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How Many Republicans Won In Tuesday's Election

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How Many Republicans Won In Tuesday's Election

Arizonas Attorney General Dismisses Claims Of Voter Fraud And Says Trump Is Very Highly Unlikely To Overturn Bidens Lead In The State

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The Republican attorney general for Arizona has defended the election process in the state against criticism from the president, saying that people voted for “Republicans down-ballot, but they didn’t vote for President Trump”.

Mark Brnovich dismissed claims of voter fraud from Donald Trump and his campaign team, adding that there was “no evidence” to back such an assertion in Arizona.

Appearing on Fox News, Mr Brnovich also said it was time to accept that president-elect Joe Biden has won the election, saying “there are no facts that would lead anyone to believe that the election results would change”.

In Arizona, Trump campaign attorneys have alleged that Maricopa County incorrectly rejected votes cast by in-person voters on election day, and they have called for the sealing of evidence which, they say, supports this claim.

But a judge in the state on Tuesday agreed with elections officials who urged the court not to do so because the public “has a right to know how flimsy the plaintiffs’ evidence actually is,” the Arizona Republic had reported.

When Fox host Neil Cavuto sought a response from Mr Brnovich over the recent dispute, the attorney general said that the number of ballots which are being contested is less than 200, so even if these votes are flipped, the chances of Mr Trump making a comeback were “highly unlikely.”

New 2020 Voter Data: How Biden Won How Trump Kept The Race Close And What It Tells Us About The Future

As we saw in 2016 and again in 2020, traditional survey research is finding it harder than it once was to assess presidential elections accurately. Pre-election polls systemically misjudge who is likely to vote, and exit polls conducted as voters leave the voting booths get it wrong as well.

Now, using a massive sample of “validated” voters whose participation has been independently verified, the Pew Research Center has . It helps us understand how Joe Biden was able to accomplish what Hillary Clinton did not—and why President Trump came closer to getting reelected than the pre-election surveys had predicted.

How Joe Biden won

Five main factors account for Biden’s success.

The Biden campaign reunited the Democratic Party. Compared to 2016, he raised the share of moderate and conservative Democrats who voted for the Democratic nominee by 6 points, from 85 to 91%, while increasing the Democratic share of liberal Democrats from 94 to 98%. And he received the support of 85% of Democrats who had defected to 3rd party and independent candidates in 2016.

How Trump kept it close

Despite non-stop controversy about his policies and personal conduct, President Trump managed to raise his share of the popular vote from 46% in 2016 to 47% in 2020. His core coalition held together, and he made a few new friends.

Longer-term prospects

BillGalston

Nj Primary 2021: Ciattarelli Tops In Gop Governor Contest With Some Tense Democratic Legislative Races

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy will face former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, the most moderate of the four Republican candidates who ran in Tuesday’s primary, in November’s general election.

The party line was the big winner in legislative races, with all the incumbents or well-known candidates who were backed by the Democratic or Republican parties beating equally well-known candidates who were not endorsed. This includes Democratic Assemblyman Gordon Johnson, who will likely be the next state senator in the 37th District in Bergen County.

Partisan voters chose their candidates for governor, state Senate and Assembly and county and local offices, voting Tuesday in large numbers in person for the first time in 18 months.

Polls closed at 8 p.m. across New Jersey, with some places reporting a robust turnout, although primaries tend to draw fewer voters. Four years ago, just a quarter of the state’s registered Democrats and Republicans voted in a hotly contested primary. A Rutgers-Eagleton Poll conducted in late May and released Tuesday said just 22% of registered voters knew Tuesday was Election Day, though once told when the primary was, more than half said they planned to definitely vote.

This year, Murphy breezed to the November ballot without primary opposition as two Democrats who had filed both were disqualified for not meeting the signature requirements.

WATCH: Breaking down the GOP gubernatorial primary with pollster Patrick Murray

Justices Prepare For Major Lgbt Rights Case As Trump Threatens To Bring Election To Supreme Court

Justice Amy Coney Barrett is due to confront her first major arguments at the Supreme Court on Wednesday morning, even as President Donald Trump is threatening to bring a case over the previous night’s election to the panel.

Trump said in an early morning address to supporters that “we’ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court, we want all voting to stop.” The president did not provide more details, and the nature of such a possible case was unclear. The top court generally hears appeals of lower court decisions.

Trump had for weeks suggested he would contest any outcome that was not a victory and pressed to get Barrett, his third Supreme Court nominee, confirmed before Election Day. NBC News has not called the race, and votes continue to be tabulated.

Despite the prospect of a contested election, the court has a normal — if important — day of business scheduled. At 10 a.m. ET, the justices will hear arguments in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, a major LGBT rights case.

The dispute concerns a Roman Catholic adoption agency that is arguing that Philadelphia’s decision to exclude it from the city’s foster care system because it will not work with same-sex households is unconstitutional. Philadelphia has said it is simply enforcing its laws against discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.

— Tucker Higgins

Election 2020 Results: Michigan And Wisconsin Called For Biden As Trump Begins Legal Battles

The coverage on this live blog has concluded. For up-to-the-minute coverage on the election, visit the live blog from CNBC’s U.S. team. Read our previous coverage here.

It is the day after Election Day, and the race between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden is still up in the air. Several states remain uncalled. Trump, however, was able to successfully defend big states such as Florida, Texas and Ohio, according to NBC News projections. Biden, meanwhile, was projected to be the apparent winner in Wisconsin and Michigan. Trump tried to claim victory, but millions of votes were still outstanding, and NBC had not called the race yet. Democrats were projected to hold onto control of the House, while the balance of power in the Senate remains in question. Republicans won key Senate races in Iowa and Montana, according to NBC.

‘we Are Not Enemies’ Biden Says He Expects To Win Calls For Healing After Brutal Election

Democratic nominee Joe Biden said he expects to defeat President Donald Trump when all the votes are counted and delivered a call for healing and unity in the wake of the brutal election.

“We are not enemies,” Biden said in a speech delivered from Wilmington, Delaware, on Wednesday afternoon.

“We’ve faced hard times before. So once this election is finalized and behind us, it will be time for us to do what we’ve always done as Americans: to put the harsh rhetoric of the campaign behind us, to lower the temperature, to see each other again, to listen to one another, to hear each other again,” Biden said.

“To unite, to heal, to come together as a nation. I know this won’t be easy. I’m not naive, neither of us are,” Biden said. “But I know this as well: To make progress, we have to stop treating our opponents as enemies. We are not enemies.”

“We are campaigning as Democrats, but I will govern as an American president,” he said.

Opinion:tuesdays Elections Were Good News For Progressives And Establishment Republicans

An earlier version of this op-ed incorrectly stated that the Club for Growth supported Michigan state representative Lynn Afendoulis in the Republican primary for Michigan’s Third Congressional District. This version has been updated.

Tuesday’s five-state primary elections told us a lot about the state of the American electorate. The results hold good news for progressives and establishment Republicans alike.

Democrat Cori Bush’s defeat of 20-year incumbent Rep. William Lacy Clay was only the tip of the progressive iceberg. That’s not to make light of her victory. The Clay family had represented seats anchored in the city of St. Louis since 1969. Her win shows that even long-entrenched Democrats can fall prey to a challenger from their left. That’s a pretty important message even standing alone.

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But it did not stand alone. Progressive “Squad” member Rep. Rashida Tlaib easily turned back a primary challenge from Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones, whom Tlaib defeated by only 900 votes in 2018. Progressive Jen Richardson nearly defeated the party’s preferred candidate, state Rep. Jon Hoadley, in Michigan’s 6th Congressional District despite being outspent nearly 15 to 1. And another underfunded progressive, Eva Putzova, punched above her weight against moderate Rep. Tom O’Halleran , who won with only 59 percent of the vote in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District. The message to incumbents is clear: Move left, or risk moving out.

Ossoff Defeats Perdue In Georgia Handing Control Of Senate To Democrats Nbc News Projects

Sahil KapurLauren EganAlex Seitz-Wald

ATLANTA — Democrats have swept both seats in Georgia’s critical runoff elections, NBC News projects, giving the party control of the Senate and removing a major roadblock for President-elect Joe Biden.

Democrat Jon Ossoff defeated Republican David Perdue in Tuesday’s election, NBC News projected Wednesday afternoon, while the network earlier called Georgia’s other race for Democrat Raphael Warnock over GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler.

Biden will now enter the White House on Jan. 20 with his party in control of both chambers of Congress, allowing him to confirm his Cabinet and judicial nominees and giving him and a chance to advance his legislative agenda, which would have gone nowhere as long as Republican Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., remained in charge.

The results are a rebuke of President Donald Trump, whose supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol Wednesday to try to stop Congress from counting the Electoral College results. Trump’s ongoing attempts to overturn the election results overshadowed the runoffs and some Republicans worried his attacks on the integrity of the election depressed GOP turnout in Georgia.

North Carolina’s Vote Count Will Be Largely Unchanged For Next 8 Days Election Board Says

North Carolina, a crucial state for President Donald Trump’s path to victory, won’t update its total vote count until Nov. 12 “with very few exceptions,” the North Carolina State Board of Elections said, NBC News reported.

Officials said in a public meeting that the count will largely stay the same for the next eight days because most county election boards will not start checking absentee and provisional ballots until they hold previously scheduled meetings.

The county officials cannot legally move those meetings sooner even if they wanted to, NBC reported.

—Kevin Breuninger

Special Election: What To Know About Tuesdays 11th Ohio Congressional District Primary

Two of Ohioâ€™s 16 congressional districts are currently vacated, which means voters in those districts will decide on who will fill those seats for the next year.

While the general election for the two races is in November, the field of 13 Democrats and two Republicans will be whittled on Tuesday. The top Democrat and Republican in Tuesdayâ€™s special election will vie for the open congressional seat in the November general election.

Trump Campaign Seeks To Get Involved In Supreme Court Fight Over Pennsylvania Ballots

President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign asked the Supreme Court to let it join the fight at the court over Pennsylvania’s absentee ballot deadlines.

Jay Sekulow, an attorney for the president, wrote in a filing submitted to the justices that Trump has a “direct, concrete stake in the outcome” of the case that was distinct from the interests of the state lawmakers and Republican Party of Pennsylvania that initiated the suit.

In the case, Republicans are suing over the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s extension of the deadline for elections officials to receive absentee ballots in order for them to be counted. The state court extended the deadline to Nov. 6 from the previous deadline of Tuesday.

The Supreme Court rejected the Republican challenge in a 4-4 split on Oct. 19. On Oct. 28, the justices refused to decide a second GOP challenge before Election Day but left open the possibility of a ruling favoring Republicans after Nov. 3.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed onto the bench too late to weigh in on either decision but her presence on the court is thought to favor the Republican challenge moving forward.

The case at the Supreme Court is just one of the many legal battles that the Trump campaign is pursuing in the wake of Tuesday’s election.

Trump has claimed for weeks that he might not accept defeat and would challenge a loss in court regardless of the circumstances.

—Tucker Higgins

Stock Futures Point To Higher Open On Wall Street As Traders Await Election Results

Contracts tied to the U.S. equity market pointed to strong gains when regular trading begins at 9:30 a.m. in New York as election results in key battleground states trickle in.

Futures tied to the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 hinted at the most robust gains as traders crowded into large technology companies known for safe returns in times of uncertainty. Those futures rose 3.3% as of 7:40 a.m. ET.

Dow and S&P 500 futures rose 0.5% and 1.45%, respectively.

Additionally, some viewed the potential for Republicans to hold onto the Senate as a positive for Big Tech and communications companies since higher capital gains taxes from a unified Democratic Congress could have weighed on the high-growth sector.

—Thomas Franck

Democrats Weigh Next Options As Senate Republicans Filibuster Voting Rights Bill

“They don’t even want to debate it because they’re afraid. They want to deny the right to vote, make it harder to vote for so many Americans, and they don’t want to talk about it,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said on Tuesday. “There is a rot — a rot — at the center of the modern Republican party. Donald Trump’s big lie has spread like a cancer and threatens to envelop one of America’s major political parties.”

Vice President Kamala Harris, who has been tasked by the White House to work on voting rights, presided over the Tuesday debate in the Senate.

The legislation is cosponsored by 49 Democratic members of the Senate. The one holdout, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said Tuesday he’d vote to begin debate after receiving assurances that the Senate would consider a compromise version that he has said he can support.

“Today I will vote ‘YES’ to move to debate this updated voting legislation as a substitute amendment to ensure every eligible voter is able to cast their ballot and participate in our great democracy,” Manchin said in a statement, while adding that he doesn’t support the bill as written.

“We’ll keep talking,” he said after the vote. “You can’t give up. You really can’t.”

Schumer said the vote was “the starting gun, not the finish line” in the battle over ballot access and vowed that Democrats “will not let it die.”

He told reporters on Tuesday that the state-led system held up well in the 2020 election.

It has been rejected by top Republicans as a nonstarter.

‘a Disaster’: Impeachment Could Sideline Senators In 2020 Presidential Campaign

The fact is what we’ve seen in election after election since Trump has been in office is Democrats outperforming prior performances — and that strength has been rooted in the suburbs. Remember, Republicans lost the House in 2018 because suburban voters turned on Trump and the GOP — and Republicans haven’t fixed that problem.

4. Governing still matters

Kentucky is a state Trump won by 30 points. So this should have been a layup for any generic Republican candidate. But Bevin is no generic Republican. He picked fights with all kinds of constituencies in the state.

We’ve seen it time and again — take Kansas, for example — that when a governor governs ideologically, they wind up in political trouble. And the opposite is true, too. The three most popular governors in the country are Republicans in liberal states: Charlie Baker in Massachusetts, Larry Hogan in Maryland and Phil Scott in Vermont. That should be a lesson that the GOP pays attention to.

5. Kentucky likely does not mean much for Mitch McConnell’s and Trump’s chances in the state in 2020

Sure, Bevin was unpopular, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is unpopular in his home state, too. And, yes, Trump was not quite able to drag Bevin across the finish line Tuesday night.

Tight Election Adds To Retailers’ Uncertainty During Already Uncertain Holidays

Retailers have faced nothing short of whiplash this year. And now, one day after Election Day, they face another threat during the all-important holiday season: Americans who may be distracted or anxious as they await results. That could deal a blow to consumer confidence, when retailers would rather shoppers to be centered around gift-giving and decking their homes with holiday decor.

Greg Portell, lead partner in the global consumer practice of Kearney, a strategy and management consulting firm, said the delayed results “will absolutely pause consumer spending.”

“Consumers have been on a great run of spending coming out of the lockdowns,” he said. “We were looking at a great holiday season. All of that is on pause until we see some clarity on who is going to win.”

If history is a guide, at least a temporary drop in spending is likely, according to a recent survey from Adobe Analytics. Adobe found online sales dropped 14% the day after the 2016 election, when Donald Trump was elected to office. They dropped 6% the day after the 2018 midterms, the firm’s research showed.

—Lauren Thomas and Melissa Repko

In Georgia Runoffs Dems Are Running Hard On Health Care Republicans Not So Much

Why are these elections so important?

In determining control of the Senate, the results will put one party or the other in charge of the legislative agenda. A Democratic sweep would result in a 50-50 Senate with soon-to-be Vice President Kamala Harris being the tiebreaking vote in the chamber.

While there still is a 60-vote threshold to get legislation through, it would be much easier to confirm Biden’s Cabinet picks and judicial appointments than if Democrats were in the minority.

Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, who would be presumed to be Senate majority leader if Democrats took control of the chamber, would be in charge of what goes to the floor, including, if it came to it, items like doing away with the filibuster entirely or adding justices to the Supreme Court.

If Republicans won, though, GOP leader Mitch McConnell would be able to largely thwart much of Biden’s agenda.

Trump Endorsed 75 Candidates In The Midterms How Did They Fare On Election Day

Editor’s Note:

This post has been updated to correct the win percentage for President Trump’s endorsees and also to add races which were called after the initial post was written.

All midterm elections become referenda on the sitting president, and this one was no different. The New York Review of Books even cited UCSD election scholar Gary Jacobson’s assertion that “a sitting president has never been as central an issue in a midterm election as Trump is in 2018.”

So how should we interpret what this means for Trump? The first is to see how his candidates did on Election Day, and to compare how they did with other national figures. Here at Brookings, we kept track of all the House and Senate candidates who were endorsed by one of the following major political figures: President Trump, Vice President Pence, former President Obama, former Vice President Biden, or Sen. Bernie Sanders. We then calculated how the candidates they endorsed performed on election night.

As we can see from the bar graph below, Trump endorsed 75 House and Senate candidates, of whom 42 or 55 percent won. With this rate, Trump performed better than Vice President Mike Pence, for whom nearly 50 percent won, but fell behind Obama’s and Biden’s endorsees. Sanders does the best, as his endorsees won 70 percent of the time.

Four Democratic Incumbents One Republican Ousted In Virginia House Primaries

In a night full of upsets, five challengers ousted incumbent Virginia lawmakers in Tuesday’s primary election, including a Trump-allied lawyer who unseated seven-term Del. Charles D. Poindexter and a left-leaning newcomer who bested centrist Del. Stephen E. Heretick .

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Del. Ibraheem Samirah was narrowly defeated by Irene Shin, in an unusual race where the Democratic establishment backed the challenger.

And Dels. Lee J. Carter and Mark H. Levine both lost their runs for reelection while simultaneously pursuing unsuccessful bids for statewide office — an unusual dynamic created by a delay in Census Bureau population data that affected the timing of redistricting and the House primaries.

Carter, a self-described socialist who was running for governor, lost the House race to small-business owner Michelle Maldonado, a political novice. Levine, who was seeking the nomination for lieutenant governor, lost his House race to Alexandria Vice Mayor Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, who accused him of treating his constituents as an afterthought.

See full election results from the Virginia primaries

In the 79th District, Nadarius Clark, 26, framed himself as a progressive alternative to Heretick, 61, whom he attacked for accepting money from Dominion Energy and voting against bills to ban assault weapons, end qualified immunity for police officers and empower localities to make decisions about Confederate statues.

“We need someone young who can carry on,” Wilma Welch said.

Trump Who Now Claims Fraud Got More Votes In Detroit Than Most Republicans

Donate

Donald Trump may have alleged election fraud in Detroit, but he received more votes for president than any other Republican in years in the city.

In a speech Thursday from the White House that claimed wholesale fraud nationwide in his election against Democrat Joe Biden, Trump blasted Detroit and Philadelphia as “two of the most politically corrupt places in our country — easily.”

“I wouldn’t say Detroit has the best reputation for election integrity,” Trump said.

Trump made the claims, without citing evidence, days after he significantly improved his performance in Detroit from 2016, while Biden did worse in the city than previous Democrats.

In Tuesday’s election, exit polls nationwide showed African-American voters backed Joe Biden with 87 percent of their vote.

In Detroit, which is 79 percent African American, Biden got 94 percent.

That’s less than Hillary Clinton got in 2016 and less than Barack Obama got in 2008 and 2012. Clinton won by 235,000 votes in Detroit while Biden won by 234,000.

In fact, Trump got 12,654 votes on Tuesday — 5,000 more votes in Detroit than he got in 2016 and far better than Republicans John McCain and Mitt Romney back when the city had tens of thousands more residents and voters.

Don’t blame fraud: Dwindling suburban support lost Michigan for Trump

“It sounds like grasping at straws,” said state Rep. Sherry Gay-Dagnogo, D-Detroit, who won a seat Tuesday night on the Detroit Public Schools board of education.

Democratic Insider And A Republican Backed By Trump Win Ohio House Races

The victories by Shontel Brown, a Democrat supported by the national establishment, and Mike Carey, a Republican endorsed by Donald Trump, provided a lift to the leadership of both parties.

A Democratic candidate backed by the party establishment and a Republican endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump won two primary races for open House seats in Ohio on Tuesday, an assertion of dominance for the leadership of both political parties as they face questions over unity in their ranks.

In a Democratic primary in northern Ohio, Shontel Brown, who vowed to be “a partner” with the Biden administration and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, prevailed over Nina Turner, a party outsider who openly rejected the idea that Democrats are more effective through conciliation and compromise. Late Tuesday, Ms. Brown was leading by over five percentage points, and Ms. Turner conceded the race.

And in a Republican primary near Columbus, Mike Carey, a newcomer to elected office who was largely unknown before being endorsed by Mr. Trump, easily beat out 11 rivals, many of them with much longer records in Ohio politics.

Between the two races, the Democratic fight for the deep-blue 11th District around Cleveland and Akron was the most closely watched as a national bellwether. Prominent Democratic politicians and money from national interest groups cascaded into the district over the past several weeks, leaving a trail of ill will and weariness in their wake.

Democrats Got Millions More Votes So How Did Republicans Win The Senate

Senate electoral process means although Democrats received more overall votes for the Senate than Republicans, that does not translate to more seats

The 2018 midterm elections brought , who retook the House of Representatives and snatched several governorships from the grip of Republicans.

But some were left questioning why Democrats suffered a series of setbacks that prevented the party from picking up even more seats and, perhaps most consequentially, left the US Senate in Republican hands.

Among the most eye-catching was a statistic showing Democrats led Republicans by more than 12 million votes in Senate races, and yet still suffered losses on the night and failed to win a majority of seats in the chamber.

Constitutional experts said the discrepancy between votes cast and seats won was the result of misplaced ire that ignored the Senate electoral process.

Because each state gets two senators, irrespective of population, states such as Wyoming have as many seats as California, despite the latter having more than 60 times the population. The smaller states also tend to be the more rural, and rural areas traditionally favor Republicans.

This year, because Democrats were defending more seats, including California, they received more overall votes for the Senate than Republicans, but that does not translate to more seats.

However, some expressed frustration with a system they suggest gives an advantage to conservative-leaning states.

Voting Legislation Blocked In Senate As Republicans Unite For Filibuster

Sahil Kapur

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans filibustered debate on voting rights legislation Tuesday, putting Democrats in a predicament about how to advance their high-priority bill.

The vote to advance an amended version of the “For The People Act” split along party lines 50–50, short of the 60 needed. All Democrats voted to begin debate and Republicans unanimously voting to block the bill.

Before the vote, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called the bill an effort to respond to restrictive voting laws in GOP-led states like Georgia, and said the procedural vote was simply to allow debate and an amendment process that will shape the eventual bill.

Raphael Warnock: I Cant Wait To Get To Work After Winning Georgia Runoff

But the fate of the larger progressive legislative agenda remains very much in doubt, given the Senate’s filibuster rule and the narrow size of Democrats’ majority.

“If we have a Senate that is divided 50-50, that makes it very hard to do some of the things you just suggested like recognizing Puerto Rico as a state,” Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., a close Biden ally, said on CNBC.

Schumer will face immense pressure from the left flank of his caucus to reform or eliminate the filibuster, but opposition from moderates like Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., has made it clear that that idea is basically dead on arrival.

With the filibuster in place, Republicans can block most legislation , imperiling many Biden priorities, from immigration reform to statehood for the District of Columbia.

“The only viable path to enacting D.C. statehood is bypassing the filibuster — a Jim Crow relic that has been used to block hundreds of racial justice bills,” said DC statehood activist Stasha Rhodes.

There is one major exception to the filibuster rule for budget bills, which can through a process known as reconciliation that only a requires a simple majority, and Democrats are discussing ways to take full advantage of that rule or expand it.

The split chamber will put Harris in an unusual position as she is expected to take a more active role as president of the Senate, which is typically a mostly ceremonial role.

Ossoff will get to serve a full six-year term.

The Next 2020 Election Fight Convincing Trump’s Supporters That He Lost

In Alaska, incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan’s double-digit margin could tighten with mail-in votes still out and only 74% of the votes in as of Wednesday, so put an asterisk next to that one, but that was supposed to be a 3-point race.

There is going to be a reckoning — again — within the polling industry. Survey researchers are already combing their numbers for patterns of what went wrong.

Some theories at this point include:

Early voting: Surveys having too many people in their samples saying they would vote early. The pollsters had a tough time adjusting for that, because there’s no historical trend to go by.

Democratic overresponse: Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents seem to have been more willing to talk to pollsters, and pro-Trump Republicans just didn’t want to participate as much because of their deep distrust of and disdain for the polls and the media.

This is not the idea of a “shy” Trump voter. While survey researchers — Democratic, Republican and nonpartisan — all found people, especially women, less willing to say they are Trump supporters to their friends and families, there is little evidence they aren’t telling pollsters they support the president.

The bigger problem may be Trump supporters simply not wanting to participate at all. That would seem to make sense, considering the consistent underestimation of Republican vote, especially in Republican-leaning states.

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racingtoaredlight · 5 years

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Opening Bell: June 28, 2019

Last night, the second iteration of the first round of the first Democratic primary debate took place in Miami, Florida. While the first round on Wednesday produced some memorable moments, especially when candidates took their turn in attacking former congressman Beto O’Rourke of Texas, but during the second round last night, a possibly iconic exchange took place when Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) confronted former Vice President Joe Biden over his approach to bussing policies for minority children in the 1970s. Biden appeared to falter at the attack, especially when Harris pointed out that she was a child who was able to take advantage of bussing, apparently in spite of the former Senator from Delaware. This exchange was followed moments later when Biden, probably seeking to appear to follow the rules of the debate by halting when his time expired, remarked “My time has passed.” Considering the main attacks against Biden are that he represents an older version of the Democratic Party, it was a truly meme-able moment. That said, Biden has maintained a consistently wide lead in the polls and it seems unlikely that one moment will undermine that lead. But it does show that Biden has a weak spot, that Harris is a talented politician and debater, and that a lot can happen before the first primary ballots are counted in early 2020.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court officially ended its 2018-2019 term by releasing the last two opinions on arguably its most significant cases (it is common for the Court to wait to release its most consequential decisions until the last day of a term). In the first opinion, the Court, in a 5-4 decision authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Court decided that the question of political gerrymandering, while deeply problematic, is not an issue which the Court can engage with. For the Court to hear and decide a case, the party bringing the action must have standing, there must be a judicial remedy which the Court can reasonably resolve, there must be a case in controversy based on a harm that is not speculative, but is instead concrete and certain, and the case must be justiciable. This last requirement has two elements, both related to the above: the action cannot an attempt to secure an advisory decision—which the Court is prohibited from issuing—and the question must be of substantive law, it cannot be purely political in nature. It was this last element, that of a political question, which Roberts asserted was the reason that the Court could not rule on the question of political—as opposed to, say, racial—gerrymandering. Instead, Roberts wrote for the Court that it was state supreme courts, legislatures, and independent redistricting bodies created by the states, where political gerrymandering must be approached.

In another significant decision, the Court—again, in an opinion authored by Chief Justice Roberts—ruled, in a 5-4 decision, that a proposed question about citizenship could not be incorporated into the 2020 Census, at least for now. Examining the actions of the Commerce Department through the lens of the Administrative Procedure Act, the Court decided that it was proper for the Commerce Department to propose citizenship questions, that it had followed the proper procedures in considering alternative methods of determining the citizenship of individuals living in the United States without asking through the census. Where the Commerce Department went astray, according to the Court, was that it offered a “contrived” argument for why the citizenship question should be included, and this did not follow the official reasons given by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in his reporting to Congress. While this opinion by the Court did not permanently foreclose on the inclusion of a citizenship question being added, it instead referred the case back to the District court which heard the case, in order for additional fact-finding to occur. Because of the complexity of the record in this case—discovery included well over 12,000 pages of information, including communications between the Commerce Department and the Department of Justice—this casts doubt on whether the case will be adjudicated prior to when the 2020 Census must be put into the field.

NASA yesterday announced that it had authorized a new planetary mission to Titan, one of Saturn’s moons and the only other place in the Solar System which has open oceans, albeit ones made of liquid methane rather than water. The mission, which is scheduled to launch in 2034, will involve inserting a quad-copter drone, named Dragonfly, into Titan’s atmosphere where it will fly up to 9 miles per day and set down in specific spots to collect samples and undertake experiments. This will be the first time NASA has launched a probe that, once it arrives at its target location, will fly in that planetary body’s atmosphere to move around, instead of by wheeled or tracked machine. Titan has an incredibly diverse atmosphere and chemical makeup, including multiple ingredients necessary for life. At least part of Dragonfly’s mission will be to see if, despite the numbingly frigid temperatures, life does exist in some form on Titan. Dragonfly will cost less than $1 billion, though the final cost is not yet known.

Last week, I posted part 1 of a Mother Jones feature on what Syria looks like behind the frontlines of the multi-faceted war which is now well into its eighth year. This week, part two follows a similar pattern of telling the story of the evolving Syrian war—and America’s evolving manner of participation in it—through a series of vignettes, including one with one of the seven known American women to travel to the Middle East to join ISIS. While part 1 includes many poignant visions of how a revolution turned into a complex civil war, part 2 looks at the utterly bizarre devolution the war has undertaken, as American, Russian, and Turkish support has ebbed and flowed from one group to another, and how the American approach diverges depending on whether the support is provided by the Defense Department or the CIA. In this part, Shane Bauer traces the end of his time in Syria, with an ending that succinctly captures the feelings that western involvement there has caused.

In the 1950s, computer coding and programming was still in its infancy. It was an incredibly tedious and laborious process that required methodical thinking and analysis and a willingness to patiently explore inevitable errors in code by examining dozens, or even hundreds of punch cards and print outs. In the early days of computers, the glory was in working on the hardware, and early male computer scientists and engineers, such as they existed at the time, flocked to this part of the discipline. Programming was considered menial and secondary to the advances made in the hardware. While programming was considered important, it was thought of being analogous to secretarial work, and thus more fit for women. Thus, in the 1950s and 60s, peaking in the 1970s, women played an outsized role in the early work of computer programming and coding, creating many procedures and refining many languages which form the basis for computer programming and software engineering today. And despite this, the amount of women who are employed as software engineers or computer programmers, has decreased since its peak decades earlier. This is a fascinating example of the early tech industry as well as a searing indictment of how male-dominant it has become.

Speaking of computers, most of us reading this were alive in the 1980s and early 1990s when computers transitioned from being a large, expensive, cumbersome business tool which were primarily found in offices (without revealing my age, when I was in second grade, I distinctly remember playing Oregon Trail on a computer screen that had green outlined graphics on a black background) to being ordinary, if not ubiquitous features of everyday life. I am typing this on a three-year old Dell laptop with a solid-state hard drive that gives off little heat and makes virtually no noise (though, interestingly, I need a new battery because mine has suffered a ‘fatal flaw,’ and will power down almost immediately if I unplug the charger). What this article talks about is not just the speed at which computers today operate—though that is important—but how engineering design has produced quieter keyboards/keypads, less obtrusive mousepads, but also more intrusive notifications. While a Mac from 1990 still featured a handle from which it could be picked up and put into temporary storage while not in use, today devices are molded to be a part of our body; comfortable to hold in our hand lest we ever decide to set it down, and even wearable, so that it can always accompany us. It is instructive, on occasion, to remember what our relationship was with computers some decades ago, and compare that to what our relationship is with them today.

Finally, Kyle Kondik of the Center for Politics looks at the history of the modern presidential primary and what effect performance in this debates has on outcomes. It is worth mentioning that the history of primary debates is largely confined to recent history and this cycle, along with the last Republican focused one, is an outlier in terms of overall data points and experience. Making predictions of ultimate outcomes at this point, a full seven months before the first primary will take place, is foolhardy. That said, it is worthwhile to look for the first signs of cracks and divisions among the candidates, to see who might fall away from the race before the Iowa Caucus in January.

Welcome to the weekend.

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