Even as the nation waited to see if Joe Biden would emerge the winner in the race for the White House against President Donald Trump, both parties were searching through the details of the vote count for clues as to what worked - and what did not - in Election 2020.
Here’s some of the things I’ve thought about so far:
+ There was no Blue Wave in the heart of Texas. The turnout was amazing in the Lone Star State, as we had seen in the two weeks before the election. Many Democrats were excited by the higher number of votes, hoping it was going to signal big Democratic gains in the Lone Star State. Lots of my friends wanted to know if that was true. I told them I wasn’t convinced Democrats were going to win there. And that was the right call. Both parties motivated their voters - and in fact - that was something which we saw in most states around the nation.
The "Texas is not a Republican state it's a non-voting state" slogan was proven wrong. It's a Republican state through and through. Democrats increased their votes by 1.4 million, and Republicans responded with their 1.2 million https://t.co/3xta7YnL4l
— David V (@davidemvasquez) November 6, 2020
+ You gotta have evidence. One thing that has developed on social media - and in politics of late - is that people think they can make a charge, and then it’s the responsibility of reporters to disprove their assertion. That’s not the way it works. If you are going to make a serious charge about vote fraud and election fraud - then you need to produce evidence. Reporters aren’t going to let themselves get used - we are going to ask questions. One claim from the Trump Campaign evaporated in a few hours in Nevada.
Jonathan Hunt lays into Rick Grenell: "If somebody is making claims that will affect the democratic process of the presidential election, then we also are going to ask those people to provide evidence for those claims rather than just throwing theories out there." pic.twitter.com/rX2qVDlUdH
— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) November 5, 2020
+ You gotta have evidence, part 2. Again, when you are making wild charges of wrongdoing about elections, it tells me that you don’t really understand the election processes going on. And we’ve seen that repeatedly. Ballots being burned! No, they weren’t. Ballots being filled out by poll workers! No, that didn’t happen. Boxes of ballots in a dumpster! No, that didn’t happen either. People don’t split their tickets - it must be fraud! No, they split their tickets. For days, it’s been the same thing. Lots of charges and hardly any real evidence.
Serious question... could it be that to get the highest number of fraudulent ballots they only filled out one dot rather than take the amount of time to fill out the full ballot??? https://t.co/29pl9uzuxb
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) November 6, 2020
+ States need to improve their election laws. The polls closed in Florida on Election Night at 7 pm. Just a few minutes later, Broward County (Fort Lauderdale) released the results of nearly 800,000 early votes. Go north to Pennsylvania. The polls closed at 8 pm. But it took four long days for officials to release all the early vote results. Why? Because the GOP legislature in Pennsylvania refused to pass laws giving county elections officials the ability to pre-process and prep all their non-Election Day ballots. There was no reason for this type of screw up and delay.
Just imagine if the GOP legislature in PA had allowed county elections officials to start work on mail ballots weeks before Election Day like in FL OH NC. PA would have been done by Wednesday afternoon.
— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) November 6, 2020
+ More GOP women coming to Congress. Two years ago, I detailed how the number of female GOP lawmakers in the U.S. House had dropped dramatically. Lots of people were mad that I reported how the GOP caucus in the House was overwhelmingly white and male. But it was true. Now, Republicans can celebrate a big change, as a record number of GOP women will be in the 118th Congress. The ebb and flow of politics and life. This time it works to the GOP’s advantage.
More than 31 Republican women will make their way to Congress come January, surpassing a record set in 2006 https://t.co/YLdCe7ycmU
— Businessweek (@BW) November 6, 2020
+ Democrats grumble over outcome in Congress. This was supposed to be a big celebration for Democrats. Not only would they knock off President Trump, but they would win seats in the House and take over the Senate. In the House, Republicans have currently gained 5 seats - and there are maybe 5-7 more Democrats who could lose, which means Speaker Nancy Pelosi will have an even more narrow majority in the 117th Congress. I still wonder if Pelosi will be the Speaker for another term.
Speaker Pelosi responds to Democratic losses in the House: "We did not win every battle in the House but we did win the war." pic.twitter.com/UWQoOoi31m
— The Hill (@thehill) November 7, 2020
+ House Democrats grumble. Why did I say that about Speaker Pelosi’s future above? Because when your side loses seats in an election, it’s not usually a good thing. Back in 1998, Speaker Newt Gingrich resigned after the GOP lost 5 seats in the mid-term elections. Pelosi may lose more than that. In an times heated conference call with Democrats, some of those who lost - or who had tough races - had tough words for their more liberal colleagues about certain progressive policies which made their re-election either impossible or very difficult.
Rep. Mucarsel Powell, who lost her re-election bid, said yesterday on Dem caucus call, "I'm not going to tweet about it" and implored members to "please pick up the phone and talk to that person" instead of tweeting... https://t.co/6TSMDk71r7 https://t.co/rHmgHQYihX
— Nicholas Wu (@nicholaswu12) November 6, 2020