Some Closing Arguments & Predictions
Tom Nichols on Never Trumpers: I believe that if all of us had caved, Trump would now be much closer to victory, not just at the polls, but over the Constitution itself. Many of us instead held firm and made the case for democracy and the rule of law from the right flank against our own tribe…. when Trump is gone (whether after this election or in 2024), I will continue to oppose everyone who had anything to do with inflicting this scar on American history, long after the members of the Trump family are finally bankrupt, in rehab, in jail, or living in seclusion in Manhattan among the neighbors who already despise them.
Current and former Trump Administration officials reach out to Ron Suskind to share their concerns anonymously: They are worried that the president could use the power of the government — the one they all serve or served within — to keep himself in office or to create favorable terms for negotiating his exit from the White House. Like many other experts inside and outside the government, they are also concerned about foreign adversaries using the internet to sow chaos, exacerbate divisions and undermine our democratic process….
They are loath to give up too many precise details, but it’s not hard to speculate from what we already know. Disruption would most likely begin on Election Day morning somewhere on the East Coast, where polls open first. Miami and Philadelphia (already convulsed this week after another police shooting), in big swing states, would be likely locations. It could be anything, maybe violent, maybe not, started by anyone, or something planned and executed by any number of organizations, almost all of them on the right fringe, many adoring of Mr. Trump. The options are vast and test the imagination.
The F.B.I., meanwhile, is bracing for huge challenges. “We are all-hands-on-deck for the foreseeable future,” the F.B.I. official I mentioned earlier told me. “We’ve been talking to our state and local counterparts and gearing up for the expectation that it’s going to be a significant law-enforcement challenge for probably weeks or months,” this official said. “It feels pretty terrifying.”
Echoing this, Trump said on a rally on Saturday: “We’re going to be waiting. Nov. 3 is going to come and go, and we’re not going to know. And you’re going to have bedlam in our country.”
Pre-Election Day
Here is a round up of election street action that started over the weekend, including Trump carvans block traffic in New York and New Jersey on Sunday.
An early voting rally in North Carolina was pepper sprayed by police, including children and elderly.
In Pennsylvania, more liberal counties say they will start counting mail in ballots as soon as the law allows, which is early Election Day morning, while conservative counties say they will wait to even start until after Election Day.
About the “poll watchers” Trump’s team has been coaching: If the president decides to contest the election’s results, his campaign could let loose a blizzard of misleading, decontextualized video clips as “proof” that the vote can’t be trusted…. But the poll watchers’ real influence may not be felt until they go home and start uploading their videos. Three Democratic strategists who are involved in post-election “scenario planning” told me that—barring a blowout on Election Night—Americans should expect a last-ditch disinformation blitz from Trump and his allies to create the impression of wide-scale cheating.
Election Night
Trump’s first statement came at 12:44am Wednesday morning: We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Poles are closed!
The map was static from mid-day Wednesday through Saturday morning.
Around 4am Friday morning Biden overtook Trump in Georgia, though the margins are so close the race could take weeks before a final call.
Trump gave remarks Thursday evening from the briefing room of the White House.
This from the fivethirtyeight liveblog, posted after Trump’s speech, seems to be true for most news orgs this week: one part of Trump’s reelection strategy has been actively trying to delegitimize the result for weeks, months now (even dating back to 2016, when he won). The outcome of the 2020 presidential election is not yet known, and it won’t become clear until we have results in Pennsylvania and Arizona, but since Trump made it clear that he would take this route, we talked over how we would handle things in the FiveThirtyEight newsroom.
Here’s where we landed: If Trump falsely or prematurely declares victory or tries to delegitimize the result … our priorities would be (i) don’t let Trump’s false/premature claim dominate our coverage or alter our framing of the night, while (ii) still making clear to readers why the claim is false/premature and carries no legal power. Those continue to be our guiding principles.
America is now a different country. Nearly half of the voters have seen Trump in all of his splendor—his infantile tirades, his disastrous and lethal policies, his contempt for democracy in all its forms—and they decided that they wanted more of it. His voters can no longer hide behind excuses about the corruption of Hillary Clinton or their willingness to take a chance on an unproven political novice. They cannot feign ignorance about how Trump would rule. They know, and they have embraced him.
Tom Nichols: America is now a different country. Nearly half of the voters have seen Trump in all of his splendor—his infantile tirades, his disastrous and lethal policies, his contempt for democracy in all its forms—and they decided that they wanted more of it. His voters can no longer hide behind excuses about the corruption of Hillary Clinton or their willingness to take a chance on an unproven political novice. They cannot feign ignorance about how Trump would rule. They know, and they have embraced him.
November 7
Saturday at 11:24am CNN became the first network to call Pennsylvania and the Election for Biden.
Trump was golfing at his Virginia course when the news broke. He neglected to offer a concession all of Saturday.
Celebrations erupted all over the country, and the world.
Here is the Time’s account of Trump reaction to the news on Saturday.
Nate Silver’s take: just because of that blue shift — and the red shift that occurred in states where mail votes were counted first — that doesn’t mean the presidential race was all that close in the end. Joe Biden’s win was on the tighter side of the likely range of outcomes suggested by polls, but it was a thoroughly convincing one judged on its own merits.
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Trump’s Job Approval: 44.7%
COVID Cases / Deaths: 9,581,770 / 234,264