vox--2020-11-06--YouTube is awash with election misinformation — and it isn’t taking it down

In the hours and days after polls closed in the United States , misleading and outright false content about the presidential election was easy to find on YouTube .
A slew of videos claimed to be proof of voter fraud , while the right-wing channel One America News Network ( OANN ) racked up hundreds of thousands of views on videos incorrectly declaring that Donald Trump had already won the election .
YouTube was even running ads on some videos amplifying claims of voter fraud .
While YouTube has added a lightly worded label on some videos noting that election @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of these misinformation videos were still readily accessible by Friday afternoon .
Meanwhile , a slew of content stirring doubt in the electoral process was drawing a growing number of views .
Those include videos posted in the official Donald Trump channel , which has more than 2 million subscribers , of Trump ’ s Thursday speech amplifying false conspiracy theories about the election ’ s legitimacy .
Moderating YouTube requires analyzing large amounts of video content , which can be harder to study and evaluate than text .
Still , some have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a soft approach to misinformation and other claims that aim to sow doubt in the election process .
While it ’ s difficult to measure how “ well ” YouTube is doing at finding and eliminating election misinformation compared to its peers , it ’ s clear that some misinformation and content questioning the election ’ s integrity are allowed on the platform .
Keep in mind that YouTube has previously been criticized for radicalizing its users through its recommendation algorithm and serving as a platform for conspiracy theorists .
Between November 3 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 100 million views on videos from politics-focused channels with at least 10,000 subscribers that mention keywords related to “ election fraud , ” according to initial research from Transparency Tube , an independent tool that tracks politics-focused YouTube channels .
More than 2.5 million of those views were on channels known for promoting conspiracy content .
These large numbers of views demonstrate that the narrative is gathering significant attention .
“ Many of these videos are reporting on claims being made by the president or his supporters , but a significant number , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , are endorsing claims of ‘ election fraud , ’ ” researcher Sam Clark told Recode in an email .
“ YouTube has always been a welcome home for conspiracy theorists and extremists and has largely paid lip service to making meaningful changes to address misinformation rampant on their platform , ” Angelo Carusone , the president of Media Matters , told Recode in an email .
“ We saw this again in their half-hearted attempts to rein in election misinformation when they insisted on including Fox News — a persistent source of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ news partner.
” Recode identified about 20 videos that questioned the election in some capacity , such as promoting that Trump had actually won or pushing claims of voter fraud , to see how YouTube would respond .
YouTube removed only one for violating its policies on deceptive practices and spam , which specifically bars discouraging voting and interfering in democratic processes .
The company said it also took action on content that violated the company ’ s monetization policy , which prohibits ads on videos that undermine electoral processes .
YouTube has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is and is not allowed on the platform , and much of its approach to content moderation depends on algorithms .
For instance , searches for particular topics have been adjusted to elevate content from news outlets , such as CNN and Fox News .
The platform also scales back recommendations for videos that are considered borderline but don ’ t quite violate YouTube ’ s rules .
Content that violates its community guidelines is supposed to be taken down .
That includes videos that allege mail-in ballots have been interfered with to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ violence at polling places .
“ Over the last few years , we ’ ve heavily invested in the work that allows us to remove violative content , raise up authoritative content , and reduce the spread of borderline content , ” YouTube spokesperson Ivy Choi told Recode in a statement .
“ Our policies prohibit misleading viewers about voting or encouraging interference in democratic processes , and we surface an information panel under videos discussing voting by mail .
We continue to be vigilant with regards to election-related content in the lead-up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it takes a bit of work to find these more extreme videos reflects that YouTube ’ s algorithmic approach to moderation works to a degree and that moderation isn ’ t always designed to address every single instance of violative content .
“ It ’ s hard to do this kind of rigorous quantitative analysis in real time , but my impression of doing some searches — firing up so many anonymous browsers and looking at the recommendations — is that they ’ re definitely not pushing this , and it actually is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re really , really looking for it , ” said Kevin Munger , a political scientist at Penn State who has studied YouTube .
Results for terms like “ election , ” “ voting , ” and even “ Trump won ” do indeed usually lead to content from legitimate sources or news outlets , as Recode found when it did its own searches .
Even searching for phrases like “ voter fraud ” generally reveals content refuting the idea that voter fraud was a significant factor in the election .
Voter fraud @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Videos that give more credence to voter fraud concerns include interviews that originally aired on cable television and talk radio , like Good Morning Britain and Fox News .
But despite not showing up in the top search results , several videos that push the idea that the election is somehow being “ stolen ” from Donald Trump are still attracting a hefty number of views .
( At the time of publication , Decision Desk HQ had called the election for Joe Biden , and there was no evidence of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ One America News , claiming that “ Trump won ” on the night of November 3 , had attracted nearly 420,000 views by Friday afternoon .
While YouTube removed ads on this video , the company did not remove it because it didn ’ t “ materially discourage voting , ” YouTube told CNBC .
Another video from OANN , published Thursday morning , claimed that Trump won but that Democrats were trying to steal the election .
It now has more than 260,000 views .
YouTube attached a label to both videos @ @ @ @ @ @ @ final ” and directs users to Google ’ s election tracker .
Most of the videos getting millions of views seem to be recordings of mainstream sources , like Fox News , rather than YouTube-native content creators , according to Munger from Penn State .
YouTube has been successful in cutting down on recommendations to fringe channels , according to a report from the New York Times , though this has also boosted referrals to Fox New ’ s content on the site .
“ I think this is consistent with what we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ve changed their recommendation system to essentially give precedence to mainstream conservative sources over fringe , right-wing conservative sources , ” Munger said .
Still , amid ongoing anxiety about how social platforms deal with content that sows doubt in electoral and civic processes , some feel that YouTube has sidestepped scrutiny amid focus on platforms like Twitter and Facebook .
As the election has unfolded , it ’ s become clear how these three companies have differing approaches to content moderation .
Facebook , for instance , took down a group @ @ @ @ @ @ @ StopTheSteal conspiracy and also blocked the hashtag .
As of Friday afternoon , searching the same hashtag produced a slew of results on YouTube , including videos with tens of thousands of views .
“ We ’ re so focused on the other platforms that we don ’ t demand the same accountability and transparency from ( YouTube ) , and nobody kicks up a fuss , ” Evelyn Douek , a lecturer at Harvard Law School , told the Washington Post .
“ We can ’ t just let them get away @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to expect that YouTube will take down every single problematic piece of content — and many would say that ’ s not the role of social media companies .
But it also appears YouTube has become an easy place for the president and conspiracy theorists to spread doubt about the election ’ s integrity .
And so far , it looks as though YouTube appears willing to host videos that do just that .
Open Sourced is made possible by Omidyar Network .
All Open Sourced content is editorially independent and produced by @ @ @

In the hours and days after polls closed in the United States, misleading and outright false content about the presidential election was easy to find on YouTube. A slew of videos claimed to be proof of voter fraud, while the right-wing channel One America News Network (OANN) racked up hundreds of thousands of views on videos incorrectly declaring that Donald Trump had already won the election. YouTube was even running ads on some videos amplifying claims of voter fraud.
While YouTube has added a lightly worded label on some videos noting that election results were not yet final, most of these misinformation videos were still readily accessible by Friday afternoon. Meanwhile, a slew of content stirring doubt in the electoral process was drawing a growing number of views. Those include videos posted in the official Donald Trump channel, which has more than 2 million subscribers, of Trump’s Thursday speech amplifying false conspiracy theories about the election’s legitimacy.
Moderating YouTube requires analyzing large amounts of video content, which can be harder to study and evaluate than text. Still, some have criticized the platform, saying it takes a soft approach to misinformation and other claims that aim to sow doubt in the election process. While it’s difficult to measure how “well” YouTube is doing at finding and eliminating election misinformation compared to its peers, it’s clear that some misinformation and content questioning the election’s integrity are allowed on the platform. Keep in mind that YouTube has previously been criticized for radicalizing its users through its recommendation algorithm and serving as a platform for conspiracy theorists.
Between November 3 and November 5, there were nearly 100 million views on videos from politics-focused channels with at least 10,000 subscribers that mention keywords related to “election fraud,” according to initial research from Transparency Tube, an independent tool that tracks politics-focused YouTube channels. More than 2.5 million of those views were on channels known for promoting conspiracy content. These large numbers of views demonstrate that the narrative is gathering significant attention.
“Many of these videos are reporting on claims being made by the president or his supporters, but a significant number, especially from partisan right and conspiracy channels, are endorsing claims of ‘election fraud,’” researcher Sam Clark told Recode in an email.
“YouTube has always been a welcome home for conspiracy theorists and extremists and has largely paid lip service to making meaningful changes to address misinformation rampant on their platform,” Angelo Carusone, the president of Media Matters, told Recode in an email. “We saw this again in their half-hearted attempts to rein in election misinformation when they insisted on including Fox News — a persistent source of misinformation about voting — as an authoritative news partner.”
Recode identified about 20 videos that questioned the election in some capacity, such as promoting that Trump had actually won or pushing claims of voter fraud, to see how YouTube would respond. YouTube removed only one for violating its policies on deceptive practices and spam, which specifically bars discouraging voting and interfering in democratic processes. The company said it also took action on content that violated the company’s monetization policy, which prohibits ads on videos that undermine electoral processes.
YouTube has established a sliding scale for what content is and is not allowed on the platform, and much of its approach to content moderation depends on algorithms. For instance, searches for particular topics have been adjusted to elevate content from news outlets, such as CNN and Fox News. The platform also scales back recommendations for videos that are considered borderline but don’t quite violate YouTube’s rules. Content that violates its community guidelines is supposed to be taken down. That includes videos that allege mail-in ballots have been interfered with to influence an election or that call for violence at polling places.
“Over the last few years, we’ve heavily invested in the work that allows us to remove violative content, raise up authoritative content, and reduce the spread of borderline content,” YouTube spokesperson Ivy Choi told Recode in a statement. “Our policies prohibit misleading viewers about voting or encouraging interference in democratic processes, and we surface an information panel under videos discussing voting by mail. We continue to be vigilant with regards to election-related content in the lead-up and post-election period.”
The fact that it takes a bit of work to find these more extreme videos reflects that YouTube’s algorithmic approach to moderation works to a degree and that moderation isn’t always designed to address every single instance of violative content.
“It’s hard to do this kind of rigorous quantitative analysis in real time, but my impression of doing some searches — firing up so many anonymous browsers and looking at the recommendations — is that they’re definitely not pushing this, and it actually is somewhat hard to find unless you’re really, really looking for it,” said Kevin Munger, a political scientist at Penn State who has studied YouTube.
Results for terms like “election,” “voting,” and even “Trump won” do indeed usually lead to content from legitimate sources or news outlets, as Recode found when it did its own searches. Even searching for phrases like “voter fraud” generally reveals content refuting the idea that voter fraud was a significant factor in the election. Voter fraud is incredibly rare in the United States.
Videos that give more credence to voter fraud concerns include interviews that originally aired on cable television and talk radio, like Good Morning Britain and Fox News. But despite not showing up in the top search results, several videos that push the idea that the election is somehow being “stolen” from Donald Trump are still attracting a hefty number of views. (At the time of publication, Decision Desk HQ had called the election for Joe Biden, and there was no evidence of a stolen election.)
A video from One America News, claiming that “Trump won” on the night of November 3, had attracted nearly 420,000 views by Friday afternoon. While YouTube removed ads on this video, the company did not remove it because it didn’t “materially discourage voting,” YouTube told CNBC. Another video from OANN, published Thursday morning, claimed that Trump won but that Democrats were trying to steal the election. It now has more than 260,000 views. YouTube attached a label to both videos that reads “Results may not be final” and directs users to Google’s election tracker.
Most of the videos getting millions of views seem to be recordings of mainstream sources, like Fox News, rather than YouTube-native content creators, according to Munger from Penn State. YouTube has been successful in cutting down on recommendations to fringe channels, according to a report from the New York Times, though this has also boosted referrals to Fox New’s content on the site.
“I think this is consistent with what we’ve been seeing for how they’ve changed their recommendation system to essentially give precedence to mainstream conservative sources over fringe, right-wing conservative sources,” Munger said.
Still, amid ongoing anxiety about how social platforms deal with content that sows doubt in electoral and civic processes, some feel that YouTube has sidestepped scrutiny amid focus on platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
As the election has unfolded, it’s become clear how these three companies have differing approaches to content moderation. Facebook, for instance, took down a group with 350,000 members associated with the #StopTheSteal conspiracy and also blocked the hashtag. As of Friday afternoon, searching the same hashtag produced a slew of results on YouTube, including videos with tens of thousands of views.
“We’re so focused on the other platforms that we don’t demand the same accountability and transparency from (YouTube), and nobody kicks up a fuss,” Evelyn Douek, a lecturer at Harvard Law School, told the Washington Post. “We can’t just let them get away with this.”
It’s unrealistic to expect that YouTube will take down every single problematic piece of content — and many would say that’s not the role of social media companies. But it also appears YouTube has become an easy place for the president and conspiracy theorists to spread doubt about the election’s integrity. And so far, it looks as though YouTube appears willing to host videos that do just that.
Open Sourced is made possible by Omidyar Network. All Open Sourced content is editorially independent and produced by our journalists.


vox--2020-11-06--Who is Gritty, and why is he Donald Trump’s mortal enemy?

Philadelphia — and I say this with great affection for a city I adore , where I have many friends and where I have had many amazing visits — is the city God coughed up .
Again , I mean that as a sort of compliment .
Scrappy and rough around the edges , Philadelphia is also central to the story of America ’ s founding .
It ’ s the city of Benjamin Franklin and the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall .
It ’ s also the city of Gritty , about as perfect a stand-in for a city @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be — and to be clear , Philadelphia is already home of the Phillie Phanatic ( of baseball ’ s Philadelphia Phillies ) , so the city knows from good mascots .
Giant , orange , and furry with wild googly eyes , Gritty is the monster of Philly ’ s dreams .
He reps the Philadelphia Flyers , the city ’ s NHL franchise , and when he debuted in 2018 , he swiftly became a meme beloved by the internet ’ s many memesters , after a short early period @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fuck is this ?
?
?
” What ’ s more , Gritty was embraced by many leftists as an example of the chaotic good energy they hope to bring to the political conversation and/or world .
As I wrote in 2018 : You can never quite predict when or how , but sometimes , these empty spaces open up in our collective subconscious , and something shows up to occupy them .
Suddenly , a thing is there , and it fits the shape of a void you hadn ’ t previously @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gross or bizarre or horrible to behold .
You might think he is fun meme material .
You might admire him as a triumph of personal design smuggled into a corporate context .
You might believe he is an advocate of the proletariat .
He might be all of these things or none of these things .
But there is a chaos to Gritty that speaks to something in our culture right now .
That chaos will be different for me than it is for you .
But we are both feeling it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ supposed to be this way .
But also , things don ’ t have to be this way .
But even if Gritty is a monster who has been embraced by the world at large and the left in particular , he is Philly ’ s mascot at his core .
Philadelphia has proven central to Joe Biden ’ s Electoral College victory in the state of Pennsylvania , which led to his victory in the presidency .
What ’ s more , Biden is a Democrat , and the American left has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of defeating Donald Trump .
( Whether that alliance will hold in the years ahead remains to be seen . )
The above meme — which blends Gritty with the Game of Thrones character Olenna Tyrell , who uses her last moments alive to let one character know she was behind the murder of another — was created by Facebook user Courtney Griffiths ( a Californian living in London , per Insider ) and has become the perfect example of the idea that Gritty himself , in all his Philadelphia freedom , ended @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the Gritty memes and Twitter jokes did not stop there ( though the Game of Thrones example is by far the most popular ) .
And more than a few of the memes leaned into Philadelphia ’ s reputation for being a city full of scrappers : Did Gritty save democracy , as these memes might suggest ?
Of course not .
The media ’ s tendency to treat election coverage as a horse race creates the false idea that Biden “ came from behind ” to win , when the truth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ took longer to count than votes in other parts of Pennsylvania , because it has so many more votes .
But you know what ?
I ’ m going to give Philly this one .
Congrats to Gritty , a new American revolutionary .

Philadelphia — and I say this with great affection for a city I adore, where I have many friends and where I have had many amazing visits — is the city God coughed up.
Again, I mean that as a sort of compliment.
Scrappy and rough around the edges, Philadelphia is also central to the story of America’s founding. It’s the city of Benjamin Franklin and the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. It’s also the city of Gritty, about as perfect a stand-in for a city as a sports mascot could possibly hope to be — and to be clear, Philadelphia is already home of the Phillie Phanatic (of baseball’s Philadelphia Phillies), so the city knows from good mascots.
Giant, orange, and furry with wild googly eyes, Gritty is the monster of Philly’s dreams. He reps the Philadelphia Flyers, the city’s NHL franchise, and when he debuted in 2018, he swiftly became a meme beloved by the internet’s many memesters, after a short early period where people were like, “The fuck is this???”
What’s more, Gritty was embraced by many leftists as an example of the chaotic good energy they hope to bring to the political conversation and/or world. As I wrote in 2018:
You can never quite predict when or how, but sometimes, these empty spaces open up in our collective subconscious, and something shows up to occupy them. Suddenly, a thing is there, and it fits the shape of a void you hadn’t previously noticed. You might characterize Gritty as gross or bizarre or horrible to behold. You might think he is fun meme material. You might admire him as a triumph of personal design smuggled into a corporate context. You might believe he is an advocate of the proletariat. He might be all of these things or none of these things. But there is a chaos to Gritty that speaks to something in our culture right now. That chaos will be different for me than it is for you. But we are both feeling it, yes? Things weren’t supposed to be this way. But also, things don’t have to be this way.
Some of my favorite antifa gritty memes to celebrate PA going blue pic.twitter.com/JVLLT2KBN2 — allie ✨ (but thankful ) (@ukulelecutie) November 6, 2020
But even if Gritty is a monster who has been embraced by the world at large and the left in particular, he is Philly’s mascot at his core.
This is straight up the best explanation of @GrittyNHL I have ever seen. #Gritty pic.twitter.com/wcoIGWBrE6 — Maxwell T Paule (@VeneficusIpse) November 6, 2020
Philadelphia has proven central to Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory in the state of Pennsylvania, which led to his victory in the presidency. What’s more, Biden is a Democrat, and the American left has mostly united behind him in the name of defeating Donald Trump. (Whether that alliance will hold in the years ahead remains to be seen.)
So, yeah, Gritty memes are back, baby.
The person who created this, is right up there with Michaelangelo. pic.twitter.com/WoyYux2QfF — David Iskra | Later Traitor! (@IskraDavidPhoto) November 6, 2020
The above meme — which blends Gritty with the Game of Thrones character Olenna Tyrell, who uses her last moments alive to let one character know she was behind the murder of another — was created by Facebook user Courtney Griffiths (a Californian living in London, per Insider) and has become the perfect example of the idea that Gritty himself, in all his Philadelphia freedom, ended the reign of Donald Trump.
Predictably, the Gritty memes and Twitter jokes did not stop there (though the Game of Thrones example is by far the most popular).
If PA flips first Gritty should be allowed to personally drag Trump from the White House and throw him directly into hell. — James D'Amato (@OneShotRPG) November 6, 2020
by law this means gritty is commerce secretary — Gabriel Debenedetti (@gdebenedetti) November 6, 2020
And more than a few of the memes leaned into Philadelphia’s reputation for being a city full of scrappers:
Did Gritty save democracy, as these memes might suggest? Of course not. The media’s tendency to treat election coverage as a horse race creates the false idea that Biden “came from behind” to win, when the truth is that Philadelphia’s votes just took longer to count than votes in other parts of Pennsylvania, because it has so many more votes.
But you know what? I’m going to give Philly this one. Congrats to Gritty, a new American revolutionary.


vox--2020-11-06--The Trump campaign’s allegations of election fraud are a bunch of nonsense

It appears President-elect Joe Biden will win at least as many electoral votes as Donald Trump did in 2016 — a result Trump advisers touted as a landslide at the time .
But even with that outcome no longer in doubt , the Trump campaign is making a last-ditch effort to keep the president in power by attempting to delegitimize the whole election .
Their strategy is to make allegations first and hopefully find evidence for them later .
This state of affairs was thrown into stark relief late Friday morning during a Fox News interview with RNC Chair Ronna @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hosts appeared to be out of patience with her evidence-free insinuations that the election was somehow stolen from Trump .
“ We just haven ’ t seen it .
It hasn ’ t been presented .
There ’ s all kinds of stuff flying on the internet , but when we look into it , it doesn ’ t pan out , ” anchor Bret Baier told McDaniel , as she failed to explain how her technical gripes about election observers in Michigan could possibly affect the result in a state Biden appears @ @ @ @ @ @ @ votes .
Later Friday , the Minnesota Reformer broke news that McDaniel is pressuring state-level Republicans in Minnesota and elsewhere to echo her baseless public relations campaign about election fraud in hopes of creating the perception that Trump was somehow wronged .
The Trump campaign is employing a similar throw-stuff-against-the-wall strategy .
Consider the statement they released shortly after Vox and a number of other media outlets called the presidential race for Joe Biden on Friday morning .
“ This election is not over , ” it began , before going on to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ irregularities .
These claims , however , suffer from the same basic problem as McDaniel ’ s — they can ’ t withstand scrutiny .
The Trump campaign is throwing a bunch of stuff against the wall and hoping something sticks Trump ’ s statement claims that in Georgia , where Biden leads pending a recount , “ We are confident we will find ballots improperly harvested.
” But Georgia has a Republican governor and secretary of state , and there ’ s no evidence of improper harvesting .
It goes on to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our volunteer legal observers from having meaningful access to vote counting locations , ” but that argument has already been dismissed as a reason to stop the vote count in a federal court .
Even a Republican leader in Pennsylvania acknowledged during a Fox News appearance on Friday that there ’ s no evidence of election “ misdoing ” in the state .
In another state Trump is likely to narrowly lose , Nevada , the campaign statement alleges that there were “ thousands of individuals who improperly case mail ballots.
” But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to back up this claim on Thursday , and officials didn ’ t have any .
Trump , meanwhile , took to Twitter and implied that there ’ s something nefarious going on with unreturned military ballots in Georgia , even though news reports indicate the process is working as it should .
Beyond the lack of evidence , the idea that officials would rig the election against Trump while denying Democrats a majority in the Senate and costing them seats in the House is absurd on its face , and Trump defenders @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the possibility of irregularities surfacing during recounts .
While the courts and even Fox News don ’ t really seem to be buying what Trump is selling , the president does retain loyalty from key elected Republicans .
In the hours following a Thursday press event in which the president undermined US elections by making baseless allegations of fraud , House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Senators Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz went on Fox News and indicated they ’ ll stand by Trump as he fights it out to the bitter end @ @ @ @ @ @ @ significant , but barring some actual evidence of systemic irregularities that seems unlikely to be forthcoming , it won ’ t help Trump stay in office .
Trump lost the election and , in the end , it wasn ’ t particularly close .
All the spin in the world can ’ t change that .

It appears President-elect Joe Biden will win at least as many electoral votes as Donald Trump did in 2016 — a result Trump advisers touted as a landslide at the time. But even with that outcome no longer in doubt, the Trump campaign is making a last-ditch effort to keep the president in power by attempting to delegitimize the whole election.
Their strategy is to make allegations first and hopefully find evidence for them later. This state of affairs was thrown into stark relief late Friday morning during a Fox News interview with RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel. During it, Fox News hosts appeared to be out of patience with her evidence-free insinuations that the election was somehow stolen from Trump.
“We just haven’t seen it. It hasn’t been presented. There’s all kinds of stuff flying on the internet, but when we look into it, it doesn’t pan out,” anchor Bret Baier told McDaniel, as she failed to explain how her technical gripes about election observers in Michigan could possibly affect the result in a state Biden appears poised to win by well over 100,000 votes.
"We just haven't seen it" -- Even Fox News ain't buying it, Ronna pic.twitter.com/Ff8dc64Oyu — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 6, 2020
Later Friday, the Minnesota Reformer broke news that McDaniel is pressuring state-level Republicans in Minnesota and elsewhere to echo her baseless public relations campaign about election fraud in hopes of creating the perception that Trump was somehow wronged.
NEW from @rljourno: MNGOP Chair recruiting Minnesota Republicans to amplify Trump claims of ballot fraud https://t.co/hOYTbbi4CR pic.twitter.com/686NHEpb1z — Max Nesterak (@maxnesterak) November 6, 2020
The Trump campaign is employing a similar throw-stuff-against-the-wall strategy. Consider the statement they released shortly after Vox and a number of other media outlets called the presidential race for Joe Biden on Friday morning.
“This election is not over,” it began, before going on to make a number of specific allegations of irregularities.
These claims, however, suffer from the same basic problem as McDaniel’s — they can’t withstand scrutiny.
The Trump campaign is throwing a bunch of stuff against the wall and hoping something sticks
Trump’s statement claims that in Georgia, where Biden leads pending a recount, “We are confident we will find ballots improperly harvested.” But Georgia has a Republican governor and secretary of state, and there’s no evidence of improper harvesting.
A statement from the Trump campaign: "this election is not over." pic.twitter.com/92pV9EmBbM — Josh Wingrove (@josh_wingrove) November 6, 2020
It goes on to complain about Pennsylvania election officials preventing “our volunteer legal observers from having meaningful access to vote counting locations,” but that argument has already been dismissed as a reason to stop the vote count in a federal court. Even a Republican leader in Pennsylvania acknowledged during a Fox News appearance on Friday that there’s no evidence of election “misdoing” in the state.
"I don't have evidence of any misdoing" -- Republican Jake Korman, Majority Leader of the Pennsylvania State Senate, just now on Fox News pic.twitter.com/mRgoFv70FI — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 6, 2020
In another state Trump is likely to narrowly lose, Nevada, the campaign statement alleges that there were “thousands of individuals who improperly case mail ballots.” But reporters pressed the Trump campaign for evidence to back up this claim on Thursday, and officials didn’t have any.
Trump, meanwhile, took to Twitter and implied that there’s something nefarious going on with unreturned military ballots in Georgia, even though news reports indicate the process is working as it should.
Where are the missing military ballots in Georgia? What happened to them? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2020
Beyond the lack of evidence, the idea that officials would rig the election against Trump while denying Democrats a majority in the Senate and costing them seats in the House is absurd on its face, and Trump defenders are resorting to increasingly far-fetched arguments about the possibility of irregularities surfacing during recounts.
Trump defenders have resorted to suggesting that maybe evidence of irregularities will surface during recounts pic.twitter.com/b5eP9O9keU — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 6, 2020
While the courts and even Fox News don’t really seem to be buying what Trump is selling, the president does retain loyalty from key elected Republicans. In the hours following a Thursday press event in which the president undermined US elections by making baseless allegations of fraud, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Senators Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz went on Fox News and indicated they’ll stand by Trump as he fights it out to the bitter end.
That Republican support may be politically significant, but barring some actual evidence of systemic irregularities that seems unlikely to be forthcoming, it won’t help Trump stay in office. Trump lost the election and, in the end, it wasn’t particularly close. All the spin in the world can’t change that.


vox--2020-11-06--America fell in love with Steve Kornacki this week

There are very few instances in which I , a young person , will choose to watch network television .
The exception this year was election night ; in the exhausting days after , my eyes stayed glued to MSNBC ’ s flashing graphics as journalist Steve Kornacki zoomed in and out on an oversize map , doing hypothetical math to calculate the candidates ’ odds of reaching 270 electoral votes .
Kornacki was not the only map dude on air that night , but he was — according to the internet and my colleagues at The Goods — the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a night in which I needed as much comfort as possible , I switched streams from NBC ( sorry not sorry , Chuck Todd ) to MSNBC without a second thought .
As the hours dragged on , viewers began pointing out how Kornacki ’ s nerdishly disheveled energy was oddly soothing .
He was always present even during breaks , on the corner of the screen dubbed the “ Kornacki Cam.
” His resilience was so astounding that people began to develop an unforeseen crush on the 41-year-old , who some fans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” as Kornacki engaged in the most unsexy activity of all time : explaining electoral math for hours on end .
As a society , we have loved watching conventionally attractive people onscreen since the advent of films , but Kornacki doesn ’ t look like your typical movie star .
His on-air outfit is similar to that of a college professor who ’ s just made tenure : white dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves , glasses , khakis , and striped tie .
Under regular circumstances , Kornacki ’ s wonky aura @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Muir and Anderson Cooper , broadcasters with chiseled jaws and distinguished features .
This was election night , though , and Steve Kornacki was the reliable man many turned to with the most up-to-date information on the state of the race .
That infatuation has only magnified in later days , as viewers anxiously await vote updates from key battleground states .
On Twitter , fans have put together Kornacki fancams — short , pink-hued videos of the journalist in action overlaid with sparkle effects and catchy pop tracks .
CNN ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more viewers seem to view him as a benevolent father-type rather than an out-and-out thirst object .
The two men have fast-tracked their way to internet fame by virtue of explaining electoral maps to a very confused , very anxious public .
Some have argued that this collective Kornacki obsession is reflective of our anxiety-ridden reality : People have developed a mild crush on this bespectacled 41-year-old gentleman ( who happens to be gay ) as a sort of emotional coping mechanism for the political turbulence in our future .
The election was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and as the moment of national uncertainty likely begins to abate , so too will our fleeting feelings for Kornacki .
Perhaps he ’ ll return to be Twitter ’ s boyfriend in another four year ’ s time , but until then , let ’ s hope Kornacki gets some actual rest and relaxation .

There are very few instances in which I, a young person, will choose to watch network television. The exception, as of late, is to follow election coverage: During the presidential contest, my eyes stayed glued to MSNBC’s flashing graphics as journalist Steve Kornacki zoomed in and out on an oversize map, doing hypothetical math to calculate the candidates’ odds of reaching 270 electoral votes. The good news for Kornacki fans is that he’s back — this time to explain the results of the Georgia runoff elections.
Kornacki is not the only map dude on air (he’s a national political correspondent during non-election times), but according to the internet and my colleagues at The Goods, he is the most attractive to watch. And on the night of November 3 — in which I needed as much comfort as possible — I switched streams from NBC (sorry not sorry, Chuck Todd) to MSNBC without a second thought. Now, during the races that will determine whether Republicans or Democrats hold the majority in the US Senate, Kornacki will once again deliver assurance to those who seek it.
Related Live results for the pivotal Georgia Senate runoffs
In November, as the hours of election night dragged on, viewers began pointing out how Kornacki’s nerdishly disheveled energy was oddly soothing. He was always present even during breaks, on the corner of the screen dubbed the “Kornacki Cam.” His resilience was so astounding that people began to develop an unforeseen crush on the 41-year-old, whom some fans jokingly dubbed “Map Daddy,” as Kornacki engaged in the most unsexy activity of all time: explaining electoral math for hours on end. And in the rosy afterglow of the election, Kornacki was offered (and accepted) a gig analyzing NFL playoff scenarios for NBC Sports.
happy steve kornacki day to all who celebrate — Devi Ruia (@DeviRuia) January 5, 2021
As a society, we have loved watching conventionally attractive people onscreen since the advent of films, but Kornacki doesn’t look like your typical movie star. His on-air outfit is similar to that of a college professor who’s just made tenure: white dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves, glasses, khakis, and striped tie. Under regular circumstances, Kornacki’s wonky aura might fade against the likes of David Muir and Anderson Cooper, broadcasters with chiseled jaws and distinguished features. This was election night, though, and Steve Kornacki was the reliable man many turned to for the most up-to-date information on the state of the race.
That infatuation only magnified in later days, as viewers anxiously awaited vote updates from key battleground states. On Twitter, fans put together Kornacki fancams — short, pink-hued videos of the journalist in action overlaid with sparkle effects and catchy pop tracks. CNN’s John King was another favorite, but more viewers seemed to consider him a benevolent father type rather than an out-and-out thirst object. The two men fast-tracked their way to internet fame by virtue of explaining electoral maps to a very confused, very anxious public.
Some have argued that this collective Kornacki obsession is reflective of our anxiety-ridden reality: People have developed a mild crush on this bespectacled 41-year-old gentleman (who happens to be gay) as a sort of emotional coping mechanism for 2020’s political turbulence. For some, that crush remained dormant. The Georgia runoffs likely won’t take as long to be called as the presidential race, and as the moment of national uncertainty likely begins to abate, so too will our fleeting feelings for Kornacki. Perhaps he’ll return to be Twitter’s boyfriend in another four years’ time, but until then, let’s hope Kornacki gets some actual rest and relaxation.


vox--2020-11-06--Why Georgia has runoff elections

Why Georgia has runoff elections

America might not know which party will control the next US Senate until January — all due to Georgia ’ s peculiar election system rooted in the Jim Crow era .
To back up : In Georgia , no candidate can advance through a primary or a general election system without first earning more than 50 percent of the votes .
If no one does , the top two vote getters advance to a runoff election , ensuring that one will earn the majority of votes cast .
This year , the state ’ s two Senate races — one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to fill the remainder of a retired senator ’ s seat — have gone to a runoff .
The first will be between Sen. David Perdue and Democrat Jon Ossoff ; the latter will be between Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Democratic Rev .
Raphael Warnock .
At first glance , requiring majorities for an outright victory seems inoffensive — the person who wins has to be chosen by most of the people who cast their votes .
In theory , this would force candidates to appeal to more voters instead of winning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ holding views anathema to the majority of the electorate .
But Georgia ’ s runoff system has a darker origin : Many historians say it was designed to make it harder for the preferred candidates of Black voters to win , and to suppress Black political power .
The origin of Georgia ’ s runoff system is a little complicated .
It effectively starts in 1962 , when the Supreme Court struck down Georgia ’ s old electoral system .
That older system , called a “ county-unit system , ” was created @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ power while disadvantaging Black voters ’ , and was “ kind of a poor man ’ s Electoral College , ” University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock told Vox .
Forced to come up with a new system , Georgia created one intended to continue undermining Black voters ’ influence .
That was the runoff system , whose origins were detailed in a 2007 Interior Department report : Essentially , Groover wanted to stop Black Georgians from voting as a “ bloc ” — that is , overwhelmingly for one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ split their votes among many candidates .
In a plurality system , if Black voters were able to keep a coalition behind one candidate , they wouldn ’ t need the support of many white voters for their preferred candidate to win elections .
The method was popular across the former Confederacy : Alabama , Arkansas , Georgia , Mississippi , Oklahoma , South Carolina , and Texas all have general election runoffs .
As the Washington Post reported , just two non-Southern states have runoff rules , and those “ almost never @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like Bullock , who don ’ t believe this was designed to be a racially discriminatory institution , pointing out that the use of runoffs began at a time when Black voters had already been largely eliminated from the voter rolls .
Others have said there were good governance reasons for implementing the runoff system .
However , Cal Jillson , a professor at Southern Methodist University , told the Washington Post that most of the states that adopted runoff systems did it to “ ... maintain white Democratic domination of local politics @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the period show race was very much on the minds of those Democrats who advocated the primary-runoff process .
‘ People had no misgivings about stating their real intentions and stating them in racial terms , ’ ” Jillson told the paper .
Moreover , arguments about good governance and race neutrality are hard to square with Groover ’ s blatant racism as well as the context in which these decisions were being made — a time when Georgia and other Southern states were fighting to maintain white supremacy in voting institutions .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , decades after Groover fought to institute run-off elections , he admitted : “ I was a segregationist .
I was a county unit man .
But if you want to establish if I was racially prejudiced .
I was .
If you want to establish that some of my political activity was racially motivated , it was.
” Groover also confirmed that he “ used the phrase ‘ bloc voting ’ as a racist euphemism for Negro voting.
” A DeKalb County representative who supported Groover “ remembered Groover saying on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ e have got to go the majority vote because all we have to have is a plurality and the Negroes and the pressure groups and special interests are going to manipulate this State and take charge if we don ’ t go for the majority vote.
” So that all seems pretty clear .
The potential effect overturning Georgia ’ s runoff system could have on Black political power But did these efforts actually work as intended ?
The 1990 Justice Department seemed to think so .
That year , the DOJ sued @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Attorney General For Civil Rights John R. Dunne told the Los Angeles Times at the time that the runoff system has had “ a demonstrably chilling effect on the ability of blacks to become candidates for public office , ” and called the requirement “ an electoral steroid for white candidates.
” The Justice Department cited elections in more than 20 Georgia counties “ where at least 35 black candidates won the most votes in their initial primaries , but then lost in runoffs as voters coalesced around a white opponent.
” The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the suit contemporaneously , favorably comparing the George H.W .
Bush DOJ with the Reagan administration .
The American Civil Liberties Union , which had also unsuccessfully filed suit to discard the majority-vote requirement , applauded the lawsuit .
But there was real dissent around what eliminating this system would have done .
Thirty years ago , University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato told the Los Angeles Times that “ the Republican Justice Department in the name of minority rights is pursuing policies that will help Republicans.
” The logic here is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Black candidates in Democratic primaries are more likely to make it to the general election .
Some observers believed that white Democrats were harder to defeat than Black Democrats .
Therefore , the argument goes that while eliminating the runoff system could help Black candidates advance to the general election more often , Republicans would have an easier time beating them when they got there than their white counterparts .
The DOJ ’ s lawsuit was eventually consolidated with Brooks v. Miller , where 27 Black voters unsuccessfully challenged the majority-vote requirement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Court found that the plaintiffs were unable to prove that changing the runoff system would increase the number of Black elected officials .
They also found that “ discrimination was not a substantial or motivating factor behind enactment of the majority-vote provision.
” The court agreed that “ the virus of race-consciousness was in the air ” when majority voting was instituted but that “ the plaintiffs failed to prove that the majority-vote requirement was ‘ infected thusly.
” The only large data set presented in the case came from the state of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ looked at Georgia ’ s primary elections from 1970 to 1995 and found that there were 278 runoffs involving a Black candidate running against a white candidate .
In 85 of these cases , the candidate who won the plurality of votes in the initial primary lost in the runoff .
65 percent of those cases featured a Black candidate losing in the runoff after their initial victory .
However , the defendants convinced the court that “ the disparity of outcomes ... was attributable to the relative strength of individual candidates , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the runoff system .
At the end of the day , we don ’ t know a lot .
It ’ s obvious that a lot of racist people wanted to dilute Black voting power in 1960s Georgia .
Many of these people were in favor of eliminating the plurality system and instituting runoffs .
However , it ’ s difficult to know how this rule has affected Black representation and political potency in the state , since it ’ s impossible to determine the counterfactuals .
For instance , in a counterfactual @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republican Rep. Doug Collins or Loeffler might have withdrawn from the “ jungle primary ” to ensure Warnock couldn ’ t win in a plurality election .
Who knows ?
The fact of the matter is , all things equal , without Georgia ’ s runoff system , Raphael Warnock would have been elected outright to the US Senate .
But so would David Perdue .

America still doesn’t know which party will control the next US Senate — all due to Georgia’s peculiar election system rooted in the Jim Crow era.
How that system works: In Georgia, no candidate can advance through a primary or a general election system without first earning more than 50 percent of the votes. If no one does, the top two vote getters advance to a runoff election, ensuring that one will earn the majority of votes cast.
This election cycle, the state’s two Senate races — one regular, the other a special election to fill the remainder of a retired senator’s seat — have gone to January 5 runoffs. The regular election race is between Republican Sen. David Perdue and Democrat Jon Ossoff; the other is between Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Democrat Rev. Raphael Warnock.
Georgia voters who are heading to the polls Tuesday — and the more than 3 million voters who have already voted early — won’t just be choosing their two representatives in the upper chamber. They’ll also, as Vox’s Ella Nilsen explained, be determining “whether Democrats can take control of the Senate — and, therefore, political power in Washington.”
Related Live results for the pivotal Georgia Senate runoffs
At first glance, Georgia’s law requiring majorities for an outright victory seems inoffensive — the person who wins has to be chosen by most of the people who cast their votes. In theory, this would force candidates to appeal to more voters instead of winning with a large plurality of votes while holding views anathema to the majority of the electorate.
But Georgia’s runoff system has a darker origin: Many historians say it was designed to make it harder for the preferred candidates of Black voters to win, and to suppress Black political power.
The history of Georgia’s runoff system
The origin of Georgia’s runoff system is a little complicated.
It effectively began in 1962, when the Supreme Court struck down Georgia’s old electoral system. That older system, called a “county-unit system,” was created 45 years prior to amplify rural voters’ power while disadvantaging Black voters’, and was “kind of a poor man’s Electoral College,” University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock told Vox.
Forced to come up with a new system, Georgia created one intended to continue undermining Black voters’ influence. That was the runoff system, whose origins were detailed in a 2007 Interior Department report:
In 1963, state representative Denmark Groover from Macon introduced a proposal to apply majority-vote, runoff election rules to all local, state, and federal offices. A staunch segregationist, Groover’s hostility to black voting was reinforced by personal experience. Having served as a state representative in the early 1950s, Groover was defeated for election to the House in 1958. The Macon politico blamed his loss on “Negro bloc voting.” He carried the white vote, but his opponent triumphed by garnering black ballots by a five-to-one margin. Groover soon devised a way to challenge growing black political strength. Elected to the House again in 1962, he led the fight to enact a majority vote, runoff rule for all county and state contests in both primary and general elections. Until 1963, plurality voting was widely used in Georgia county elections...
Essentially, Groover wanted to stop Black Georgians from voting as a “bloc” — that is, overwhelmingly for one candidate or party — while white Georgians split their votes among many candidates. In a plurality system, if Black voters were able to keep a coalition behind one candidate, they wouldn’t need the support of many white voters for their preferred candidate to win elections.
The method was popular across the former Confederacy: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas all have primary election runoffs. As the Washington Post reported, just two non-Southern states have runoff rules, and those “almost never matter”:
In South Dakota, candidates for U.S. Senate, U.S. representative and governor must compete in a runoff if no one reaches 35 percent of the vote. In Vermont, a runoff is ordered if two candidates finish with the same number of votes.
There are some, like Bullock, who don’t believe this was designed to be a racially discriminatory institution, pointing out that the use of runoffs began at a time when Black voters had already been largely eliminated from the voter rolls. Others have said there were good governance reasons for implementing the runoff system.
However, Cal Jillson, a professor at Southern Methodist University, told the Washington Post that most of the states that adopted runoff systems did it to “maintain white Democratic domination of local politics. Letters and speeches that survive from the period show race was very much on the minds of those Democrats who advocated the primary-runoff process. “People had no misgivings about stating their real intentions and stating them in racial terms,” Jillson told the paper.
Moreover, arguments about good governance and race neutrality are hard to square with Groover’s blatant racism as well as the context in which these decisions were being made — a time when Georgia and other Southern states were fighting to maintain white supremacy in voting institutions.
As if to simplify the historical record, decades after Groover fought to institute runoff elections, he admitted: “I was a segregationist. I was a county unit man. But if you want to establish if I was racially prejudiced, I was. If you want to establish that some of my political activity was racially motivated, it was.”
Groover also confirmed that he “used the phrase ‘bloc voting’ as a racist euphemism for Negro voting.” A DeKalb County representative who supported Groover “remembered Groover saying on the House floor: ‘[W]e have got to go the majority vote because all we have to have is a plurality and the Negroes and the pressure groups and special interests are going to manipulate this State and take charge if we don’t go for the majority vote.”
So that all seems pretty clear.
The potential effect overturning Georgia’s runoff system could have on Black political power
But did these efforts actually work as intended?
The 1990 Justice Department seemed to think so. That year, the DOJ sued to overturn the runoff system. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights John R. Dunne told the Los Angeles Times at the time that the runoff system has had “a demonstrably chilling effect on the ability of blacks to become candidates for public office,” and called the requirement “an electoral steroid for white candidates.”
The Justice Department cited elections in more than 20 Georgia counties “where at least 35 black candidates won the most votes in their initial primaries, but then lost in runoffs as voters coalesced around a white opponent.” The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights praised the suit contemporaneously, favorably comparing the George H.W. Bush DOJ with the Reagan administration. The American Civil Liberties Union, which had also unsuccessfully filed suit to discard the majority-vote requirement, applauded the lawsuit.
But there was real dissent around what eliminating this system would have done.
Thirty years ago, University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato told the Los Angeles Times that “the Republican Justice Department in the name of minority rights is pursuing policies that will help Republicans.”
The logic here is that if the runoff system is eliminated, Black candidates in Democratic primaries are more likely to make it to the general election. Some observers believed that white Democrats were harder to defeat than Black Democrats. Therefore, the argument goes that while eliminating the runoff system could help Black candidates advance to the general election more often, Republicans would have an easier time beating them when they got there than their white counterparts.
The DOJ’s lawsuit was eventually consolidated with Brooks v. Miller, where 27 Black voters unsuccessfully challenged the majority-vote requirement. In 1998, the 11th Circuit Court found that the plaintiffs were unable to prove that changing the runoff system would increase the number of Black elected officials. They also found that “discrimination was not a substantial or motivating factor behind enactment of the majority-vote provision.”
The court agreed that “the virus of race-consciousness was in the air” when majority voting was instituted but that the plaintiffs failed to prove that the majority-vote requirement was “infected thusly.”
The only large data set presented in the case came from the state of Georgia’s expert witness. He looked at Georgia’s primary elections from 1970 to 1995 and found that there were 278 runoffs involving a Black candidate running against a white candidate. In 85 of these cases, the candidate who won the plurality of votes in the initial primary lost in the runoff. 65 percent of those cases featured a Black candidate losing in the runoff after their initial victory. However, the defendants convinced the court that “the disparity of outcomes ... was attributable to the relative strength of individual candidates,” not due to the unfairness of the runoff system.
It’s obvious that a lot of racist people wanted to dilute Black voting power in 1960s Georgia. Many of these people were in favor of eliminating the plurality system and instituting runoffs.
However, it’s difficult to know how this rule has affected Black representation and political potency in the state, since it’s impossible to determine the counterfactuals. For instance, in a world without a looming runoff system, Republican Rep. Doug Collins or Loeffler might have withdrawn from the “jungle primary” to ensure Warnock couldn’t win in a plurality election. Who knows?
But all things equal, without Georgia’s runoff system, Raphael Warnock would already be in the US Senate.
As would David Perdue.
Correction: This article has been updated to correctly state that Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas all have primary election runoffs, not general.


vox--2020-11-07--We need to talk about the white people who voted for Donald Trump

Americans will be dissecting the 2020 election for years to come , with analysts and ordinary voters alike parsing who voted for whom and wondering why this race was such a nail-biter .
But amid all the remaining uncertainty , one thing is abundantly clear : White people , yet again , showed up for Donald Trump .
In 2016 , white voters propelled Trump to the presidency , with 54 percent voting for him and 39 percent voting for Hillary Clinton , according to a 2018 Pew Research Center study .
And though the end result might be different @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no means comprehensive or exact — early evidence shows that white people ’ s voting patterns look much the same : 57 percent of this group voted to reelect the president while 42 percent voted for Democratic challenger Joe Biden , according to Edison Research ’ s exit polls of 15,590 voters conducted outside their polling places , at early voting sites , or by phone .
That makes white people the only racial group in which a majority voted for Trump , as Charles M. Blow notes at the New York Times @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Election Day focused on groups that made up much smaller parts of Trump ’ s coalition , especially Latinx voters , 32 percent of whom voted for the president , and Black voters , just 12 percent of whom did , according to the Edison Research data .
News stories charged Latinx voters with helping to “ sink ” Biden in Florida , and journalists began to analyze Black and Latinx voting patterns region by region with the hope of figuring out why some voters from these groups turned out for Trump .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to have gained about 3 percentage points each with Black , Latinx , and Asian American voters since 2016 ( exit polls appear not to have broken out Indigenous voters , instead lumping them into the category of “ other ” ) .
And pointing out that none of these groups are monolithic is an important corrective to the inaccurate idea that “ people of color ” are homogenous or always vote as a bloc .
But it ’ s also increasingly clear that Black , Latinx , and Indigenous voters were core @ @ @ @ @ @ @ swing states like Michigan , Pennsylvania , and Arizona .
And as analysts drill down into what happened on Election Day in states and counties around the country , it ’ s crucial not to lose sight of what ’ s staring us in the face : The support Trump has always received from white people .
This year , the majority of white Americans voted for Trump , even after a recession and a botched response to a pandemic that has left more than 200,000 dead .
And if we simply treat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Latinx votes are worthy of analysis , we essentially give white voters a pass for backing a racist campaign — twice .
“ White voters seem even more likely to vote for Trump in 2020 than in 2016 , in large numbers in the majority , ” Chryl Laird , assistant professor of government at Bowdoin College and coauthor of the book Steadfast Democrats : How Social Forces Shape Black Political Behavior , told Vox .
“ What does that say about the progress that we ’ ve made ?
” In what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s been a lot of focus on voters of color The focus on voters of color started on election night .
Trump took Florida , one of the first states to be called , creating the impression among many liberals that Biden was on the edge of losing .
Many were looking for answers , and one that got a lot of attention was the fact that Biden had underperformed Hillary Clinton in Miami-Dade County , home to many Cuban-American voters .
In the last two days , we ’ ve seen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as well as lots of focus on Trump ’ s gains among Black men nationwide .
The fact that Trump appears to have picked up votes since 2016 with every racial group except white men also got a lot of attention ( though what appears to be a small gain among white women has been less remarked upon ) .
It ’ s perhaps not surprising that voters of color who cast their ballots for Trump have gotten so much focus — after all , Trump has made racism the core of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beginning , when he called Mexicans “ rapists ” in his 2015 speech launching his first campaign .
But as many have pointed out , there ’ s a lot of diversity among Latinx voters in the US — a categorization that covers almost 60 million people who represent more than 15 origin countries and encompass a range of generational , socioeconomic , and religious identities — and not all of them necessarily had Trump ’ s 2015 comments top of mind on Tuesday .
What ’ s more , Trump has made @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in recent weeks while the Biden campaign has been criticized for neglecting Black and Latinx voters .
Analysis of their voting patterns — as well as those of Asian American and Indigenous voters — in the coming weeks could help push back against Democrats ’ tendency to take these groups of voters for granted .
But an increasingly clear picture is also emerging of Black voters in Georgia , Michigan , Wisconsin , and Pennsylvania helping push Biden to victory — and of Latinx and Indigenous voters in Arizona and elsewhere making a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ much attention has been paid to the minorities of voters of color who cast their ballots for Trump , there ’ s been less acknowledgment that according to exit polls , the majority of those voters — 87 percent of Black voters , 66 percent of Latinx voters , and 63 percent of Asian American voters — chose Biden .
Instead , as artist and activist Bree Newsome Bass wrote on Thursday , there ’ s been a tendency “ to scapegoat Black voters for a close election.
” While Biden ultimately defeated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to identify the blind spot or weakness among Democrats that led to a close election in the midst of a devastating pandemic .
But the answer has always been there : White people once again largely backed a president who champions a brand of nationalism that is steeped in racism and xenophobia .
White people have always been the key to Donald Trump ’ s success Despite his gains among voters of color , Trump ’ s base has always been white people .
That didn ’ t change in 2020 , when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And since white voters comprise the majority of the electorate — 65 percent according to Edison Research — they make up by far the largest bloc to support him .
Black and Latinx voters , meanwhile , make up 12 and 13 percent , respectively .
Much attention has been paid to a tide shift among white people in recent months .
It was just this summer that many white people were said to be experiencing a great awakening , a moment when anti-racism books were flying off the shelves and participants @ @ @ @ @ @ @ white supremacy and how to dismantle it .
( But let ’ s face it , white people buying anti-racism books probably weren ’ t going to vote for Trump in the first place .
After all , only 16 percent of white Republicans expressed at least some support for the Black Lives Matter movement in a September survey , down from 37 percent in June . )
A big part of progressives ’ mission this year was getting more white people to vote against Trump .
But the reality is grim : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ predicted , and that ’ s after Trump ’ s zero-tolerance family separation policy , after the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor that Trump did not denounce , after Covid-19 ravaged the country , and after Trump ’ s impeachment .
There has been no widespread rejection of Trump or white supremacy among white Trump supporters or even former supporters .
Perhaps there ’ s been little discussion about why white people voted for Trump because America has long taken for granted that white people will vote in their best @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for whiteness regardless of their socioeconomic status or the level of education they ’ ve attained .
There ’ s Trump ’ s most hardcore base — the vast majority of whom are white Americans who see no problem with what the president has said and done from the moment he announced his candidacy .
They get riled up when he says “ send her back !
” of a congresswoman and tells the Proud Boys to “ stand back and stand by ” or when he implements a Muslim travel ban .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ completely , ” Laird told Vox .
Then there ’ s another group of white voters who aren ’ t completely aligned with Trump but look past what they dislike about him in favor of his stance on the issues that concern them the most .
For example , there may be Trump voters who disagree with Trump ’ s racist rhetoric but don ’ t care enough to be dissuaded from backing him because they are pro-life or in favor of gun rights or oppose tax increases on the wealthy .
They @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from his child separation policies because they like his promise to put America first .
Instead of grappling with why anti-racism protests broke in small towns and cities across the nation , they just want things to go back to normal ; “ law and order ” seems like a good solution .
Ultimately , many white voters are simply attached to what Trump represents .
“ These voters are very much about the idea that the status quo isn ’ t a problem and that we should make America great again back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worry about PC culture , ” Laird said .
“ Because when you ’ re in power , why would you give it up ?
” This includes white women , who seem to have backed Trump in similar or even greater numbers this election than they did in 2016 — 55 percent of white female voters cast their ballots for Trump , according to Edison Research exit polls , while 43 percent voted for Biden .
White women ’ s support for Trump has historical precedent — they have long been able @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by allying themselves with white supremacy .
As historian Stephanie Jones-Rogers told Vox in 2018 , “ White girls and women were able to exercise power in this nation , from its colonial beginnings , because of their whiteness.
” Even against this backdrop , though the fact that a large share of white women seem to have voted to reelect Trump in the midst of a recession and nationwide child care crisis that have affected women most deeply is certainly deserving of scrutiny in the weeks and months to come .
Meanwhile @ @ @ @ @ @ @ white men in 2020 relative to 2016 .
However , he still captured a majority , with 58 percent of this group voting for him compared with 40 percent for Biden .
There has yet to be much analysis of Trump ’ s losses among white men — or what role the presence of a male candidate , rather than Hillary Clinton , at the top of the Democratic ticket played in this group ’ s choices in 2020 .
Similarly , white youth were the likeliest to support Trump , with 43 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and 29 voting for Trump , according to exit poll data analyzed by the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement .
By comparison , just 9 percent of young Black voters , 13 percent of young Asian voters , and 21 percent of young Latino voters backed Trump .
White people have been privileged to evade being at the center of the identity politics debate because America normalizes whiteness .
While other voters are solely discussed according to their broad-strokes racial groups , white people are free to deflect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in times of fear and uncertainty .
Blatantly ignoring how white people vote proves the power structure is not willing to hold a mirror up to itself .
Biden has defeated Trump , and while there are many factors that have contributed to that victory , one of them is the high voter turnout among Black and Latinx voters .
Equally important , though , is underscoring the fact that the majority of white American voters had little to do with it .

Americans will be dissecting the 2020 election for years to come, with analysts and ordinary voters alike parsing who voted for whom and wondering why this race was such a nail-biter. But amid all the remaining uncertainty, one thing is abundantly clear: White people, yet again, showed up for Donald Trump.
In 2016, white voters propelled Trump to the presidency, with 54 percent voting for him and 39 percent voting for Hillary Clinton, according to a 2018 Pew Research Center study. And though the end result might be different in 2020 — exit polls are by no means comprehensive or exact — early evidence shows that white people’s voting patterns look much the same: 57 percent of this group voted to reelect the president while 42 percent voted for Democratic challenger Joe Biden, according to Edison Research’s exit polls of 15,590 voters conducted outside their polling places, at early voting sites, or by phone. That makes white people the only racial group in which a majority voted for Trump, as Charles M. Blow notes at the New York Times.
But much media coverage immediately after Election Day focused on groups that made up much smaller parts of Trump’s coalition, especially Latinx voters, 32 percent of whom voted for the president, and Black voters, just 12 percent of whom did, according to the Edison Research data. News stories charged Latinx voters with helping to “sink” Biden in Florida, and journalists began to analyze Black and Latinx voting patterns region by region with the hope of figuring out why some voters from these groups turned out for Trump.
It’s true that Trump appears to have gained about 3 percentage points each with Black, Latinx, and Asian American voters since 2016 (exit polls appear not to have broken out Indigenous voters, instead lumping them into the category of “other”). And pointing out that none of these groups are monolithic is an important corrective to the inaccurate idea that “people of color” are homogenous or always vote as a bloc.
But it’s also increasingly clear that Black, Latinx, and Indigenous voters were core to giving Biden an edge in key swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Arizona. And as analysts drill down into what happened on Election Day in states and counties around the country, it’s crucial not to lose sight of what’s staring us in the face: The support Trump has always received from white people.
This year, the majority of white Americans voted for Trump, even after a recession and a botched response to a pandemic that has left more than 200,000 dead. And if we simply treat this fact as obvious while Black and Latinx votes are worthy of analysis, we essentially give white voters a pass for backing a racist campaign — twice.
“White voters seem even more likely to vote for Trump in 2020 than in 2016, in large numbers in the majority,” Chryl Laird, assistant professor of government at Bowdoin College and coauthor of the book Steadfast Democrats: How Social Forces Shape Black Political Behavior, told Vox. “What does that say about the progress that we’ve made?”
In what seems like a tight race, there’s been a lot of focus on voters of color
The focus on voters of color started on election night. Trump took Florida, one of the first states to be called, creating the impression among many liberals that Biden was on the edge of losing. Many were looking for answers, and one that got a lot of attention was the fact that Biden had underperformed Hillary Clinton in Miami-Dade County, home to many Cuban-American voters.
In the last two days, we’ve seen numerous examinations of what happened in Miami-Dade, as well as lots of focus on Trump’s gains among Black men nationwide. The fact that Trump appears to have picked up votes since 2016 with every racial group except white men also got a lot of attention (though what appears to be a small gain among white women has been less remarked upon).
According to the exit poll, Trump did better in 2020 with every race and gender except white men.
Change from 2016:
White Men -5
White Women +2
Black Men +4
Black Women +4
Latino Men +3
Latino Women +3
Other +5 pic.twitter.com/hUc17Iy1ip — Matt Bruenig (@MattBruenig) November 4, 2020
It’s perhaps not surprising that voters of color who cast their ballots for Trump have gotten so much focus — after all, Trump has made racism the core of his pitch to voters from the very beginning, when he called Mexicans “rapists” in his 2015 speech launching his first campaign. But as many have pointed out, there’s a lot of diversity among Latinx voters in the US — a categorization that covers almost 60 million people who represent more than 15 origin countries and encompass a range of generational, socioeconomic, and religious identities — and not all of them necessarily had Trump’s 2015 comments top of mind on Tuesday.
What’s more, Trump has made specific outreach to Cuban and Venezuelan Americans in recent weeks while the Biden campaign has been criticized for neglecting Black and Latinx voters. Analysis of their voting patterns — as well as those of Asian American and Indigenous voters — in the coming weeks could help push back against Democrats’ tendency to take these groups of voters for granted.
But an increasingly clear picture is also emerging of Black voters in Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania helping push Biden to victory — and of Latinx and Indigenous voters in Arizona and elsewhere making a big difference as well. And while much attention has been paid to the minorities of voters of color who cast their ballots for Trump, there’s been less acknowledgment that according to exit polls, the majority of those voters — 87 percent of Black voters, 66 percent of Latinx voters, and 63 percent of Asian American voters — chose Biden.
Instead, as artist and activist Bree Newsome Bass wrote on Thursday, there’s been a tendency “to scapegoat Black voters for a close election.”
The past 48 hrs has been folks trying unsuccessfully to scapegoat Black voters for a close election while denying that the 2020 results lay bare the realities of white America’s racism even more than 2016 — Bree Newsome Bass (@BreeNewsome) November 5, 2020
While Biden ultimately defeated Trump, there have been many efforts to identify the blind spot or weakness among Democrats that led to a close election in the midst of a devastating pandemic. But the answer has always been there: White people once again largely backed a president who champions a brand of nationalism that is steeped in racism and xenophobia.
White people have always been the key to Donald Trump’s success
Despite his gains among voters of color, Trump’s base has always been white people. That didn’t change in 2020, when a majority of white voters backed him. And since white voters comprise the majority of the electorate — 65 percent according to Edison Research — they make up by far the largest bloc to support him. Black and Latinx voters, meanwhile, make up 12 and 13 percent, respectively.
Much attention has been paid to a tide shift among white people in recent months. It was just this summer that many white people were said to be experiencing a great awakening, a moment when anti-racism books were flying off the shelves and participants pledged to do better by learning about white supremacy and how to dismantle it. (But let’s face it, white people buying anti-racism books probably weren’t going to vote for Trump in the first place. After all, only 16 percent of white Republicans expressed at least some support for the Black Lives Matter movement in a September survey, down from 37 percent in June.)
“White voters seem even more likely to vote for Trump in 2020 than in 2016, in large numbers in the majority.”
A big part of progressives’ mission this year was getting more white people to vote against Trump. But the reality is grim: The presidential race was much closer than predicted, and that’s after Trump’s zero-tolerance family separation policy, after the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor that Trump did not denounce, after Covid-19 ravaged the country, and after Trump’s impeachment. There has been no widespread rejection of Trump or white supremacy among white Trump supporters or even former supporters.
Perhaps there’s been little discussion about why white people voted for Trump because America has long taken for granted that white people will vote in their best interest — and that’s voting for whiteness regardless of their socioeconomic status or the level of education they’ve attained. There’s Trump’s most hardcore base — the vast majority of whom are white Americans who see no problem with what the president has said and done from the moment he announced his candidacy. They get riled up when he says “send her back!” of a congresswoman and tells the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” or when he implements a Muslim travel ban. “They’re aligned with him completely,” Laird told Vox.
Then there’s another group of white voters who aren’t completely aligned with Trump but look past what they dislike about him in favor of his stance on the issues that concern them the most. For example, there may be Trump voters who disagree with Trump’s racist rhetoric but don’t care enough to be dissuaded from backing him because they are pro-life or in favor of gun rights or oppose tax increases on the wealthy. They may be able to conveniently look away from his child separation policies because they like his promise to put America first. Instead of grappling with why anti-racism protests broke in small towns and cities across the nation, they just want things to go back to normal; “law and order” seems like a good solution.
Ultimately, many white voters are simply attached to what Trump represents. “These voters are very much about the idea that the status quo isn’t a problem and that we should make America great again back when we didn’t have to worry about PC culture,” Laird said. “Because when you’re in power, why would you give it up?”
This includes white women, who seem to have backed Trump in similar or even greater numbers this election than they did in 2016 — 55 percent of white female voters cast their ballots for Trump, according to Edison Research exit polls, while 43 percent voted for Biden. White women’s support for Trump has historical precedent — they have long been able to gain power in a sexist society by allying themselves with white supremacy. As historian Stephanie Jones-Rogers told Vox in 2018, “White girls and women were able to exercise power in this nation, from its colonial beginnings, because of their whiteness.” Even against this backdrop, though the fact that a large share of white women seem to have voted to reelect Trump in the midst of a recession and nationwide child care crisis that have affected women most deeply is certainly deserving of scrutiny in the weeks and months to come.
Meanwhile, Trump actually lost some ground with white men in 2020 relative to 2016. However, he still captured a majority, with 58 percent of this group voting for him compared with 40 percent for Biden. There has yet to be much analysis of Trump’s losses among white men — or what role the presence of a male candidate, rather than Hillary Clinton, at the top of the Democratic ticket played in this group’s choices in 2020.
Related Kamala Harris makes history as the first woman to become vice president
Similarly, white youth were the likeliest to support Trump, with 43 percent of white voters between ages 18 and 29 voting for Trump, according to exit poll data analyzed by the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. By comparison, just 9 percent of young Black voters, 13 percent of young Asian voters, and 21 percent of young Latino voters backed Trump.
White people have been privileged to evade being at the center of the identity politics debate because America normalizes whiteness. While other voters are solely discussed according to their broad-strokes racial groups, white people are free to deflect and scapegoat these other groups, especially in times of fear and uncertainty. Blatantly ignoring how white people vote proves the power structure is not willing to hold a mirror up to itself.
Biden has defeated Trump, and while there are many factors that have contributed to that victory, one of them is the high voter turnout among Black and Latinx voters. Equally important, though, is underscoring the fact that the majority of white American voters had little to do with it.


vox--2020-11-07--Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, who left the Democratic Party to back Trump, wins reelection

Rep. Jeff Van Drew ( NJ-2 ) , who was elected to the House of Representatives as a Democrat before switching parties and declaring his “ undying support ” for President Donald Trump , has won reelection .
The now-Republican first-term Congress member defeated his Democratic challenger , Amy Kennedy ( yes , she ’ s one of those Kennedys ) , according to a call by Decision Desk .
Van Drew , a dentist , spent decades in local politics and then New Jersey ’ s state Senate as a Democrat .
And when he decided to run for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vacated by its longtime representative , a retiring Republican , in 2018 , national Democrats were thrilled .
Party leaders viewed Van Drew as a strong recruit , in part because he had a pro-business record and sometimes sided with Republicans on cultural issues .
Progressives were less thrilled with his candidacy for this same reason , but Trump won this South Jersey district by 4.6 percentage points in 2016 , so Democratic leaders thought a moderate nominee was needed .
In the 2018 midterms , Van Drew did end up winning fairly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ regain the majority in the House of Representatives for the first time in eight years .
And then the trouble started .
Van Drew disdained some of the priorities of the Democrats ’ progressive wing , including Medicare-for-all and the Green New Deal , but he was hardly alone in that ( House Speaker Nancy Pelosi , for instance , opposes both ) .
He also was a staunch opponent of the liberal effort to impeach Trump based on special counsel Robert Mueller ’ s findings — but there , also , Pelosi @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reluctant for much of 2019 .
Yet the politics of impeachment shifted after a whistleblower ’ s revelation that Trump had pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to announce an investigation of the Bidens .
In September , Pelosi announced that she supported an impeachment inquiry , and most other moderate Democrats went with her .
Van Drew was an unusual exception .
He was one of just two House Democrats to vote no on a resolution setting rules for the impeachment inquiry .
And by December , when the House was about to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ word leaked out that Van Drew was planning to switch parties .
He made the switch shortly after voting no on the impeachment articles .
“ This is just a better fit for me , ” Van Drew said , while sitting next to Trump in the Oval Office .
“ It ’ s who I am .
It ’ s who I always was , but there was more tolerance of moderate Democrats , of Blue Dog Democrats , of conservative Democrats .
And I think that ’ s going away.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” he continued , addressing Trump , adding , “ always.
” Van Drew ’ s party switch enraged the Democratic base and earned him a strong challenger in Amy Kennedy , a former teacher who married former Rep. Patrick Kennedy ( D-RI ) — the late Sen. Ted Kennedy ’ s son .
Amy Kennedy beat back the South Jersey Democratic machine ’ s preferred candidate to win a surprisingly large victory in the primary .
She then raised millions to take on Van Drew in the general election , and soon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Drew believed that , in backing Trump , he was more in touch with what the voters of his district wanted .
And though Trump has lost reelection , Van Drew has survived .

Rep. Jeff Van Drew (NJ-2), who was elected to the House of Representatives as a Democrat before switching parties and declaring his “undying support” for President Donald Trump, has won reelection.
The now-Republican first-term Congress member defeated his Democratic challenger, Amy Kennedy (yes, she’s one of those Kennedys), according to a call by Decision Desk.
Van Drew, a dentist, spent decades in local politics and then New Jersey’s state Senate as a Democrat. And when he decided to run for the open Second District congressional seat being vacated by its longtime representative, a retiring Republican, in 2018, national Democrats were thrilled.
Party leaders viewed Van Drew as a strong recruit, in part because he had a pro-business record and sometimes sided with Republicans on cultural issues. Progressives were less thrilled with his candidacy for this same reason, but Trump won this South Jersey district by 4.6 percentage points in 2016, so Democratic leaders thought a moderate nominee was needed.
In the 2018 midterms, Van Drew did end up winning fairly easily, and his victory helped Democrats regain the majority in the House of Representatives for the first time in eight years.
Related 2020 House election live results
And then the trouble started.
Van Drew disdained some of the priorities of the Democrats’ progressive wing, including Medicare-for-all and the Green New Deal, but he was hardly alone in that (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for instance, opposes both). He also was a staunch opponent of the liberal effort to impeach Trump based on special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings — but there, also, Pelosi and many other moderate Democrats were similarly reluctant for much of 2019.
Yet the politics of impeachment shifted after a whistleblower’s revelation that Trump had pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to announce an investigation of the Bidens. In September, Pelosi announced that she supported an impeachment inquiry, and most other moderate Democrats went with her.
Van Drew was an unusual exception. He was one of just two House Democrats to vote no on a resolution setting rules for the impeachment inquiry. And by December, when the House was about to hold its final vote on impeachment, word leaked out that Van Drew was planning to switch parties.
He made the switch shortly after voting no on the impeachment articles. “This is just a better fit for me,” Van Drew said, while sitting next to Trump in the Oval Office. “It’s who I am. It’s who I always was, but there was more tolerance of moderate Democrats, of Blue Dog Democrats, of conservative Democrats. And I think that’s going away.”
“You have my undying support,” he continued, addressing Trump, “always.”
Van Drew’s party switch enraged the Democratic base and earned him a strong challenger in Amy Kennedy, a former teacher who married former Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) — the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s son.
Amy Kennedy beat back the South Jersey Democratic machine’s preferred candidate to win a surprisingly large victory in the primary. She then raised millions to take on Van Drew in the general election, and soon passed him in polls.
But Van Drew believed that, in backing Trump, he was more in touch with what the voters of his district wanted. And though Trump has lost reelection, Van Drew has survived.


vox--2020-11-07--Joe Biden didn’t claim victory on Friday — but he urged Americans to be patient

President-elect Joe Biden stopped short of declaring victory on Friday night , instead seeking to unify a divided nation and urge patience with the democratic process as the vote count continues in key states .
“ I know watching these vote tallies on TV move slowly upward can be numbing , ” Biden acknowledged in his speech in Wilmington , Delaware .
Vox in partnership with Decision Desk HQ has projected that the former vice president is the winner of the election , but other major news organizations have yet to call the race in his favor .
Biden appears @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that he is the president-elect to deliver a victory speech .
But then he quickly pivoted to a message of unity .
“ We may be opponents — but we are not enemies , ” he said .
Biden has often said on the campaign trail that he would be a president both to people who did vote for him and those who didn ’ t .
He reiterated that message on Friday night , saying that he feels a “ duty of care for all Americans ” to deal with pressing issues @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and climate change .
“ The purpose of our politics is not total unrelenting warfare , ” he said .
“ We have to put the anger and demonization behind us .
It ’ s time for us to come together as a nation to heal.
” He said that even though the votes are still being counted , he is not wasting any time in getting ready to assume the presidency just as the US reported the highest number of new Covid-19 cases in a single day and approaches 240,000 total @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that he and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris have been taking meetings with public health and economic experts to prepare to deal with the pandemic and an increasingly precarious economic recovery .
“ We ’ re not waiting to get the work done , ” he said .
Biden , who has earned a record 74 million votes and counting , also projected confidence that he has achieved a decisive victory , claiming that Americans have “ given us a mandate.
” He predicted that he would become the first Democratic presidential candidate to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ win Georgia in 28 years .
President Donald Trump has yet to concede the election and multiple news outlets have reported that he doesn ’ t intend to do so , but Biden assured Americans to nevertheless maintain faith in the democratic process .
“ Look , we both know tensions are high , ” he said .
“ But we need to remember — we have to remain calm .
As we count all the votes , we ’ re proving again what we ’ ve proved for 244 years in this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will be counted .
I don ’ t care how hard people try to stop it .
I will not let it happen.
” “ I hope to be talking to you tomorrow , ” he added , suggesting that he anticipates that a consensus will emerge about the result in the next 24 hours .
Meanwhile , Trump has baselessly claimed that Democrats are “ trying to steal an election ” while filing a slew of lawsuits in Pennsylvania , Michigan , and Georgia seeking better access for Republicans to monitor the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mail-in ballots from being counted .
Trump has invoked that litigation in calling into question the legitimacy of the vote counts and Biden ’ s victory .
Republican officials have also alleged widespread voter fraud without presenting any evidence .
However , new reporting on Friday suggests that aides are quietly wondering how to approach Trump about the fact that the election is unwinnable .
Races remain uncalled in several states , including in Georgia , where a recount is expected due to the small margin .
But Biden didn ’ t need @ @ @ @ @ @ @ already surpassed the 270 electoral vote threshold to become the next president and could still win more electoral votes .
Trump was not scheduled to address the American people on Friday night , but he said in a series of tweets that Biden should not yet claim victory while legal proceedings are ongoing and questioned how Biden had taken the lead in key states .

President-elect Joe Biden stopped short of declaring victory on Friday night, instead seeking to unify a divided nation and urge patience with the democratic process as the vote count continues in key states.
“I know watching these vote tallies on TV move slowly upward can be numbing,” Biden acknowledged in his speech in Wilmington, Delaware.
Vox in partnership with Decision Desk HQ has projected that the former vice president is the winner of the election, but other major news organizations have yet to call the race in his favor. Biden appears to be waiting until there is consensus that he is the president-elect to deliver a victory speech.
But then he quickly pivoted to a message of unity. “We may be opponents — but we are not enemies,” he said.
Biden has often said on the campaign trail that he would be a president both to people who did vote for him and those who didn’t. He reiterated that message on Friday night, saying that he feels a “duty of care for all Americans” to deal with pressing issues including the Covid-19 pandemic, racial justice, and climate change.
“The purpose of our politics is not total unrelenting warfare,” he said. “We have to put the anger and demonization behind us. It’s time for us to come together as a nation to heal.”
He said that even though the votes are still being counted, he is not wasting any time in getting ready to assume the presidency just as the US reported the highest number of new Covid-19 cases in a single day and approaches 240,000 total deaths from the virus. He said that he and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris have been taking meetings with public health and economic experts to prepare to deal with the pandemic and an increasingly precarious economic recovery.
“We’re not waiting to get the work done,” he said.
Biden, who has earned a record 74 million votes and counting, also projected confidence that he has achieved a decisive victory, claiming that Americans have “given us a mandate.” He predicted that he would become the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Arizona in 24 years and to win Georgia in 28 years.
President Donald Trump has yet to concede the election and multiple news outlets have reported that he doesn’t intend to do so, but Biden assured Americans to nevertheless maintain faith in the democratic process.
“Look, we both know tensions are high,” he said. “But we need to remember — we have to remain calm. As we count all the votes, we’re proving again what we’ve proved for 244 years in this country: Democracy works. Your vote will be counted. I don’t care how hard people try to stop it. I will not let it happen.”
“I hope to be talking to you tomorrow,” he added, suggesting that he anticipates that a consensus will emerge about the result in the next 24 hours.
Meanwhile, Trump has baselessly claimed that Democrats are “trying to steal an election” while filing a slew of lawsuits in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia seeking better access for Republicans to monitor the ballot counting process and to prevent certain mail-in ballots from being counted.
Trump has invoked that litigation in calling into question the legitimacy of the vote counts and Biden’s victory. Republican officials have also alleged widespread voter fraud without presenting any evidence.
However, new reporting on Friday suggests that aides are quietly wondering how to approach Trump about the fact that the election is unwinnable.
Races remain uncalled in several states, including in Georgia, where a recount is expected due to the small margin. But Biden didn’t need Georgia to win, since he had already surpassed the 270 electoral vote threshold to become the next president and could still win more electoral votes.
Trump was not scheduled to address the American people on Friday night, but he said in a series of tweets that Biden should not yet claim victory while legal proceedings are ongoing and questioned how Biden had taken the lead in key states.