Biden has pulled ahead of Trump in Georgia and Pennsylvania, and Business Insider, at least, has called the election for Biden. That may be premature. It also may be that we won’t be completely beyond doubt in the presidential election until early next week. It’s awfully close. The overseas military ballots probably haven’t been counted yet. Last night, before I changed the channel, Steve Kornacki was saying that it was not impossible for Trump to take over the lead in Arizona. But he hasn’t yet as of this morning.
I don’t want to talk about the Senate yet. It is possible the majority (assuming Biden wins) will be determined by two runoff elections in Georgia in bleeping January. Maybe some nice friendly normal country can invade us and take over before then. Canada? New Zealand? They seem nice.
Some time I am going to have a lot to say about state races and why Republicans did better than expected. Here’s a preview:
In Missouri, where all but one Democrat I was rooting for lost (and that one exception is a Black U.S. House candidate from Ferguson, so … ), the Dems were hammered primarily on two issues — defunding the police and Medicare for All. It didn’t matter how many times the Dems were on the teevee saying they did not want to defund the police and did not support Medicare for All; the Republicans ran ads over and over and over slamming their opponents on defunding the police and Medicare for All. And, apparently, this worked.
The Dems tried to nail Republicans on their support for overturning the ACA and ending protection for people with preexisting conditions. But then all the Republicans ran ads in which they so sincerely pledged to protect people with preexising conditions, even though they have no plan to do so if the Supreme Court overturns the ACA. I don’t think running primarily on the health care issue helped Dems any. Next time, maybe they should just run ads showing the candidates shooting up cornfields with artillery.. That seems to work in these parts.
It's probably a solid win. Biden is ahead in PA, and the votes are breaking his way, big time (they're counting Philadelphia, which broke very strongly for Biden). That's enough.
He's holding his lead in Arizona, Nevada, and took the lead in Georgia. PA wins it alone; any two non-PA states win it on their own. For something to change now, he'd have to lose PA, and two more states.
Votes will probably favor him going forward; even military votes started to trend against the SCROTUS.
If there was one, single, solitary state he *needed* to win, I'd worry about the courts, but he'd now have to have three states, and one would have to be PA, taken from him via court challenge.
I've let out a breath I didn't know I was holding, and I won't deny a few tears welled up in my eyes; I think we've won the Presidency.
My horror right now is, Trump now has even less reason to care about Covid-19, and we broke 100k new cases two days in a row. There may be huge tragedies in our future. If we take the Senate in Georgia runoffs, it might be because deaths and other tragedies are simply too large to be ignored.
Hey, it's just as crazy over here in Wright County. I'm firmly convinced that the state of Missouri has chosen Mississippi as its role model.
Yep, although Josh Hawley also seems to be giving Ron Johnson of Wisconsin some competition for Dumbest Man in the Senate.
It's astonishing to me that Georgia flipped blue overnight. Frank Rich put it well: "The South will rise again. The nation owes its thanks to @staceyabrams". Incredibly dogged work on her part to mobilize thousands and thousands of voters, not only in Georgia but other states. That we even have a chance, however remote, in January to make gains in the Senate is due a lot to her.
I hope multiple psych teams are standing by in the White House with tranquilizer guns and strait-jackets, because an imploding narcissist behind the wheel for the next 2.5 months will not make for a fun holiday.
Word has it that at 6:30 P.M. Pennsylvania is officially going to be sounding the death knell for Donald J. Trump's presidency. The mottling process has begun.
Hypothetically. The USSC is going to overturn Obamacare. The insurance companies WILL bring back pre-existing conditions. Millions will lose access to health care. I'm not sure what the timeline will be for unwinding the AHC but suppose the decision comes down before the runoffs in GA.
Trump will be out in January. Will this provide an impetus for Trump culties to turn out to save the Senate? (especially if Trump has declared war on the GOP.) If the perceived result of the Trump US Supreme Court appointment is to kill access to health care, will the two Senate races in GA benefit?
The impending civil war (still hypothetical) between Trump and the GOP may provide the opportunity to flip the Senate.
If the ACA is overturned, it will pretty much spell the end of SCOTUS credibility. The lawsuit lacks standing, and is demanding an overturn of pretty much every precedent for severability, ever.
Regardless of whether that happens, it's entirely likely that Covid-19 might turn the Georgia elections. This will be the third day in a row with >100,000 new cases, and there's no reason to suspect we've hit the peak yet. Eventually, if there's enough damage, not even the right wing can spin it away. There will be too many people dying.
There's still reason for hope, but dear lord, why does it take total abdication of responsibility, in the face of a global, deadly, pandemic, until that pandemic gets "really bad" (as if it wasn't incredibly horrible already!) to get people's attention?
If the USSC overturns the ACA, I hope that (a) democrats go on blast telling Americans what this means, (b) tell them who's responsible — the GOP, and (c) it won't just hurt ACA policy holders, but also those who got insurance through who employers who'll likely see premium increases.
Then they need to go all out in GA to win the two senate seats there, and I mean all out — door knocking, etc. They need to ground game like never before.
And when they do, fix it quick. Don't mess about with McConnell and "reaching across the aisle to republican friends." Go hard, open up Medicare for all who want it, something that can quickly address the issue. In the middle of a pandemic, people not having access to health care calls for drastic action.
I think the numbers 253 and 213 are going to be permanently burned into my HD screen!
No matter what I'll be watching in the future, there'll be a ghost of 253 and 213 in all 4 corners, and on the bottom.
Yeesh…
My favorite version of 253/213, Trevor Noah’s Moment of Zen
Yes. I actually joked in a comment on Balloon-Juice that maybe the news websites are refusing to call it to keep the clickbait going another few days.
FiveThirtyEight has occasional play-by-play, and comforting knowledge (one update said "big batch of ballots broke for Trump, 53-44%; but he needs 58% to close the gap" (so that big batch, where he's up by 9%, moves him *further* from winning)).
I'm really confident as I said in my first comment. But *damn* I'm ready for it to be *over*. I did see ol' Frothy (Santorum) whining that people needed to give Trump and Republicans some time to process – he was greeted on Twitter with photos of the famous "T/P 2016: F— your feelings" t-shirts.
What is Wrong with 68 million Americans?
I'm not a person who's ever ok with torture, but I do have to admit that am enjoying watching this "Trumpese Ballot Torture:"
The slow drip-drip-drip quality if watching a man lose the reelection and his mind, but win handcuff's, a free call to his attorney, and continuing to live in public housing for a long time – a jail cell in a prison!
Trump is going to burrow in at the White House. The difficulty in extracting him from office will be on par with the difficulty the U.S. Marines faced in rooting out the Japanese defenders on Iwo Jima.
Steve Schmidt make a valid point in saying that the game is over for Trump, and for the news networks to continue in the timidity of not declaring a winner in the presidential election only serves to reinforce Trump's narrative to his base that a fraudulent process is taking place. Somebody has got to pull the plug on Trump. It's over and everybody knows it over.
Sun Tzu said that you should build your enemy a golden bridge to retreat on. Trump needs such an out.
Trump's facing a world of hurt. He doesn't want to leave the Oval Office because he's in trouble, both legal and illegal. He must confront prosecutions and lawsuits; but also his predatory creditors. The first are lawful, the latter are lawless. The latter are more dangerous and unpredictable.
So for his own safety, he should turn himself in. That's Trump's golden bridge. If he wishes, then he can call himself a winner for swindling his shady creditors, from the safety of tax-paid protective custody. May SDNY protect Trump from Putin!
In Kansas we had a delightful candidate for Senate, a former Republican, with legislative experience and a centrist to blue dog position. It was medical doctor against medical doctor, and both were well funded. They smeared her on gun control and hung a Pelosi sign around her neck.
Only in Maine did a Senate seat run go counter to the top of the ticket. In MO and KS , Trump took the top. Both states are well Pavlovian Conditioned and salivate to the Republican Bells and Whistles. Sometimes, I think one would be better off running as a solid progressive, as you will be cast as one by the opposition. The outcome will be the same but at least some less dismal political vision would be aired. At least Kris Kobach lost in the primary. Up to now the Republicans have tended to run the biggest wacko they can find. That has not worked out very well so they seem to have backed off a bit from that strategy. We quench our thirst from a near empty cup. Our new state motto is also Toward Mississippi cause it's Downhill. We need a scholar to translate that to Latin.
I think you want "Mississippi ad id quod deterius est."
Stacy Abrams is responsible for 800,000 votes.
It looks like a lot of republican s either voted for biden. Or didnt vote for president while voting back in the same stink republican senators.
Thank the black people of America for defeating fascism.