likely to skew Democratic. According to the secretary of state, the winners of most races in the state should be announced by Wednesday afternoon. North Carolina: Trump leads by 1.4 points (76,000+ votes), so it’s not really that close. But, the state accepts mail ballots received after the election until November 12, and there were around half a million absentee ballots still outstanding heading into Election Day. I personally don’t expect Biden to win here.

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LGBTQ Candidates Win Across The Country Making History In Their Races

L-R Ritchie Torres, Sarah McBride, Torrey Harris, Michele Rayner (images via campaigns)
There were over 574 LGBTQ candidates on ballots across the nation on Tuesday night. Here are just some of the results that will send these community leaders to represent us. Colorado: Brianna Titone overcame an onslaught of vile transphobic ads to win her election for Colorado State House, District 27. Also, David Ortiz won his race for District 38 in the State House, becoming the first bisexual candidate elected to the Colorado state legislature. An advocate for his fellow disabled veterans, he’ll also be the first wheelchair user elected to the legislature. Delaware: Sarah McBride won her state senate race, making her the first and only openly transgender state senator in the U.S. and the country’s highest-ranking transgender official. Florida: Shevrin Jones became the first openly LGBTQ person ever elected to the Florida State Senate. Michele Rayner won her race for the Florida House making history as the first openly Black queer women ever elected at any level. Georgia: Kim Jackson won her race for the Georgia state Senate, becoming the first openly LGBTQ person elected to that chamber. Kansas: Stephanie Byers was elected to her state house seat in Kansas making history as the first trans person of Native American heritage to be elected to any state legislature. New York: Ritchie Torres and Mondaire Jones were elected in New York, making them the first openly gay, black members of Congress. Jabari Brisport won election to the state senate from Brooklyn’s 25th District. He will be the first openly queer person of color to join the New York Legislature.” Ohio: Charmaine McGuffey, who is openly gay, won the Hamilton County Sheriff’s race and will be the county’s first female sheriff. Oklahoma: Mauree Turner became the first openly non-binary person ever elected to a state legislature in the United States, winning their race for the Oklahoma House. Tennessee: Torrey Harris, who is bisexual, became the state’s first openly LGBTQ legislator. Texas: Ann Johnson won her race for House District 134 in the Lone Star state. Ann will join a growing number of LGBTQ women in the state House and help them pass pro-equality legislation. Vermont: Taylor Small became the first out transgender person ever elected to the Vermont state legislature. (source: Victory Fund)

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Texas Republicans Lose Again Trying To Block Drive-Thru Voting

Drive-through voting in Harris County, TX (screen capture)
And stay out! First, the Texas state Supreme Court said ‘no.’ Then, a federal District Court judge said ‘no.’ Now, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has said ‘no’ to a bid by Texas Republicans to block Election Day drive-through voting in Harris County. From NPR:

In a terse order, the three-judge panel wrote: “It is ordered that appellants’ motion for injunctive relief to issue a preliminary injunction banning drive-thru voting on Election Day, November 3, 2020, is denied.” No explanation was given.

The move is yet another loss for Texas Republicans who had sought to challenge the legality of some 127,000 votes cast at drive-through voting sites in the Houston area.

On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen threw out that suit, ruling the plaintiffs don’t have legal standing to sue. The Texas Supreme Court dismissed a similar challenge on Sunday.

Harris County, Texas’ most populous county and majority Democratic, erected 10 drive-through sites, mostly tents, to expedite the early voting process as a way of allowing people to cast ballots safely during the coronavirus pandemic. They were also in place this summer before the state’s primary.

Noting that point, Hanen, a George W. Bush appointee, asked plaintiffs, “Why am I just getting this case?” He later said that the suit was not timely and that “this has been going on all summer.”

Harris County Clerk Christopher Hollins decided to shut down 9 of the ten Election Day drive-thru voting sites out of concern that the votes could later be thrown out via ongoing legal challenges filed by Republicans.

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Pete Buttigieg Shares How Attending A Baseball Game Changed His Life

L-R James Corden, Pete Buttigieg (image via The Late Late Show)
One of the things to come out of this election cycle that I’ll long appreciate is the emergence of former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg onto the national stage. Over the past year and a half, Buttigieg demonstrated how a mayor of a mid-sized city can show up and go toe-to-toe with not only experienced political candidates but also the press (Fox News, I’m looking at you). Last night, Mayor Pete made an appearance on The Late Late Show with James Corden where he addressed the state of the election cycle (“It’s all going to come down to getting out the vote”) but also offered a positive view on the resiliency of the American people. “We have to find a way to get through this,” said Buttigieg. “This is a country that has been through pandemics, it has been through wars; at one point, half the country broke off and declared war against the other half. And this country still stands. We have got to find a way through this and I believe that starts with electing new leadership.” “Now, we’re also the generation that could blow it,” he added. “That’s part of the reason this election is so high stakes. But if we get it right in the next few years, the 2020s could go down in history as the time America stood up and turned in a better direction. And by the middle of this century could be delivering to humanity something as important as the founding of America itself. I really believe that – if we do the work, and that’s why we’re doing the work.”

And in another segment called “Late Late Show And Tell,” Corden asked Mayor Pete to share something from his home that the general public wouldn’t generally get to see. Buttigieg revealed a red baseball he received on the night of his first date with now-husband Chasten. The couple had attended a baseball game, and the souvenirs were a give-away at the game that night. Later in the date, the couple held hands for the first time. “That moment we held hands was one of the best moments of my life,” shared Buttigieg. “I keep this baseball around because they were giving them out that night. It’s just a reminder of how any given night can change the rest of your life.” At a time when so many politicians and elected officials give us much to be cynical about, I find Buttigieg continually serves up reasons to look for the good in those in public service.

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Low Energy Trump Calls In To ‘Fox & Friends’ As Biden Makes Final GOTV Push

It’s finally Election Day! And according to ABC News, early voting across the country hit record highs as over 97 million Americans cast their vote before today. Prior to this morning, voters had cast more than 70% of the total ballots counted in the 2016 general election, when 166 million Americans voted. In 2016, there were just under 43 million early votes. Former Vice President Joe Biden attended a church service before heading out to final ‘get out the vote’ appearances in Pennsylvania.

Donald Trump called in to his own place of worship – Fox & Friends. Sounding a bit low energy, Trump spoke about how “mean” people had been to him, bragged about the size of his campaign rallies, threw some predictable shade at Biden, and then turned on – of all outlets – Fox News Channel. “Fox has changed a lot,” whine Trump. “Somebody said ‘What’s the biggest difference between this and four years ago?’ I said Fox, it’s much different, you know. Fox is a much different place in terms of politics.” “In the old days, [Fox] wouldn’t put on sleepy Joe Biden every time he had opened his mouth. They had other networks for that, frankly. It’s a much different operation, I’m just telling you. It’s much different.” Trump also complained about the democratic process itself again moaning that all ballots won’t be counted by the end of tonight. As I’ve reported yesterday, every state has its own rules for cutting off accepting ballots and when to begin processing and counting them. Trump criticized American voters saying, “There’s no reason why they couldn’t put the ballot in 2 weeks earlier.” Some of those ballots include military service members overseas who have little control over when their ballots arrive.

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Judge Rejects Bid By Texas Republicans To Throw Out 127K Drive-Thru Ballots

A high school senior was expelled right before the school year for coming out as gay and proud U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, a George W. Bush appointee, has rejected a bid by Texas Republicans to throw out 127,000 ballots cast in Harris County (Houston) due to lack of standing. The Republicans tried to argue that drive-thru sites (which were approved months ago by the Texas Secretary of State) are less secure than in-person polling sites, but Judge Hanen said, “I ain’t buying that.” If you want to understand why the GOPers wanted the votes tossed – Harris County is 25% Black and 43% Latinx.