1. As I write this, the New York Times‘ model is predicting that Trump will win the popular vote and pegs his chances of winning the election at 90%. It’s a shame that I don’t trust anything the Times says.
2. The best column of the day came from David Harsanyi, a conservative pundit who is not a Trump fan. Best paragraph:
“The unhinged, hysterical meltdown of the Left over former President Donald Trump’s candidacy is unparalleled in modern history. Women who walk around cosplaying The Handmaid’s Tale are living in the wealthiest and freest place women have ever known. They will continue to do so, even if Trump finds his way back into the White House for four years. The very notion that “democracy” hinges on the unfettered availability of third-trimester abortions is a kind of corrosive delusion only partisanship can whip up in otherwise rational people. Then again, we already know if Trump wins, every innocuous tax cut will be treated like the Reichstag fire.”
Bingo.
3. The super fancy computer maps are distracting and no improvement over the old fashioned tote boards of the past; in fact, they are much worse. Over at Fox News, poor Bill Hemmer is constantly saying, “Sorry, sorry…there we go…oops, wrong screen…”
4. MSNBC’s propagandists are furious and in a foul mood, as well as lying their fool heads off, as usual. Joy Reid announced that black men were not supporting Trump any more than in 2020—that’s untrue. Lawrence O’Donnell went on a rant about how the Republicans get “to play by different rules than Democrats,” which qualifies as gaslighting. They were joined by smirking Rachel Maddow in gratuitous Trump-bashing: if you can’t beat him, smear him.
I hope I can stay awake to watch the meltdown if and when Trump is declared the winner.
5. It’s ugly and stupid over on Facebook, as I have had to wrestle my fingers to the floor to stop myself from picking off the ridiculous, poorly reasoned, ignorant claims and rationalizations from people who once were rational even as you and I until their brains were eaten by Trump Derangement.
6. Ann Seltzer, whose polling stunned everyone by showing Harris winning Iowa, a GOP stronghold, needs to go into another field. Trump is winning the state by 14 pts. How incompetent. How embarrassing.
7. Fox News keeps saying that if Trump wins, it will be the greatest comeback in American political history. This is just wrong. Richard Nixon will always have that distinction. He lost the Presidential election in 1960, then lost in an upset when he ran for governor of California in 1962. Everyone assumed he had signed his political obituary when he gave a bitter, self-pitying concession speech and appeared to announce that he was quitting politics. In 1964, he wasn’t a factor in the Presidential race at all, and was just practicing law in New York. Four years later, Nixon was President.
8.[Added, 1:17 am] I can’t let this pass. Juan Williams just got on Fox News and attributed Trump’s increasingly likely victory (the Times now has the likelihood at 95%) to racism and sexism. Over at MSNBC, the horrible Joy Reid actually said that Harris had run a “perfect” campaign, which is so absurd she should have been yanked off the set with a hook. This tells me that the programmed narrative if Harris loses is that it was only bigotry that defeated her, and not the fact that she was a weak and unappealing candidate who ran a terrible campaign.
Ethics Alarms 
#7) Coincidentally, I did an oral report on Nixon in the 8th grade ~1972. I still remember that because I was one of those people afraid to talk in front of the class and dreaded oral reports. I got a B grade for the report and covered the items you mentioned in the post.
Can’t sleep tonight – maybe it’s the election. Trump is still short of 270 but Harris has announced she will not address supporters tonight. Trump is at about 248.
Well, the election appears to have been won by President Trump, and he’s up by several million votes in the popular vote. We’ll see if he wins that.
What is interesting is that the numbers suggest that Trump LOST 10% of his votes from 2020 and Harris lost 20% of the votes from Biden in 2020. I guess people just weren’t motivated to vote this year…if we are being told the truth.
Watching the coverage is surreal. Right now Fox shows Trump has 277 electoral votes, yet CNN, MSNBC, and ABC all have different numbers, which do not show a Trump win yet. Is it ethical to have broadcast stations not show the real numbers in real time? Why yes, I believe so. It should be an interesting four years.
Fox called the race for Trump before 2 am EST, but MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS and CNN refuse to do so officially and its almost 4. Petty and telling.
I look forward to them “Trump declares himself winner” screeds, dictator in chief that he is. Harris told her supporters to go home and get some sleep.
jvb
This was in one sense just like 2016 — the networks delayed and delayed calling the final states that would put Trump over the top, almost until the last vote was counted, even though it was increasingly obvious that Trump had an insurmountable lead.
As I write this, at 3am, Trump leads in Michigan by 7 points with 82% of the vote in — and the state is not yet called. Wisconsin he is up by 4 with 91% counted. Some have called Wisconsin and some not.
Even more so, other than Ohio, no one seems to have called the Senate races — the GOP is on its way to a sweep in the Blue Wall states, plus WV, Ohio, Montana, and maybe Nevada. It seems likely they will have 55 or 56 seats — basically their wildest dreams.
It appears that denial is also a MSM election desk.
————–
*sigh of relief*
I was curious back in 2016, to see whether an electoral horsewhipping would teach the Democrats a little humility, introspection, and (God forbid) honesty. Obviously it didn’t.
So I was doubly curious to see if things would be any different this time around. Clearly, the answer to that is “no.”
There is no indication whatsoever that the next 4 years will be different from 2016, including “the resistance,” constant manufactured drama, and I’m sure “the walls are closing in” will be back in full force.
On an individual level, many, rather than trying to understand what they obviously do not, seem to be simply disappointed they’re surrounded by garbage.
Yes, but if Republicans control Congress, there won’t be snap impeachments.
jvb
MONEY QUOTE: “Who would have guessed lying about Biden’s cognitive health for 2 yrs, refusing to do an open convention for a new nominee, never mentioning public healthcare & embracing fracking, the Cheneys & a yr long slaughter of children in Gaza WOULDN’T BE A WINNING STRATEGY?” (bolds/caps/italics mine) Adam McKay
PWS
Yesterday, I got up early and drove to my polling station, parked along the side of the road because I knew I wouldn’t find a space on the parking lot of the local Lions Club and got into a line that stretched to the end of said parking lot. The line began to extend onto the side of the road. It was 5:50 AM. It was a beautiful sight.
I was in the door at 6:24 AM. I had my ballot by 6:30 AM. I had filled it out by 6:35 AM. I stuck it in the scanner and got my sticker at 6:40 AM.
When I got home, I took my sticker, wrote “Garbage” on it and wore it proudly all day. I also posted on Facebook Abraham Lincoln’s famous statement from his first Inaugural Address (when the country was in far worse straits than it is now): “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
I kept up with the news all day long. The voting machines in Pennsylvania that didn’t work (that one of the most technologically-advanced countries in the world cannot run an election without these kinds of antics happening is absurd). The Voting Guides handed out in Rhode Island that were allegedly real ballots with the Republicans whited out. The bizarre happenings in Milwaukee where the ballots had to be recounted. The bomb threats in Georgia. Mr. Golden and our son went to vote later in the day and didn’t get stickers because they were out. In fact, the polling station ran out of ballots around 1:30 PM yesterday and had to get more.
It was also a challenging day for me. I decided I would fast and pray from 6 PM Monday night to 6 PM Tuesday night that the hand of violence would be stayed, that whoever would win would do so by a clear margin in both the Electoral College and the popular vote and that whoever did win would be willing to govern with integrity and listen to wise counsel. I didn’t even pray for a particular candidate to win. It remains to be seen whether all of my prayers will be answered with a “Yes”.
When I got up this morning and said my prayers and tossed laundry in the washing machine. As my oatmeal was boiling on the stove, I opened my phone and saw the news. I have to admit that I smiled and jumped in my seat a little.
I don’t like Mr. Trump personally. He’s a sloppy speaker and a blowhard. But the Democrats deserve this loss. Let me be clear: racism and sexism had nothing to do with it. Americans, including a great number of Independent voters, decided that a candidate with no particularly notable accomplishments for the past four years who would not articulate her policy positions, was installed as the candidate without a single vote by a citizen after helping gaslight the country that its President was fit as a fiddle and sharp as a tack (even when he wasn’t sharp as a tack back when he actually was fit as a fiddle) and whose campaign fixated on murdering unborn children in the womb and declaring its opposition to be Nazis wasn’t a good choice. It’s just that simple.
“I’m not Trump” is not good enough.
My Trump-deranged sister, along with her equally Trump-deranged friends are beside themselves. I don’t know why. I knew Trump would win when previously closed-mouths celebrities like Harrison Ford – who, 20-plus years ago in an interview, said he didn’t endorse candidates because he didn’t think people should vote based on what a celebrity said – opened their mouths and started endorsing VP Harris. The Democrats called in their allies in the entertainment industry when their allies in the news media weren’t cutting it. The “garbage” comment by President Biden didn’t help.
My sister refers to what’s coming as a horror. Really, sis? She posted that “Hate won last night”. Yeah, hatred of egg prices, maybe.
So, this morning, I posted words of Richard Nixon on his last day in office, “”Always remember that others may hate you but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.”
There’s a long road ahead. Mr. Golden went off to work this morning and I am praying for his safety because, even in perpetually-conservative Indiana, there are deranged people who can’t handle when their candidate loses. We can expect for the next four years exactly what we experienced the first time around: propaganda disguised as news, rumors and gossip reported as fact, hate relentlessly spewed at the President’s direction and attempts to undermine him at every step.
God help us all.
Terrific comment, AM. As always.
jvb
I find it telling that Harris left her own watch party at 10 PM, refused to come back out, and they sent everyone home at 1 AM.
I was musing that the Democrats might force Biden to resign now so they can get their ‘first black, female president’. They couldn’t do that before because then people could actually see Harris in action.
“I find it telling that Harris left her own watch party at 10 PM, refused to come back out, and they sent everyone home at 1 AM.”
IMO, she would have had to speak extemporaneously, which would have made it painfully clear why she got bounced.
PWS
In fact, that scenario is exactly what I was contemplating this morning. If people want to meltdown about missing their first female black(ish) President, President Biden can solve that problem easily (as he could have solved it months ago when it was obvious he was done for) by stepping down and letting her pardon the stupid turkey, pick the White House decorations and cackle her way through the next two months signing whatever Executive Order the Supreme Court will find unconstitutional as she wishes.
But he won’t. And that’s another reason why Donald Trump won last night.
While I’m still maintaining a level of cynicism- if the results from last night hold against the inevitable flurry of challenges and late counts- I can’t wait to discover the new found Democrat support of the filibuster and the Democrat recognition that expanding and packing the Supreme Court aren’t good ideas.
I told my wife last night that I hoped Donald Trump would (jokingly) say that he was going to adopt the Left’s policy of seeking to expand SCOTUS to thirteen justices. But then some “well-meaning” state Attorney General would have charged Trump with multiple counts of murder from the resulting talking heads that exploded in a cloud of pink mist on live TV.
We caught that as well, along with Williams’ obligatory reference to the “insurrection”. Juan’s response to Trump’s victory was nearly identical to what he said in 2016, and the resulting takedown of Juan by Brit Hume made for some classic TV interaction. Then the panel moved on and you could tell Juan was fuming. He was gone after the next commercial break.
There are still a bunch of votes to be counted in California and Arizona, but a win in the popular vote is still on the table. If that happens, Electoral-College critics will be silenced…at least for this election cycle.
And as for that Iowa poll showing Harris at +3 last weekend? This year’s result (+14 Trump) was Iowa’s most lopsided result since Richard Nixon.
If the results hold, the DNC has the opportunity now that 2020-2024 gave the GOP. In the Party Realignment of this decade, the DNC has a chance to drop their old message when has centered on the false stereotypes of Republicans being racist and sexist and find a new message.
We’ll have to give a few months for the shock to wear off before seeing if they’ve read the writing on the wall or if they’ll stick to the disproven and exhausted trope of “Racism” and “Sexism”
Since 1824 and including it but not last night’s, we’ve had 50 Presidential Elections.
The 1824 election went to the House of Representatives.
Of the Remaining 49:
34 were won by Presidents who ALSO garnered greater than 50% of the popular vote.
11 were won by Presidents who received less than 50% of the popular vote, but still more than the other candidate.
4 were won by Presidents who won fewer popular votes than the other candidate.
If last night’s results hold, and I hope they do – I hope they actually grow the margin, then that will be 35 of 50 elections where the President won who also won greater than 50% of the popular vote.
As part of the ongoing political realignment of America’s political coalitions – Donald Trump won with a broader coalition of interest groups that the GOP would not have expected 8 years ago. Proof that the Electoral College does its job well.