ELECTION RESULTS -- November 3, 4
President-Elect Biden delivers very presidential remarks Wednesday afternoon:
~~~ MEANWHILE. Mark Sherman of the AP: “The Trump campaign said it filed lawsuits Wednesday in Pennsylvania and Michigan, laying the groundwork for contesting the outcome in undecided battleground states that could determine whether ... Donald Trump gets another four years in the White House. Suits in both states are demanding better access for campaign observers to locations where ballots are being processed and counted, the campaign said. The campaign also is seeking to intervene in a Pennsylvania case at the Supreme Court that deals with whether ballots received up to three days after the election can be counted, deputy campaign manager Justin Clark said. The campaign said it is calling for a temporary halt in the counting in both states until it is given 'meaningful' access in numerous locations and allowed to review ballots that already have been opened and processed. Trump is running slightly behind Democratic nominee Joe Biden in Michigan. The president is ahead in Pennsylvania but his margin is shrinking as more mailed ballots are counted.”
Alexander Burns & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: “With no winner declared in the 2020 presidential race, President Trump appeared in the White House just after 2 a.m. on Wednesday to brazenly claim he had already won the election — and to insist that votes stop being counted even though the ballots of millions of Americans had yet to be tallied. Speaking with a mix of defiance, anger and wonder that the election had not yet been called in his favor, the president recounted his standing in an array of battleground states before falsely declaring: 'Frankly, we did win this election.' No news organizations declared a winner between Mr. Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr., and a number of closely contested states still had millions of mail-in ballots to count, in part because state and local Republican officials had insisted that they not be counted until Election Day. Mr. Trump said, without offering any explanation, that 'we’ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court,' and added: 'We want all voting to stop.' No elected leader has the right to unilaterally order votes to stop being counted, and Mr. Trump’s middle-of-the-night proclamation amounted to a reckless attempt to hijack the electoral process as results in key battleground states were still not final, something without precedent in American politics.” ~~~
~~~ Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: “Addressing the nation from the White House about 2:30 a.m., Trump challenged the integrity of the vote to an unprecedented and breathtaking degree. The president said the ongoing vote count in Georgia, Pennsylvania and other key battleground states amounted to 'a major fraud on our nation,' and he vowed to file lawsuits to stop it. Claiming a conspiracy to keep from declaring him the victor, Trump said: 'This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election.'” ~~~
~~~ David Bauder & Lynn Elber of the AP: “In a stunning scene in the middle of the night, news organizations rebuked ... Donald Trump after he falsely said on live television that he had won reelection even as votes were still being counted.... CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell said Trump was 'castrating the facts' by 'falsely claiming that he has won the election and disenfranchising millions of voters whose ballots have not been counted.' 'Donald Trump is losing right now both in the popular vote and the electoral vote and there are many states left to be called,' ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos said. Said NBC News’ Savannah Guthrie, 'The fact of the matter is we don’t know who won the election.' Guthrie had interrupted Trump’s speech to tell viewers that several of Trump’s statements were not true.... 'This is an extremely flammable situation and the president just threw a match into it,' said Fox News Channel’s Chris Wallace.” ~~~
~~~ Mark Sherman of the AP explains what's going on to Fuckface von Clownstick: “... Donald Trump says he’ll take the presidential election to the Supreme Court, but it’s unclear what he means in a country in which vote tabulations routinely continue beyond Election Day, and states largely set the rules for when the count has to end. 'We’ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court — we want all voting to stop,' Trump said early Wednesday. But the voting is over. It’s only counting that is taking place across the nation. No state will count absentee votes that are postmarked after Election Day. Democratic challenger Joe Biden’s campaign called Trump’s statement 'outrageous, unprecedented, and incorrect.'”
Joe Scarborough asks, "If Democrats can't beat a candidate like Donald Trump, whom can they beat?" Good question.
Max Greenwood of the Hill: “Joe Biden said early Wednesday that he is on track to win the 2020 presidential election, as vote returns show a narrowing, yet still viable, path to victory for the former vice president. Speaking to supporters at a drive-in election night event in Wilmington, Del., in the early hours of Wednesday, Biden urged patience while election officials across the country tally outstanding ballots. But he projected confidence in his chances of capturing the White House, laying out a path to victory that runs through Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. 'It may take a little longer,' Biden said to honking car horns. 'As I’ve said all along, it’s not my place or Donald trump’s place to declare who won this election. It’s put to the American people. But I’m optimistic about the outcome.'”
New York Times live updates of election results are here.
New York Times' presidential results page is here.
New York Times live updates of Senate election results are here.
NBC News' House race results are here.
New York Times live updates of gubernatorial election results are here.
The Guardian's live Election Day updates are here.
Pre-Poll Closings, Brought Forward from November 3
Maggie Miller of the Hill: "Election results will be delayed almost an hour in the Tar Heel State after the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) voted Tuesday to extend hours at four polling locations due to early delays from technical issues."~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: To give you an idea of how little Republicans want Americans to have the right to vote, CNN reported that the N.C. state election board's vote was 3-2, with the three Democrats on the board voting yea & the two Republicans voting nay. These extensions were for only a few minutes & were to make sure voters in these precincts had the same access to the ballot as everyone else in the state had. It's a straightforward matter of fairness. The effect on outcomes would be negligible. And that was too much for Republicans.
John Kruzel of the Hill: "A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday ordered the U.S. Postal Service to sweep facilities for remaining mail ballots and rush their delivery, as receipt deadlines close in. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, who has presided over several lawsuits aimed at Postal Service election mail delays, gave the Postal Service until 3 p.m. to 'ensure that no ballots have been held up' in regions that have been slow to process mail ballots."
Mike Allen & Margaret Talev of Axios: "If news organizations declare Joe Biden the mathematical president-elect, he plans to address the nation as its new leader, even if President Trump continues to fight in court, advisers tell Axios.... Biden advisers learned the lesson of 2000, when Al Gore hung back while George W. Bush declared victory in that contested election, putting the Democrat on the defensive while Bush acted like the winner. So if Biden is declared the winner, he'll begin forming his government and looking presidential — and won't yield to doubts Trump might try to sow. Biden's schedule for Tuesday includes a clue to this posture: He 'will address the nation on Election Night in Wilmington, Delaware.'"
The Washington Post's live election updates are here. They are free to non-subscribers.
From the NYT election updates: Thomas Kaplan, et al.: “Joseph R. Biden Jr. returned to his Pennsylvania birthplace, Scranton, on the morning of Election Day, addressing supporters outside a carpenters’ union hall and visiting his childhood home. 'It’s good to be home,' the former vice president said at a canvass kickoff, wearing a mask and speaking through a bullhorn with Biden-Harris stickers on it. 'Scranton is where I learned, like you did, all my basic values.'... Mr. Biden also paid a visit to his childhood home, where he signed a message the living room wall: 'From this house to the White House with the grace of God.'... Mr. Biden had started the day attending St. Joseph on the Brandywine Roman Catholic Church in Wilmington, Del., with his wife, Jill, and two of their grandchildren, and then visiting the cemetery where several members of his family are buried, including his son Beau, his first wife, Neilia, and their daughter, Naomi....” ~~~
~~~ Maggie Haberman, et al.: “... President Trump said Tuesday morning in an interview on 'Fox & Friends' that he would declare victory 'when there is victory, if there is victory.... I think the polls are, you know, suppression polls. And I think we will have victory....' At another point in the interview, when one of the hosts tried to get Mr. Trump to respond to criticism from his predecessor, President Obama, about the safety of Mr. Trump’s rallies amid a pandemic, the president instead started attacking Fox News. The network 'has changed a lot,' Mr. Trump said, falsely saying they’ve 'had Democrats on more than Republicans.'... Mr. Trump sounded tired, after spending all day Monday flying from rally to rally. He spent much of his last day on the campaign trail attacking the Supreme Court, accusing it of putting 'our country in danger' by ruling to allow Pennsylvania to continue accepting absentee ballots after Election Day, at least for the time being. In Kenosha, Wis..., Mr. Trump told a crowd, without basis, that the justices had made a 'political' decision that would lead to cheating by ... Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. His comments followed an angry tweet in which he charged — without providing any evidence — that the court’s decision would 'allow rampant and unchecked cheating' and 'induce violence in the streets.' Twitter quickly flagged the president’s assertions as potentially false....”
Erik Ortiz of NBC News: "A federal lawsuit is accusing police in North Carolina of voter intimidation after they deployed pepper spray during a get-out-the vote rally and hauled several participants to jail in a chaotic display of pre-Election Day discord. The complaint, filed late Monday against the police chief of Graham, a rural community west of Durham, and the Alamance County sheriff, says that protesters were not expecting conflict at Saturday's 'I Am Change' march, but that the situation escalated 'when deputies and officers planned and orchestrated the violent dispersal' of a peaceful crowd."
Jonathan Swan of Axios: "Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley held an off-the-record video call with top generals and network anchors this weekend to tamp down speculation about potential military involvement in the presidential election, two people familiar with the call tell Axios.... The nation's top military official set up Saturday's highly unusual call to make clear that the military's role is apolitical, one of the sources said — and to dispel any notion of a role for the military in adjudicating a disputed election or making any decision around removing a president from the White House."
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Reader Comments (5)
The Guardian has this as their headline:
"The Message from the 2020 election? The U.S. still stands divided."
No doubt about that. But I hadn't realized that so many millions of Americans think that having a sociopath for a president is just fine and dandy and their one issue, like say, abortion, is sufficient enough to vote the guy back in. I speculated that Trump would win in many of the red states but am shocked at the truly large expanse of his wins.
The Hartford Courant had a lengthy piece about these Trumpsters who testified how utterly captivated they were with him–-many traveled to wherever he was holding his rallies saying that they had never felt such excitement before in their whole lives. The chorus of voices sounded very much like the old religious tent followers back in the twenties. We touched upon that segment several times–-the mix of religiosity with that sense of camaraderie. And then there's that fear of socialism from the left––horror that a bit of equality should be put forth, which ironically many of these people yap about in terms of the "elite" looking down at them. So––here we are–-holding our breath and beating our chests.
"A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility." Aristotle
@PD Pepe: The Trumpbots are right about one thing: they can count me in as one of the "elites" (ha ha) looking down our noses at them.
Me too: Super elite. Looking down my nose. I think that last night daughter and I were aghast that so many people seem to think the liar, thief, murderer is an all-right guy and voted for him again. I agree that they are sad people who want to be a part of the fraternity, and he rags on women and minorities, and they love that. But the fact that so many have gotten sick, and so many have died continues shockingly to elude their brain cells-- meh, just the flu. I think this disconnect on their part is not fixable. Joe talks of "bringing people together" and he doesn't seem to know how impossible it will be. I don't wanna be friends with a trumpist, but I guess that is okay cuz I am old (75) and decrepit, so who cares... Just reserve us oldies a space in the local home, and in a year or two, maybe the "flu" will go away. Survival of the fittest.
Anyhow, 1:30pm Wednesday and my hope is rearing its fluffy head again. Although I am super sad about the senate.
Joe said "America can be better than this". My question is "Does America want to be better than this?" Seems that a good chunk of the country is just fine with how things are.
Mark Danner, attending many of Trump's rallies, gives us the flavor of the crowd . One example is one of the rallies in Michigan where Trump begins his con job with this:
"We brought you a lot of car plants, Michigan! We brought you A LOT of car pants. You know that, right?"
And the unmasked crowd cries back positively. This, of course is a lie–-plus since his ascension not less than three thousand Michiganders has lost jobs in the vital auto sector.
Danner scans the crowd and comments on the many men with T.shirts that have the face of Trump as Superman, Rocky, and other super heroes. He then has a conversation with a woman with whom the reality of their fealty stands stark:
"He had promised Michigan new car plants and within the chilly expanse of his own mind he had delivered. And the roar of worshipful approbation meant that he had carried these thousands of souls to that place with him. “Dang!” a sweatshirted middle-aged woman told me afterward as we waited in line to buy hot dogs and lemonade. “I had no idea he had done so much for the state! I mean, people hardly even talk about it…” She was a nurse, trained in anatomy, physiology, biology—science, that is to say. But to her the president’s word was Truth; the idea that “people hardly even talk about” the car plants because they don’t exist was not only heretical but inconceivable. She couldn’t conceive it and neither could the thousands of others shouting around me."
This says so much, don't it?