> Trump has 248 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House. Trump is leading in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. The AP is awaiting late vote updates from Michigan’s Wayne County and Wisconsin’s Milwaukee County, two Democratic strongholds that present Harris’ only path to win either state. In Pennsylvania, her path is even more narrow.
> Both Trump and Harris knew that the path to victory most likely went through Pennsylvania, with their campaigns racking up visits to the state and each side pouring in millions of dollars’ worth of resources. It seems, though, that it just wasn’t enough to stop Harris’ margins from slipping in rural counties enough to overcome her advantage in cities and suburbs
> Well, looking at the results in Georgia, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, that has panned out — Trump is projected to win each of those states by 3 or 4 points. He’s looking like he might win the popular vote as well for the first time, or at least keep it close, which is also in line with previous surveys.
> Trump has 267 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House. Trump is leading in Michigan and Wisconsin, where his two clearest paths to victory rely on Harris not winning enough of the outstanding votes in Wayne and Milwaukee counties. The AP is waiting on the next update from both locations to determine whether Harris has any path to overtake Trump in either state.
But don't lose hope. If I have to wait four more years tolerating years of torment, gutting of environmental development by Biden, cosying up to dictators, so be it.
@Nzall I'm disabled, dependent upon Social Security disability, and have maxed out my student loans - about to graduate. I had been hoping to find work in the federal government that I could do remotely under one of those DEI programs Trump loves so much. Everything looks rosy here!
> South Dakota became the second state to reject a ballot measure that would have restored or protected abortion access since the overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022. (AP)
Jones is left to the US liberals. But he is straight on his assessments.
Far right is alive and can't be more powerful.
Last time, it generated a counter rise in progressive left. The establishment worked hard to suppress Bernie. Let's see if the democrats have the gut to learn anything.
> The establishment democrats are not known for self-reflecfion.
> This is a dark, dark day for people around the globe. The world’s largest economy and most powerful military will be led by a dangerous, destructive demagogue.
> Women, the argument ran, would flood to the polls this year too, and hand Harris victory despite her deficit of support among men. In reality, women trended to Trump—and men shifted towards him by 6 points. He won them by 10.
> Trump Made Gains With White College-Educated Voters
> He still lost them (by 10 points), but he improved on 2020, which was all he needed to do given his strength elsewhere.
He also gained with white non-college-educated voters, improving his extraordinary margins among them by 2 points, winning them by 31 points over Harris—exit polls suggest.
> Trump Won Hispanic Men
> Trump did 16 points better with Hispanic voters than in 2020: his biggest improvement with any voting bloc.
One-in-five Black men voted for Trump, according to initial exit polls, as Trump cut the Democratic lead among Black voters by 9 points.
> Trump Won Late Deciders
> Trump narrowly won among voters who decided in the last few days (by 2 points) and the past week (by 8) according to exits—a finding that is as counter-narrative as it gets.
> Trump Barely Lost Among Mildly Pro-Choice Voters
> Abortion was supposed to be one of Harris’ strongest issues. She led strongly among voters who were avowedly pro-choice.
But Trump was, crucially, able to reassure voters who are mildly pro-choice, believing it should be legal “in most cases”.
He lost this group—who make up a third of the electorate—by only 4 points, neutering a key attack line of the Harris campaign.
> Trump Won Among Voters Who Think Democracy Is ‘Very Threatened’
> Harris won among voters who said they were most concerned about democracy. But Trump, in a finding that will surprise a lot of liberal voters, narrowly won among voters who consider democracy “very threatened.”
> Trump Won One-in-Ten of the Voters Who Didn’t Like Him
> Only 44 per cent of the 2024 electorate, according to exits, had a favorable view of Trump. 54 per cent did not. A clear majority in the country existed to reject him.
Yet Trump won 9 per cent of this 54 per cent bloc. They didn’t like him, but they chose him over Harris.
These are simply mind boggling. Pro choice women voting for Trump. Why?
> Does America deserve Trump? In the years since he rose to power, one theory posits that he is merely the manifestation of the nation’s unexorcised demons – a vestige of the racism that allowed this country to build its economy off the backs of the enslaved,
> of the casual relationship to violence that allowed it to build its territory and its global hegemony through violent conquest and coercion, of the grubby love of money and shameless disregard for principle that have always motivated our rapacious economy.
> In this version of the story, Trump is not merely a morbid symptom, but something like America’s comeuppance, a punishment for our sins. Living under his rule takes on the grim appropriateness of one of those ironic punishments in the underworlds of classical mythology, or in the hell of Dante’s Inferno. It is a feature of this horror that those who suffer most under his rule are usually those who are least culpable for these trespasses.
> Because we never really atoned – not for slavery, not for empire, not for the slaughter and dispossession of Indigenous Americans or the war and exploitation of foreign countries – this is what we now must endure: a figure who brings these cruelties home and who mocks our self-flattering delusion that we ever were, ever could have been, anything else.
Montana voters chose to protect the right to an abortion in their state constitution, reports the Associated Press (AP).
> Our survey found strong support for this kind of economic populist messaging and widespread antipathy for billionaires and corporate elites, especially among constituencies that Harris has struggled to reach — union members, voters without a college degree, and blue-collar voters, with whom Harris was trailing by 4, 7, and 19 points respectively in our poll.
> Despite these clear findings, Harris has pivoted away from anti-elite, economic messaging in the last month of the campaign and backtracked or de-emphasized some of her more popular policies in response to pressure from the business community.
> Democrats have once again decided to place the very risky bet that catering to moderate, college-educated voters will win more support than it loses in working-class defections. Leading up to election day, they’ve put most of their chips on a message that warns voters of the threat posed by a second Trump presidency. If our study’s results are any indication, it’s a gamble that could backfire massively.
> the strong populist and progressive economic sound bites outperformed other messaging strategies by wide margins, followed by Harris’s “opportunity economy,” soft populist, abortion, immigration, and, last of all, democracy messages.
> Democrats have once again decided to place the very risky bet that catering to moderate, college-educated voters will win more support than it loses in working-class defections. Leading up to election day, they’ve put most of their chips on a message that warns voters of the threat posed by a second Trump presidency. If our study’s results are any indication, it’s a gamble that could backfire massively.
After 2016, it was Bernie inspired progressives which won back House and subsequently Senate.
> Many voters spoke of the Trump presidency with a rosy glow of nostalgia, apparently overlooking its 400,000 coronavirus deaths, worst year for jobs since the second world war and systematic effort to divide, not unite, the American people. He could do no wrong in the eyes of his cult-like following, a freakishly resilient appeal that has three main components.
American people have goldfish memories.
> As a woman of colour, she was held to a different standard by a nation grown numb and indifferent to Trump’s excesses. “He gets to be lawless. She has to be flawless,” CNN senior political commentator Van Jones observed.
> Trump has understood that, whereas Ronald Reagan and Obama resonated in an era of aspiration, this is an age of anxiety. The upper-working class and lower-middle class fear loss of status and yearn for a safety blanket. Young people worry they will be worse off than their parents’ generation and unable to buy homes. Many, wrongly, perceive Trump as an economic populist because he rails against elites and “says it like it is” or “speaks how they feel” or “doesn’t give a fuck”.
@User1865345 i'd say more small minded. i recall the other day seeing a woman refer to America as "the world" when she was explaining why she was voting for Trump
> For nearly a decade he has tapped into America’s id: a long and painful racial history of progress and backlash, stoked anew by the election of Obama and white Christians finding themselves in the minority. Xenophobia is at the heart of his political identity. In addition, his campaign spent millions on ads fuelling hysteria about transgender rights (“Kamala’s agenda is they/them, not you”).
@Memor-X indeed. Trump resonated with the rabid nativist anxiety of the majority of the Americans.
For two times, he has successfully sold his image as an outsider rallying against the elites. He is for common people. He will fight for them.
Populist movement never died. Why was Bernie so popular (and he still is) despite being the most progressive as pundits would say?
To tackle the wide problem of Trumpism, you have to speak like Bernie Sanders. A populist beats a populist.
> Trump or no Trump, the Democratic Party is suffering from a problem that goes beyond any one candidate. Culture matters as much as policy, and they would be wise to acknowledge it now if they hope to stem the rush of people calling the Republican Party — even this one — home.
And more importantly, accept the fact that Dems have no answer to the propaganda machine that is Fox.
> the strong populist and progressive economic sound bites outperformed other messaging strategies by wide margins, followed by Harris’s “opportunity economy,” soft populist, abortion, immigration, and, last of all, democracy messages.
> There was no clear vision, no shared rage with the American people at the state of the country: if there was anything deeply wrong with the US, her campaign seemed to suggest, it was the existence of the Trumpist movement, and voting for Harris could finally turn the page on that.
> Sure, hostility to migrants cannot simply be reduced to economic grievance. A chunk of the Trumpist movement fear what they see as an existential threat to white America, and believe that unless the Democrats are ejected, the US will reach a tipping point which will permanently subsume them demographically.
> For others, it isn’t simply blind racism, but misdirected anger caused by social discontent. At one rally, a former miner – and longtime union member – wistfully spoke of the death of his industry, and how it harmed the communities sustained by it. Others blamed migrants for their own poor wages or lack of work. Without a politician to offer a compelling alternative explanation, Trumpist scapegoating filled the vacuum.
This is pretty unarguable:
> In the conversations I had, it didn’t matter how much I countered that Trump was a very rich man with a record of, say, not paying workers overtime; his supporters defiantly told me he understood people like them. Why? Because he at least didn’t think that the country was basically fine, and just in need of minor tweaks.
> Harris’s team had clearly decided that continuity was “playing it safe”, but the US people wanted something different. What was missing was an economic agenda which recognised that large swathes of the American people are hurting.
> That veteran leftwing senator Bernie Sanders, one of the country’s most popular politicians, speaks to that: after all, economic populism is what he is known for above all else. Sanders shows such a message can reach audiences who otherwise find leftwingers culturally alien and offputting.
> Instead, Harris made the preservation of democracy the key dividing line. For some voters, this was either too abstract or they simply didn’t care: they wanted politicians to solve their problems. The failure to satisfy those grievances will have costly consequences for the US and beyond. The Democratic establishment will undoubtedly blame others for this. But they did this – this is on them, and a reckoning surely beckons.
@User1865345 I think this is key: The general public doesn't care about whether their leader is democratically elected or not. They just want them to solve their problems
Because he was able to sell the image of an outsider populist taking on the elites.
It didn't happen overnight. This started from the apprentice days. That show made a false persona that a failed businessman like him was a business mogul.
@User1865345 my hope is that the US becomes enough of an hellscape by next years elections to every other party be able to poiint to the us and say 'YOU WANT THAT???'
@User1865345 thats valid. The orange is so squeezed by the 1% today that what most people want is to flip the fucking table. Harris message was 'lets continue in the same path we are'
> Kamala Harris is a woman of color in an interracial marriage running as a woman to be the head of state," Sharpton began. "That is something a lot of Americans are not ready to deal with. How we move that forward, we need to face it and deal with it and I hope we do it in a way that shows that we will be more mature than when they lost [in 2020]. There will be no January 6 insurrection from our side. It must be the maturing of America.
I am of the opinion that there was misogyny definitely. But to blame this factor simply for this disastrous defeat is over simplification.
Walz is a wonderful governor with progressive values. He would have been a break from this administration.
Any candidate with vocal progressive agenda coming from a robust primary should have been a better option than Kamala.
The elder democrats erred greatly. Biden withdrew when there was no time. The initial thrust was due to this only. Gradually this declined and replaced by the "continuity" factor for Kamala.
Even though she was more articulate than Donald, her voice didn't pierce through the rabid noise of Donald.
Summary: Misogyny responsible? yes. But solely responsible? Big no.
> Democratic three-term congresswoman Susan Wild has conceded to her Republican challenger, Ryan Mackenzie, in Pennsylvania’s hotly contested 7th congressional district.
At the current stage, AOC would lose definitely. That's true.
I am using AOC as an example only, just to emphasize how a populist outsider image of Trump has to be countered by an equally outsider populist leader.
It would be a blunder if they go for a moderate. Centrists won't work against Trump.
Biden won because the covid scarce and misery were simply too much to be forgettable.
> One of the women, Suzanne S, said she had voted for Donald Trump but was surprised he had done so well in Scranton because there was heavy support for Kamala Harris in the city.
She voted for Trump, saying he was “bold” and “brazen.” “Does he say things that he shouldn’t say? Absolutely,” she said. “He also says things that a lot of us just say behind closed doors that aren’t being recorded.”
She started to go on before taking a long pause and saying “I don’t know if I should say this.”
“The whole transgender movement and stuff I don’t agree with,” she said. “My daughter has worked ver…
Hatred against transgender. And getting swayed by the crude but noisy candidate.
There is no evidence trans athletes are depriving female athletes in their sports. Again it's fear mongering and propaganda.
How easy it's for people to fall for such rabid issues.
:66573965 Cancelling the star on this message since I don't actually have a source for it. Just something I saw in a comment on reddit.
Also clearing out some stars on non-news items, which is basically what mine was too, since I didn't have any type of source. Was just an off-hand comment of mine.
@Mast again won't disagree, but you need to have the knack to sell that. You may hate Donald but he is, coupled with the media and Elon, efficient in selling his half baked blunt yet nice sound bites to his base as well as others.
@Wipqozn no problem.
Very hard night. Some might have starred dealing with anxiety and depression simultaneously. 🙂
@Mast and without consideration to what services will need to be cut to accommodate those tax breaks. No one likes taxes, but they exist for a reason.
@User1865345 Oh I'm sure. It's not like, a big deal or anything. IT's just that if we start allowing a few messages that aren't news items in the starred list, then people will start to wonder why we allow it sometimes and not others. Which would be fair. Just trying to be consistent is all.
@Memor-X The term 'globalist' has often been spit at me as an epithet. I try to point out that we do, in fact, share a globe with people who <checks notes> aren't us, but them's fighting words.
@Jolenealaska That sounds like the same type of person who will blame an immigrant for "stealing" their job but not the employer who fired them and hired someone else would will work harder/longer for lower pay.
As a non-american, my largest concerns are: - The Damage that'll happen to climate measures - How America will respond to increasing threats from Russia - How this will influence other elections across the world
> This is a dark, dark day for people around the globe. The world’s largest economy and most powerful military will be led by a dangerous, destructive demagogue.
The reaction from the leader of Liberal Democrats of UK.
> Beaming from ear to ear, state TV host Olga Skabeeva announced Trump’s “resounding” victory and remarked, “Trump now has 24 hours to end the war in Ukraine. Donald, the clock is ticking! This is what Trump has promised.” This excitement is based on a certainty in Moscow that Trump’s concept of ending this war simply means stopping U.S. aid to Ukraine and rewarding Vladimir Putin by handing over a handsome collection of Ukrainian territories to Russia.
> During his evening show The Evening With Vladimir Solovyov, host Vladimir Solovyov predicted that Trump would simply “blackmail” the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into going along with his preferred solution by getting Elon Musk to cut off the access to Starlink in Ukraine and by immediately ceasing all U.S. aid and any access to the data provided by the U.S. military intelligence to the beleaguered country facing Russia’s aggression.
> During the broadcast of The Big Game, host Dmitry Suslov said, “There is only one place in the world where the mood is worse than it is at Kamala Harris’ campaign headquarters: Bankova Street, the office of the president of Ukraine in Kyiv.”
> The host of the show The Meeting Place Andrey Norkin didn’t hide his sentiments. He said, “In America, Trump once again beat a broad—this time, it was an even nastier broad than the one he beat eight years earlier.” Co-host Ivan Trushkin happily noted, “I watched CNN last night, it looked like a funeral.”
> Today, despite strong opposition from a majority of Americans, we continue to spend billions funding the extremist Netanyahu government’s all out war against the Palestinian people which has led to the horrific humanitarian disaster of mass malnutrition and the starvation of thousands of children.
Yeh. The establishment bows to AIPAC. And Michigan is gone thus.
> Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign? Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing? Do they have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful Oligarchy which has so much economic and political power? Probably not.
> In the coming weeks and months those of us concerned about grassroots democracy and economic justice need to have some very serious political discussions.
Nothing will change in the democratic Party. They will just wait in the hope that the stupidity just somehow gets bored with Trump.
> "These monied interests are on the frontlines of destroying our democracy, taking away the power of voters through their unprecedented spending in elections," said the executive director of Justice Democrats.
> Such dark money groups have proliferated widely since the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision, which—along with other rulings and congressional inaction—allowed torrents of untraceable cash to flood the nation's political system, warping and undermining the electoral process.
"It's Citizens United's world, we're just living in it," researcher Becca Lewis wrote Wednesday morning.
> Rojas acknowledged Wednesday that "there are no easy answers for where we as a country and movement go from here" following such a decisive win for Trump and his far-right Republican Party, which has no interest in reforming the federal campaign finance system.
> "But what is clear to us is that politically courageous leaders at the federal level are needed now more than ever," she said, warning that the Democratic Party is "rapidly losing its legitimacy amongst the everyday people and marginalized communities continuously used as stepping stones to win elections."
"For as long as our party has cozied up with corporate CEOs, right-wing billionaires, and big money super PACs," Rojas added, "everyday people in this country have seen Democrats' populist platitudes as hypocrisy at best, and outright deceitful at worst."
> Though Democrats lost the Senate, nearly every Democratic Senate candidate outperformed Harris, while progressive policy referendums succeeded nationwide
Citing national security concerns, the federal government has ordered TikTok to close its Canadian operations — but users will still be able to access the popular app. cbc.ca/news/politics/tiktok-canada-review-1.7375965
