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FOUNDING MEMBER
➤ PRESIDENT-APPARENT, from p.3
ferring him 55 to 43 percent — while
Black voters preferred Biden 87 to 12
and Latinx voters supported him 66
to 32.
As polls closed around the nation
on November 3, it soon became clear
that the contest would play out far
longer than viewers — on both sides
of the aisle — hoped and that Biden
was not in fact positioned to earn the
Electoral College landslide that some
thought possible. Several southeastern
states where polling averages
reported by fi vethirtyeight.com
suggested a Biden win — including
Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina
— did not deliver for the former vice
president, at least not initially.
In the end, Trump prevailed in
Florida by nearly 380,000, or 3.4 percent
of the total. Pundits attributed
Biden’s problems to the softness of
his support among Latinx voters —
especially Cuban Americans and
some other immigrants who faced a
barrage of Spanish-language Trump
ads tying the Democrat to socialism
and the unpopular legacy of Fidel
Castro and other left-wing Latin
American leaders. According to NBC
News, Trump captured 55 percent of
Cuban American voters and 48 percent
of non-Puerto Rican “other Latinos.”
The president’s share of Puerto
Rican voters was only 30 percent.
Still, it must be noted that while
Latinx voters in Florida went with
Biden by a 52 to 47 margin, white
voters overwhelmingly supported
Trump, 61 to 38.
Texas, where pre-election polling
showed Biden as surprisingly strong
even if behind the president, delivered
encouraging early returns for
the Democrat, but in the end he fell
short by roughly 670,000 votes or
about a six-point defi cit.
The three contested blue wall states
— Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin
— proved particularly worrisome
to Biden partisans. In each
state, the in-person election day votes
were reported fi rst and skewed toward
Republican voters, showing the
former vice president with defi cits in
each, most dramatically in Pennsylvania,
which did not begin counting
absentee ballots until after the polls
were closed.
By Wednesday morning, reports
from Democratic strongholds like
Detroit, Milwaukee, and Madison
put Biden irretrievably in the lead in
Michigan and Wisconsin, but wildly
REUTERS/ KEVIN LAMARQUE
The president-apparent, Joe Biden.
uneven procedures that different
counties in Pennsylvania employed
in reporting in-person, early, and
absentee ballots left that state up for
grabs throughout the day on November
4.
As Americans were throwing in the
towel on an election night call and
heading to bed, Biden appeared at
an outdoor rally in Wilmington, Delaware,
urging patience but refl ecting
an upbeat spirit.
“As I’ve said all along, it’s not my
place or Donald Trump’s place to declare
who’s won this election,” Biden
said. “That’s the decision of the American
people. But I’m optimistic about
this outcome.”
Minutes later, Trump took to Twitter
to claim, “We are up BIG, but they
are trying to STEAL the Election.”
Speaking later to an invited crowd at
the White House in the wee hours of
the morning, the president claimed,
“Frankly, we did win this election.”
“We’ll be going to the US Supreme
Court,” the president said, suggesting
he could get the vote counting halted,
adding, “We want all voting to stop.”
During the day on November 4,
Biden, with his running mate Harris,
once again appeared publicly to urge
caution and respect for the principle
of every vote being counted. Though
he said his team was convinced they
had the numbers to reach 270 electoral
votes, he did not claim victory.
For his part, Trump continued to
issue infl ammatory charges about
voter fraud for which there was no
evidence. With the Wisconsin vote
margin less than one percent, his
campaign signaled it will exercise
its right to demand a recount, while
uncredentialed Republican observers
swarmed a Michigan vote processing
center demanding that the counting
be stopped. Police had to be called
in. Meanwhile, New York’s hapless
former Mayor Rudy Giuliani rushed
to Philadelphia promising to expose
corruption underway there.
The apparent president-elect,
though undoubtedly relieved by his
narrow victory, must certainly be
disappointed by the Senate results,
with the likelihood that he will face
obstruction from Republican Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell, who won
reelection on Tuesday and honed his
skills at defying the voters’ will in
choosing their president during Barack
Obama’s eight years in offi ce.
Democrats picked up two seats —
with the victories of Colorado Governor
John Hickenlooper and Mark Kelly
in Arizona — but lost the Alabama
seat won in 2017 by Doug Jones.
A number of hoped-for fl ips ended
up slipping through the Democrats’
hands — including the challenge that
Montana Governor Steve Bullock
mounted against incumbent Steve
Daines, but also surprisingly spirited
runs against Joni Ernst of Iowa and
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
In Maine, Democrat Sarah Gideon,
who consistently polled ahead of incumbent
Susan Collins — positively
theatrical in her anguish during the
past four years over her weak-kneed
obeisance to Trump — conceded to
the incumbent after falling roughly
six points down in the race.
As the North Carolina returns remain
stalled, incumbent Republican
Thom Tillis held onto a lead of nearly
100,000 votes, or a margin of just under
two percent.
In Georgia, Democrat Jon Ossoff
remains down by about 150,000 votes
to incumbent David Perdue, despite
charges he engaged in insider trading
in response to an offi cial briefi ng he
received on the severity of the COVID
crisis — even as he downplayed the
threat with Trump-loyalist rhetoric.
Whether Biden’s growing numbers
in Georgia will pull Ossoff along with
him is unclear.
The special election in Georgia to
fi ll the remaining two years of retired
Republican Senator Johnny Isakson
is headed for runoff on January 5.
Though Democrat Raphael Warnock
outpolled Senator Kelly Loeffl er, the
appointee named temporarily to Isakson’s
seat, by more than fi ve points,
the combined Republican vote among
the four top contenders totaled 47
percent versus 39 percent for Warnock
and a Democratic also-ran.
November 05 - November 18, 2 20 020 | GayCityNews.com
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