#Michigan May Decide 2024 Election Outcome

[usavotey]

Michigan May Decide 2024 Election Outcome

The 2024 Swing State Michigan In November, voters will choose the next president of the United States. Every vote counts, but the outcome will largely hinge on results in a few key swing states. So, what’s a swing state? In simple terms, it’s a state where both Republicans and Democrats have similar levels of support, making it crucial in deciding who wins the election. While certain states are…

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Philip Elliott at Time Magazine:

The actual roadmap for 2024 might have moved when you were not looking. Maybe—and it’s a big maybe, admittedly—the biggest detour in politics right now is parked in the driveway. In ways subtle and overt, the electric vehicle has become the avatar for clean energy in the minds of voters, which may prove to be a political clunker for Democrats, despite having the stronger story to tell.  The voters most turned off by talks of Tesla Cybertrucks and Chevy Bolts? Young voters, voters without college degrees, and Latinos, according to new polling from the centrist groups Third Way and The NewDeal that is hitting allies’ inbox as you read this. Their surveys find a surprising 44% of the American electorate hold a negative view of electric vehicles. The numbers are about the same for voters in the battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia. That’s an anchor that no engine—powered by raw jetfuel or lithium-ion batteries—can move with so little time before Election Day in November. [...]

There’s long been a myth—and a popular one at that with progressives—that so-called Climate Voters are a sufficient force in politics to sway outcomes. This is, to be frank, not at all the case. In fact, climate change seldom merits a spot in the top-five ranking of priorities. The Third Way survey found just 4% of voters ranked climate change a deciding priority, well behind the economy, border, and democracy itself. Even amid the wave of inflation and worries about day-to-day costs, gas prices aren’t even a driving force; food, housing, taxes, and health care all outpace the price at the pump, according to Third Way’s research. 

That’s not to say Climate Voters can be ignored, strategists say. They are likely to be highly educated, high-propensity voters who favor Biden by a solid 96-point margin. (They also have checkbooks that fuel the campaign and its allies.) The problem is there just aren’t enough of them to counter their intellectual inverse, a group lumped together in Third Way research as Economy First Voters. This conservative bloc tends to be heavily tilted toward Latinos, women, younger voters, and those who lack a college degree. These voters view themselves as just trying to get through the week without the government making it harder. And for these voters, Trump enjoys a 26-point margin and opposition to EVs enjoys a 44-point toehold. For Economy First Voters, a full 64% of these voters tell pollsters that climate change will have to wait until inflation is under control.

[NOTE: Poll conducted between May 9-18, 2024.]

Could anti-electric vehicle sentiments be the reason why Donald Trump is polling well? A poll from Third Way and The NewDeal conducted between May 9th and 18th reveals that 44% of those hold anti-EV sentiments, and those holding anti-EV sentiments are more likely to back Trump in the election.

[mariacallous]

There has been a long debate over the power of propaganda to influence public opinion. Are people susceptible to the latest wild rumor circulating on TikTok or are they, as writer Joseph Bernstein and others argue, able to hold independent beliefs and resist false narratives?

While public opinion optimists may be right in a number of cases, what they ignore in presidential elections is the manner in which the Electoral College increases disinformation risks. That is because in all but two states the Electoral College votes are awarded on a winner-take-all basis—hence very small vote margins can yield all the Electoral College votes. Have a look at the vote margins in some key states in 2016. In the five closest states, the winning candidate (Trump in four states and Clinton in one state) triumphed with a miniscule percentage of the vote.

False news purveyors don’t have to persuade 99% of American voters to be influential but simply a tiny amount in Michigan, New Hampshire, or Wisconsin. In each of those places, a shift of one percent of the vote or less based on false narratives would have altered the outcome.

The same pattern of a close election repeats itself in 2020. False news purveyors didn’t have to convince everyone voting in the closest states. They merely had to shift a miniscule number of people.

If the United States had direct popular voting for president, disinformation likely would pose little risk in 2024. We would not have to worry about a small number of swing areas as candidates would focus on voters from many states across the country. A vote in Arizona would be no more important than a vote in Florida, Texas, or Illinois. Without the Electoral College, it would be harder for those generating fake videos and audios to target specific geographic areas. Candidates would realize that any appeals in Phoenix, Detroit, or Milwaukee based on false information about voting, climate change, public health, or race relations could backfire and be offset by votes elsewhere for the other candidate.

Fear about a possible backlash is one of the major factors limiting propaganda effectiveness. People who don’t like blatant attempts to manipulate elections always can serve as a counterweight to those peddling falsehoods. If voters in California, Texas, or Florida object to false videos or narratives in Arizona that clearly run contrary to agreed-upon facts, they can in a direct popular election offset disinformation targeting voters in swing states. It is due to the existence of the Electoral College that the 2024 election could come down to a small group of voters in swing areas and enable disinformation disseminators to run highly targeted campaigns with questionable appeals in those places.

False targeted appeals are not the only election risk in 2024. Due to the Electoral College, under the radar manipulation could focus on a small number of voters without much visibility from anyone else. Candidates and their supporters can deploy fake robocalls, direct mail pitches, or launch social media campaigns that might be invisible to opposition candidates, the mainstream media, and independent fact-checkers. Disinformation could thrive without any public accountability from other political forces. Those efforts could lie so far below public visibility that disinformation could work without others even knowing about it or having a chance to rebut it.

The winner-take-all nature of state voting under the Electoral College further elevates the possible role of third party and independent candidates in deciding the outcome in particular areas. Disinformation disseminators don’t have to move voters from Biden to Trump or vice versa to be influential. Instead, disinformation could be effective by moving voters from Biden or Trump to Robert Kennedy, Jr, Jill Stein, or Cornel West. If any of those minor candidates draw votes disproportionately from Biden or Trump based on fake news, that effectively elects the other major party nominee through false material.

In all these respects, the United States faces disinformation risks that go way beyond the situation that exists in most other countries that are voting this year. There are major elections taking place in India, Indonesia, Europe, Mexico, and elsewhere. But in most of these nations, there is some form of direct popular voting for the chief executive or proportional voting for political parties that minimize the overall disinformation risks. It is harder to manipulate an entire country than a few cities in a couple of states as is the case currently in the United States due to the Electoral College.

The anachronistic Electoral College increases the importance of tiny groups of voters. There could be false information that is discounted by the vast swath of U.S. public opinion yet remains persuasive to the small number of people in Arizona, Michigan, or Wisconsin who will decide the presidential election.

At a time when America is plagued by extreme polarization and partisanship, and some Americans are eager to believe just about anything that reflects badly on the other side, the Electoral College elevates the power of questionable material to influence outcomes. False narratives could be completely ineffective with almost all U.S. voters but still decide the national election. It would be tragic if the 2024 election were decided by a small number of voters in a few states who cast their ballots on the basis of blatantly fake information.

[canichangemyblogname]

This is my prediction for the 2024 presidential race.

I think that Pennsylvania will be THEE deciding state. It’s why we’ve seen increasing efforts among Republicans to sow doubt about the results in Pennsylvania, should Harris win the state. It’s also what Musk concentrated his “I’m pay you to vote for Trump” efforts in Pennsylvania. Below is my prediction, which is that Pennsylvania will lean Republican, but if Harris manages in Pennsylvania, that will get her to 276, just over the 270 threshold:

And while my prediction is that Harris will just eke by in Nevada, I also believe that a could be outcome is Harris losing every swing state outside of the “rust belt” (with the exception of Pennsylvania). I do believe she’ll lose the whole of the South in every iteration of this map. This is in line with most elections analyses:

My prediction—that Harris ekes by in Nevada— is not in line with most predictions, as most pollsters and elections analysts have her losing Nevada in addition to every other swing state except Wisconsin.

Note: I do not sort Michigan in with the “swing states. I feel like calling Michigan “swing-y” for 2016 would be like calling Indiana “swing-y” for 2008. Some theorize that Pennsylvania’s results in 2016 may have similarly been an upset/fluke given the state’s history, but I think that undercounts Republican’s campaigning efforts in the state and just how much money they have poured into those efforts to flip Pennsylvania once again.

I also predict Harris will eke by in Nevada because the last time the Republican nominee carried Nevada was 20+ years ago. Harris losing Nevada, as most elections analysts are predicting, would actually be quite the upset. The last time Nevada was reliably Republican, so too was California (aka: the 1970-1980s elections cycles).

[darkmaga-returns]

Trump Becomes 47th President Of The US. Post-Election Truths. U.S. Military to launch a hypersonic nuclear missile. US warns Iraq. Netanyahu fires Gallant. What is HAARP?

Lioness of Judah Ministry

Nov 06, 2024

Donald Trump Projected To Become 47th President Of The US; Republicans Take Senate, Lead House

Harris has won California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine’s District 1, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska’s District 2, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Minnesota.

Trump has won Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wyoming, Pennsylvania. Wisconsin, and Maine District 2.

Coverage:

Donald Trump delivers victory speech after US election win

Post-Election Truths: The Things That Won’t Change (No Matter Who Wins)

“If voting could ever really change anything, it’d be illegal.”— Thorne, Land of the Blind (2006)

After months of handwringing and mud-slinging and fear-mongering, the votes have finally been cast and the outcome has been decided: the Deep State has won. Despite the billions spent to create the illusion of choice culminating in the reassurance ritual of voting for Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, when it comes to most of the big issues that keep us in bondage to authoritarian overlords, not much will change. Despite all of the work that has been done to persuade us to buy into the fantasy that things will change if we just elect the “right” political savior, the day after a new president is sworn in, it will be business as usual for the unelected bureaucracy that actually runs the government.

77 Days Of Transition: New Law Aims To Streamline Presidential Power Transfer Process

Under this mandate, Trump and Harris may find themselves forming rival administrations for weeks...

The 2024 presidential election will see the first application of a 2022 amendment to the laws governing the transfer of power between administrations. There are 77 days between the Nov. 5 election and the Jan. 20, 2025, inauguration of the next president, during which time the president-elect will ready his or her administration to take over from President Joe Biden. The handoffs between an outgoing administration and a government-in-waiting have been largely drama-free for decades, and they have been governed by the rules enumerated in the Presidential Transition Act of 1963.

Michigan Man Arrested for Threat to Murder Christians If Trump Wins

Federal law enforcement has arrested a 25-year-old Michigan man for allegedly threatening to carry out a terrorist attack against Christians should President Donald J. Trump reclaim the White House.

According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), Isaac Sissel is being charged with sending threatening communications. “I shall carry out an attack against conservative Christian, [sic] filth in the event trump [sic] wins the election. I have a stolen [AR-15] and a target I refuse to name so I can continue to get away with my plans,” Sissel allegedly wrote, according to an anonymous online threatening submission filed with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) National Threat Operations Center in West Virginia on November 2.

Antifa Returns On Election Night, Causing Chaos In Downtown Seattle

"Seattle PD had a heavy police response to Antifa's violent direct action on Election Day." 

The potential return of former President Trump to the White House appears to have sparked rage among far-left activists on Tuesday night. With Trump currently leading the electoral count at 214 votes to Harris's 179, reports are surfacing from Seattle that show Antifa activists have mobilized.  Ahead of the elections, National Guard troops were activated in Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Illinois, North Carolina, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin, and West Virginia. Guardsmen in Colorado, Florida, Nevada, and Washington, D.C., are on standby.

[daily-media]

US Presidential Election: Harris and Trump Prepare for a Dramatic Showdown One Month Out

With just one month to go until the pivotal U.S. presidential election, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are poised to present voters with sharply contrasting visions for the nation's future. As both candidates gear up for the final campaign stretch, they emphasize that the stakes are higher than ever in this closely contested race.

The 2024 election has unfolded with numerous unexpected developments, from Harris's sudden ascent to the Democratic nomination to Trump's resilient bid for a comeback, having survived two assassination attempts. Current polling shows both candidates neck-and-neck, with Trump warning of potential chaos reminiscent of the 2020 election outcome if he does not secure victory this time.

Globally, anticipation builds as the world watches the U.S. election unfold, particularly amid escalating tensions in the Middle East and ongoing conflict in Ukraine, where U.S. support remains crucial.

"This election is critical," stated Peter Loge, director of George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs. "Both candidates have framed it in apocalyptic terms."

As they hit the campaign trail, Harris and Trump will also be joined by their running mates: Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Republican Ohio Senator J.D. Vance. Their efforts will focus on seven key swing states—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—each pivotal in deciding the election outcome.

Harris's campaign, under the banner "We're Not Going Back," aims to move past divisive politics, while Trump’s slogan "Make America Great Again" evokes a vision of a nation in distress that only he can remedy. Harris, as the first female, Black, and South Asian vice president, emphasizes her commitment to abortion rights and an "opportunity economy," though many voters remain uncertain about her policies.

In contrast, Trump, now the first convicted felon to run for president, continues to energize his base with combative rhetoric and promises to enhance the economy while targeting immigration as a key issue.

"Vice President Harris and Governor Walz are advocating for a nuanced American story, while Trump presents a straightforward narrative of strongman leadership," Loge explained. "The danger is that we might never return to a democratic process if we follow that path."

The electoral landscape has shifted dramatically over the past few months, particularly after Biden's debate performance raised concerns about his age, ultimately leading to his withdrawal from the race and the transfer of the Democratic mantle to Harris. This shift has energized her campaign, enabling her to close the polling gap and galvanize significant financial support.

As the clock ticks down, Harris maintains her position as the "underdog," with both candidates aware that a clear outcome may be delayed due to potential legal challenges and contested votes, prolonging the suspense well into January.

[bllsbailey]

You Think This Endorsement Is Going to Give Kamala's Team Heartburn?

After all the pandering and sanitized statements concerning the war in Gaza, the Democrats’ plan to keep Michigan from falling away might not be working. It’s not a slam dunk, but this mayor’s endorsement is rather damning for the Kamala Harris team, which has worked overtime to keep Muslim Americans from either staying home or, worse, backing Trump. The former was likely the biggest fear, as Arab American voters are incensed over Israel’s justified war of self-defense in the region against Hamas. Yet, in Hamtramck, Michigan, America’s only Muslim-majority city, its Democrat mayor decided to make his 2024 decision public: He’s voting for Trump (via Fox News): 

The mayor of a Muslim-majority city in Michigan says he is endorsing Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election, calling the former commander-in-chief, "the right choice for this critical time." Amer Ghalib,

mayor of the Detroit-area suburb Hamtramck, announced his endorsement of Trump in a Facebook post Sunday. While admitting he and Trump didn’t "agree on everything," he said he regarded the former commander-in-chief as "a man of principles."  "Though it’s looking good, he may or may not win the election and be the 47th president of the United States, but I believe he is the right choice for this critical time," Ghalib wrote in Arabic on his Facebook page. "I’ll not regret my decision no matter what the outcome would be, and I’m ready to face the consequences. For this, and for many other reasons, I announce my support and endorsement for the former, and hopefully, the next president of the United States, Donald Trump."  […]  Ghalib’s endorsement of Trump comes after the two met in Flint earlier this week for a private 20-minute conversation.  Ghalib told The Detroit News that Trump "knew a lot about me before the meeting." 

As Fox News' Joe Concha commented, “And there goes Michigan.” Is this some back-breaking move? No, but it does allude to Harris not being some master candidate that the media is trying so desperately to sell. She has glaring deficits among key Democratic voter groups.

Trending on Townhall Videos

[sa7abnews]

How Arizona’s Abortion Ballot Measure Could Affect the Presidential Race

New Post has been published on https://sa7ab.info/2024/08/16/how-arizonas-abortion-ballot-measure-could-affect-the-presidential-race/

How Arizona’s Abortion Ballot Measure Could Affect the Presidential Race

Arizona voters will decide in November whether to enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution—a move in a key swing state that could have implications for the tumultuous and historic presidential election.

The Arizona secretary of state’s office confirmed to TIME that the measure will appear on the ballot in the November election after it had certified on Monday about 577,971 signatures—far surpassing the number needed to put the initiative on the ballot. Dawn Penich, communications director for the coalition supporting the initiative, Arizona for Abortion Access, says the group turned in the highest number of signatures by a citizens initiative in state history: more than 820,000.

The coalition, which includes reproductive rights organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona, celebrated the news. “Us moving forward with our ballot initiative and getting as much support as we’ve already gotten shows that Arizonans are tired of seeing their rights subject to the political whims of whoever might be in the legislature or whoever we may be in our courts, and they want to settle this matter once and for all for themselves through this citizens initiative process,” says Chris Love, spokesperson for the coalition’s campaign.

Arizona currently prohibits abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The law, which was signed in 2022, includes exceptions for medical emergencies. The November ballot measure, Proposition 139, would allow abortions until a fetus could survive outside the womb, which is typically around the 24th week of pregnancy. It would also include exceptions after that if the pregnant person’s life is at risk or to protect the individual’s physical or mental health. It would “establish a fundamental right to abortion” in the state constitution and would prevent the state from banning or restricting access to the procedure before viability. States including Michigan and Ohio have previously approved similar measures.

Those who oppose the measure have said it goes too far, arguing that the mental health exception is broad and would allow people to end viable pregnancies. 

Having the abortion initiative on the ballot in November could have political effects beyond reproductive rights in Arizona. In the presidential campaign, it’s a key difference between Vice President Kamala Harris, who was central to the Biden Administration’s messaging on reproductive rights, and former President Donald Trump, who appointed three of the Supreme Court Justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. Other Democrats have made it a main focus of their 2024 campaigns, and states including Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Nevada, and South Dakota are all set to vote on abortion rights this year.

The issue’s interplay with political races and how it affects turnout could be particularly determinative in Arizona, one of the most crucial battleground states in the 2024 election. 

“Arizona is a swing state; our electoral outcomes typically are razor, razor thin,” says Samara Klar, a political science professor at the University of Arizona. “We are seeing tiny margins of victory in very high-profile elections, and frankly, in local elections as well. So having something on the ballot that is going to mobilize voters to come out is really, really crucial.”

In other abortion ballot initiatives that have come before voters since the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the constitutional right to abortion in 2022, Americans have largely sided with abortion rights and the issue has typically boosted Democrats. “Having abortion on the ballot is helpful for Democrats because it mobilizes the types of people that are going to support Democratic candidates,” Klar says.

Some polls show support for abortion rights among Arizonans. In March, Klar collaborated with YouGov on a survey of 800 registered Arizona voters. More than 40% said abortion decisions should be left up to a woman and her doctor, while about 25% supported a near-total abortion ban. A CBS News poll in May found that 65% of likely Arizona voters said they would vote “yes” on a ballot measure establishing a constitutional right to abortion in the state; 21% said they would vote against it.

Abortion policy in Arizona has been somewhat unsettled since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization two years ago. In April, the Arizona Supreme Court upheld an 1864 law that only allowed abortions to save the pregnant person’s life, with no exceptions for rape or incest. The Republican-controlled legislature then repealed the law, leaving a 2022 statute banning abortions after 15 weeks in place.

“There’s been a lot of confusion about what the status of the law in Arizona has been,” Love says. “Ensuring this right in the constitution gives Arizona voters the certainty that they’ll need to understand what their reproductive rights are and, again, take those matters back into their own hands and make those personal health care decisions with their families and their medical providers.”

And as Arizona voters head to the ballot box, the abortion initiative “absolutely could make a difference” in the presidential race, Klar says. “This is a tight state, a salient issue, and a very mobilizing issue.”

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

2024 prediction

The Constitution does not guarantee any American the right to vote for the President of the United States.  Nowhere within its text.  The 15th, 20th, and 26th amendments simply say that the government can’t deny us the right to vote based on race, gender, or age respectively.  There’s nothing saying they can’t deny that right for any other reason.

Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 reads as follows:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

Each state may decide for themselves how the electors of the Electoral College are chosen.  It just so happens that all 50 states have chosen to appoint electors based on statewide popular votes, but that is, by definition, not the only way it can be done.  If the states so decided, they could appoint any elector for any reason; Clause 2 only prohibits them from holding federal office.

That said, my prediction is that in 2024 (or possibly 2028), a state, singular, will change its laws so that the electors are appointed not by popular vote but by some other quote-unquote “independent” means.  That’s a fancy way of saying a state can just choose whoever wins their Electoral College votes; the state legislatures could appoint the electors directly, choosing loyalists who will vote for whichever candidate the legislature wants them to,regardless of the will of the people.  It will be a small state, something like Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, one of the Dakotas.  The state legislature will directly appoint Republican electors, under the assumption that the state would have gone Republican anyway; I am predicting that they will appoint members of the state government to be the electors.  The governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, however many positions are necessary, and then those politicians will directly vote for whichever candidate they want.

The majority of people in that state will rejoice in this decision; Republicans will see it as a guarantee that their guy always wins, as protection against any future liberal theft, and because the small state in question is predominantly Republican anyway, it will do little actually change the balance of power in the first election.  The first state was an experiment, they just wanted to test the waters, see how the country would react to the abolition of elections.  The primaries still exist, and the people can still vote for their representatives and Senators (the 17th amendment protects that right), but the presidency will be chosen by oligarchs.

There’s nothing legally preventing this from happening.  That’s the Republican MO; exploit legal loopholes, no matter how heinous.  This could easily be dismissed as the slippery slope fallacy, but they’ve already proven that they have no morals when it comes to filling Supreme Court vacancies during election years, allowing the Senate majority leader to hold legislation hostage,or accepting the results of the presidential election to ensure a peaceful transition of power (as of November 13th, 2020 at 9:30 PM EST), so there’s no reason to think they WON’T try this.  If it’s not explicitly illegal, they assume it must be legal.

Give it a few election cycles and it will happen to a bigger state, one that matters.  Yeah yeah, all states matter, but you know what I mean; swing states, a state that could conceivably effect the outcome of the election.  Florida continues its rightward shift; I doubt a Democrat will it again for decades, as happened with the rest of the south (thank God for Blue Georgia).  I wouldn’t put it past the Florida state legislature to do this.  Or the Michigan legislature, or Wisconsin, or any state where Republicans hold a slim advantage.  They only need to hold power for a single term to do immeasurable damage to our democracy.

The only thing stopping them from doing this is right now is popular support, but they’re actively working to undermine confidence in our elections, so it’s only a matter of time before they decide to do away with the elections entirely.  They’ll frame it as though they’re actually protecting the elections!  They’ll sell it to the people, ad the people will fall for it.  They’ll call it the Election Security Act or the Make Elections Great Again Act or some shit like that.  The state governments will pick the president with minimal input from the people; keep all the power in the hands of the Party.

I don’t mean to stoke fears, I’m not trying to make people angry, I just see a viable path forward that they could very easily take, and want to raise awareness of it so we’re not all caught with our pants down if and when it happens.  I am not speaking this into existence, I’m just some schmuck from Florida, a nobody shouting into the void, it’s not like me saying this could happen will inspire anyone to make it happen; I figure that if some schmuck has thought of it, you know some experienced political operatives have thought of it, and have done more research and have better fine tuned their legal defenses to ensure the Supreme Court rules in their favor.

I don’t think this WILL happen, I just fear that it CAN happen.

[patriotsnet]

How Many Republicans Voted For The Impeachment

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-many-republicans-voted-for-the-impeachment/

How Many Republicans Voted For The Impeachment

Rep John Katko New York

Several House Republicans to vote to impeach President Trump

To impeach a sitting president is a decision I do not take lightly, Rep. John Katko of New Yorks 24th Congressional District said in a statement Tuesday.

As a former federal prosecutor, I approach the question of impeachment by reviewing the facts at hand, he said. To allow the President of the United States to incite this attack without consequence is a direct threat to the future of our democracy. For that reason, I cannot sit by without taking action. I will vote to impeach this President.

Here Are All Of The House Republicans Who Voted To Impeach Donald Trump

Ten members of the GOP joined with Democrats in the vote.

President Donald Trump impeached for ‘incitement of insurrection’

The House of Representatives has voted to impeach President Donald Trump — making him the only president in American history to be impeached twice.

Unlike his first impeachment in 2019, 10 Republicans joined Democrats to charge Trump for the “incitement of insurrection” for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol with a final vote of 232-197.

Some Republicans may have feared for their own safety if they voted for impeachment, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of those who voted against Trump, said. Kinzinger told ABC’s “Powerhouse Politics” podcast that some members of his party are likely holding back from voting for impeachment due to fear of highlighting their own participation in supporting the president’s false claims of election fraud.

Democrat Jason Crow, of Colorado, relayed similar thoughts in an interview with MSNBC on Wednesday morning.

“I had a lot of conversations with my Republican colleagues last night, and a couple of them broke down in tears talking to me and saying that they are afraid for their lives if they vote for this impeachment,” he said.

Here is a list of the 10 Republicans who took a stance against Trump:

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill.“It’s not going to be some ‘Kumbaya moment’ on the floor — it’s going to be an awakening by the American people to hold their leaders accountable to their rhetoric,”

Nearly All Gop Senators Vote Against Impeachment Trial For Trump Signaling Likely Acquittal

All but five Republican senators backed former president Donald Trump on Tuesday in a key test vote ahead of his impeachment trial, signaling that the proceedings are likely to end with Trumps acquittal on the charge that he incited the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

The vote also demonstrated the continued sway Trump holds over GOP officeholders, even after his exit from the White House under a historic cloud caused by his refusal to concede the November election and his unprecedented efforts to challenge the result.

Trumps trial is not scheduled to begin until Feb. 9, but senators were sworn in for the proceedings Tuesday, and they immediately voted on an objection raised by Sen. Rand Paul questioning the constitutional basis for the impeachment and removal of a former president.

Impeachment is for removal from office, and the accused here has already left office, he argued, adding that the trial would drag our great country down into the gutter of rancor and vitriol, the likes of which has never been seen in our nations history.

But Democrats argue that Trump must be held accountable for the riot, which saw the Capitol overrun and resulted in the deaths of one police officer and four rioters. Pauls argument, they said, suggests that presidents can act with impunity late in their terms.

The final vote was 55 to 45 to kill Pauls objection, with GOP Sens. Susan Collins , Lisa Murkowski , Mitt Romney , Ben Sasse and Patrick J. Toomey joining all 50 Democrats.

Also Check: Can Democrats Win Congress 2016

The Scoop On State Politics In Your Inbox

The impeachment process now moves to the U.S. Senate, where lawmakers will decide whether to convict and remove Trump from office. The vote would require support from two-thirds of the GOP-controlled upper chamber, which is unlikely to happen.

U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, R-Madisonville, said he thinks the House probe was rigged.

I dont want to see that repeated in the Senate, he said. My objective, first and foremost, is to be fair to both sides.

But he also called the impeachment dead as fried chicken in the Senate.

There would be no Republican who would vote for impeachment and one or two Democrats who would vote with us as well, he said.

U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, said he has been focused on other policy priorities and not the impeachment.

I will have to eventually sit through it all anyway, he said of the looming Senate trial.

As the impeachment debate raged on in Washington, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, said during his monthly radio show that he also hadnt been paying too much attention to it.

I think we have a House determined to impeach and a Senate that will never vote to remove, Edwards said.

How the Louisiana delegation voted on impeaching President Donald Trump

Yes: U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-New Orleans.

No: U.S. Reps. Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson; Ralph Abraham, R-Alto; Garret Graves, R-Baton Rouge; Clay Higgins, R-Port Barre; and Mike Johnson, R-Benton.;

President Trump has rejected any responsibility for the violence.

Why Is Trump On Trial

Trumps second impeachment stems from his involvement in whipping up a mob on 6 January that went on to assault the Capitol building while a joint session of Congress was convened to certify Joe Bidenâs Electoral College win. The invasion of the Capitol led to five deaths and the temporary suspension of the vote certification until the assailants could be removed. The House voted to impeach him for a second time a week after the events and just a little over a week from him leaving office.

GOP Sen. Mitt Romney says his impeachment vote will be âbased upon the facts and the evidence as is presented.âRomney also says he believes âthat what is being alleged and what we saw, which is incitement to insurrection, is an impeachable offense. If not? what is?â

Recommended Reading: What Is The Lapel Pin The Republicans Are Wearing

The 10 House Republicans Who Voted To Impeach President Trump

The House of Representatives voted Wednesday afternoon to impeach President Trump for his role in last weeks assault on the Capitol as Congress started to formally count the electoral votes showing that President-elect Joe Biden was victorious in last Novembers election.

The article of impeachment charged that Trump gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of Government by promoting false election fraud claims, seeking to illegally manufacture a different election outcome and inviting his supporters to attend the Jan. 6 rally in Washington that turned violent.

He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of Government, read the impeachment article. He thereby betrayed his trust as President, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

Trump became the first president to ever be impeached twice, following his December 2019 impeachment for soliciting foreign election interference before he was acquitted in the Senate. Those articles had no support among House Republicans, who unanimously opposed them, but this time 10 members of Trumps party voted to impeach.

Kevin Mccarthy Is Actively Opposing President Trump By Fundraising For The 45th Presidents Political Opponents

Despite President Donald Trumps efforts to endorse and unseat opponents of his America First agenda in the U.S. House, including representatives who voted with Democrats to impeach him over claims he incited violence in January 6, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is actively fundraising for many of President Trumps opponents, raising around half a million dollars for them.

McCarthys inappropriately named Take Back the House 2022 committee has raised $100,000 each for Reps. Jaime Herrera-Beutler of Washington state, John Katko of New York, and both Fred Upton and Peter Meijer of Michigan, who all voted to bring impeachment charges against President Trump in the United States Senate.

At least one of these candidates has two pro-Trump challengers. Herrera-Beutler, the establishment Republican incumbent in Washington state, faces insurgent challenges from Joe Kent a veteran of the United States armed forces whose wife died in service to her country and Heidi St. John, a legend in the homeschool community who has opposed left wing school curriculum and fought for parents rights to determine how their children should be educated for years.

President Trump recently endorsed Kents bid to replace Herrera-Beutlerm in a move that received praise from America First political pundits. However, it seems McCarthy favors the establishment incumbent over America First challengers.

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Gop Leader Mccarthy: Trump Bears Responsibility For Violence Wont Vote To Impeach

Some ambitious Republican senators have never been as on board the Trump train as the more feverish GOP members in the House, and the former might be open to convicting Trump. But their ambition cuts two ways on the one hand, voting to ban Trump opens a lane to carry the Republican mantle in 2024 and be the partys new standard-bearer, but, on the other, it has the potential to alienate many of the 74 million who voted for Trump, and whose votes they need.

Its a long shot that Trump would ultimately be convicted, because 17 Republicans would need to join Democrats to get the two-thirds majority needed for a conviction. But its growing clearer that a majority of the Senate will vote to convict him, reflecting the number of Americans who are in favor of impeachment, disapproved of the job Trump has done and voted for his opponent in the 2020 presidential election.

Correction Jan. 14, 2021

A previous version of this story incorrectly said Rep. Peter Meijer is a West Point graduate. Meijer attended West Point, but he is a graduate of Columbia University.

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Trump Calls For ‘no Violence’ As Congress Moves To Impeach Him For Role In Riot

Rep. Schiff: Only Question Is How Many In GOP Will Support Impeachment | Morning Joe | MSNBC

This time, there will be more. Some Republican senators have called on Trump to resign, and even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he is undecided at this point.

Trump’s impeachment won’t lead to his removal even if he is convicted because of the timeline. The Senate is adjourned until Tuesday. The next day, Biden will be sworn in as the 46th president. But there’s another penalty the Constitution allows for as a result of a Senate conviction that could be appealing to some Republican senators banning Trump from holding “office” again.

While there is some debate as to the definition of “office” in the Constitution and whether that would apply to running for president or even Congress, that kind of public rebuke would send a strong message that Republicans are ready to move on from Trumpism.

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Patrick J Toomey Of Pennsylvania

Mr. Toomey, 59, a senator since 2011, is not seeking re-election in 2022. He had denounced Mr. Trumps conduct; in a statement on Saturday, he said had decided during the trial that the former president deserved to be found guilty.

I listened to the arguments on both sides, Mr. Toomey said, and I thought the arguments in favor of conviction were much stronger.

Liz Cheney John Katko And Dan Newhouse Among 10 House Republicans Who Voted In Favour Of Motion

The U.S. House of Representatives voted to impeach President Donald Trump a second time on Wednesday. The House voted 232-197 in favour of an unprecedented second impeachment just one week after the violence at the U.S. Capitol.

Those 232 votes were cast in favour of the bill by 222 Democrats along with 10 Republicans, members of Trumps own party.

The Republicans;include:

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Here Are The Seven Republicans Who Voted To Convict Trump

Sen. Richard Burr, North Carolina Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times

Sen. Bill Cassidy, Louisiana Alyssa Schukar for The New York Times

Sen. Susan Collins, Maine Doug Mills/The New York Times

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Alaska Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times

Sen. Mitt Romney, Utah Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times

Sen. Ben Sasse, Nebraska Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times

Sen. Pat Toomey, Pennsylvania Erin Schaff/The New York Times

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Seven Republican senators voted on Saturday to convict former President Donald J. Trump in the most bipartisan vote for a presidential impeachment conviction in United States history. The of the two-thirds needed to find him guilty.

Who are the seven senators? Only one Lisa Murkowski is up for re-election next year, and she has survived attacks from the right before. Two are retiring, and three won new terms in November, so they will not face voters until 2026.

Why Didnt The Trial Begin While Trump Was Still In Office

The articles of impeachment were not sent to the Senate immediately since the Senate wouldnt be in session until the day before Joe Bidens inauguration. The Democrats waited further until an agreement was reached in the Senate for the power-sharing structure that would regulate how the evenly split Senate would operate going forward. Under an agreement with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell the trial was delayed to give the Senate more time to get Bidens nominees for his Cabinet approved.

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Rep Jaime Herrera Beutler Washington

Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washingtons 3rd Congressional District criticized both the presidents rhetoric, which she said incited the mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, as well as his actions during the violence.

Hours went by before the president did anything meaningful to stop the attack. Instead, he and his lawyer were busy making calls to senators who were still in lockdown, seeking their support to further delay the Electoral College certification, she claimed.

Herrera Beutler also cited Trumps speech in response to the attack, during which he told his supporters you are very special and we love you, while also asking them for peace.

Gop Leader Mccarthy: Trump ‘bears Responsibility’ For Violence Won’t Vote To Impeach

Some ambitious Republican senators have never been as on board the Trump train as the more feverish GOP members in the House, and the former might be open to convicting Trump. But their ambition cuts two ways on the one hand, voting to ban Trump opens a lane to carry the Republican mantle in 2024 and be the party’s new standard-bearer, but, on the other, it has the potential to alienate many of the 74 million who voted for Trump, and whose votes they need.

It’s a long shot that Trump would ultimately be convicted, because 17 Republicans would need to join Democrats to get the two-thirds majority needed for a conviction. But it’s growing clearer that a majority of the Senate will vote to convict him, reflecting the number of Americans who are in favor of impeachment, disapproved of the job Trump has done and voted for his opponent in the 2020 presidential election.

Correction Jan. 14, 2021

A previous version of this story incorrectly said Rep. Peter Meijer is a West Point graduate. Meijer attended West Point, but he is a graduate of Columbia University.

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Will The Stimulus Bill Boost Democrats Electoral Prospects

But is this opposition real or just noise? After all, were still a long way from the 2022 primaries, which leaves plenty of time for anger surrounding their votes to impeach Trump to fade.

related:Sometimes Senators Just Retire. Dont Read Too Much Into The Recent GOP Exodus. Read more. »

At first glance, the seriousness of the primary challengers does vary quite a bit, ranging from the very serious that is, other elected officials, who tend to be stronger candidates to political newcomers like a conservative activist best known for getting married in a MAGA dress. Yet, in most cases, these representatives should all have at least some reason to be concerned about winning renomination in 2022 especially those who hail from more Republican-leaning districts.1

Republicans who voted to impeach face primary challenges

The 10 House Republicans who backed impeachment, including whether they were publicly admonished by state or local Republican Party committees and whether they have a primary challenger

Representative -10.9

*Valadao lost reelection in Californias 21st Congressional District in 2018 but won the seat back in 2020.

Admonishment includes a censure or public rebuke by a Republican Party committee at the state, district or county level.

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Ial Retraction From Starr

Rep. Adam Kinzinger on why he broke with Republicans and voted to impeach President Trump

In January 2020, while testifying as a defense lawyer for U.S. President Donald Trump during his first Senate impeachment trial, Starr himself would retract some of the allegations he made to justify Clintonâs impeachment. Slate journalist Jeremy Stahl pointed out that as he was urging the Senate not to remove Trump as president, Starr contradicted various arguments he used in 1998 to justify Clintonâs impeachment. In defending Trump, Starr also claimed he was wrong to have called for impeachment against Clinton for abuse of executive privilege and efforts to obstruct Congress, and stated that the House Judiciary Committee was right in 1998 to have rejected one of the planks for impeachment he had advocated for. He also invoked a 1999 Hofstra Law Review article by Yale law professor Akhil Amar, who argued that the Clinton impeachment proved just how impeachment and removal causes âgrave disruptionâ to a national election.

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[mariacallous]

Recent elections have given Americans a refresher course on how our presidents are chosen. We have been reminded that the Electoral College, not the national popular vote, is decisive. We have learned that although nearly every state allocates its Electoral College votes to the electors representing the candidate receiving the most popular votes, the Constitution does not require them to do so. (Maine and Nebraska award some of their electoral college votes to the winners of each congressional district.) We have been surprised to learn that the Constitution does not specify the details of how the electors are to be certified and counted—and dismayed to discover that the law passed to do so more than a century ago was vague and outdated, which is why Congress came together across party lines in 2022 to rewrite it.

Now it is time to focus on the destabilizing possibility that some so-called “faithless” electors could disregard the will of the people and cast their votes for a candidate who did not win the most votes in their state. This has happened 90 times throughout our history, so far without changing the outcome of the presidential contest.1 But because we live in an era of close elections with a handful of swing states, the chances are higher today that such electors—indeed, just one—could do so, with potentially disastrous consequences.

Let’s see how this could happen in 2024.

Unless there’s a political earthquake, Joe Biden will comfortably carry 19 states, the District of Columbia, and Nebraska’s 2nd congressional district, for a total of 226 electoral votes, while Donald Trump will prevail in 24 states plus Maine’s 2nd district, with 219 votes. The remaining 93 electoral votes are controlled by seven swing states—the famous “Blue wall” (Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania), two southern states (North Carolina and Georgia), and two states in the southwest (Arizona and Nevada).

Although Biden now trails in all seven swing states, he is doing significantly better in the three Blue Wall states than in the others.2 Indeed, it is not unlikely that he could gain enough ground by Election Day to carry Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, with 44 electoral votes, while losing the other four. This would give him 270 electoral votes, just enough to win, leaving Trump with 268—or so it would seem.

But then an elector from a state Biden carried decides that they can’t in good conscience vote for the president and on the appointed day instead casts their ballot for Robert F. Kennedy Jr, leaving Biden one vote short of the needed majority.

What happens then? It depends on which state this elector represents.

Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution gives each state the authority to appoint its electors as it chooses. The result has been a patchwork of laws dealing with faithless electors. In 15 states, a renegade elector’s vote is voided, and a replacement is named. But in 19 others, their votes would count, including 11 states Biden won in 2020. Some of these laws specify enforcement mechanisms; others don’t. And some states—including Pennsylvania—have no laws bearing on this question. Chaos would ensue if a Biden elector from the Keystone State jumped ship.3

The Supreme Court offers only limited guidance on such controversies. In 2020, the Court ruled that states may enforce laws to punish faithless electors—if they have such laws. But the U.S. Constitution does not require any state to enact one, and a federal statute to that effect probably would be held unconstitutional.

It’s easy to predict that the campaign facing a razor-thin Electoral College loss—in this scenario the Trump campaign—would do everything it could to pry loose at least one vote from the winner. The Trump forces surely would target all the states that allow the votes of faithless electors to be counted—and those whose laws are silent on the matter—and probably those whose laws are vague about how to enforce their prohibition on faithless electors as well. With such high stakes, any campaign would be tempted to resort to unseemly tactics against vulnerable electors. As bare-knuckled combat raged across the country, a political system that is already under severe pressure would suffer an additional blow to its legitimacy.

There’s no chance that many state legislatures will act on this matter before Election Day, so if I were an election lawyer or a senior political operative working for the Biden campaign, I’d prepare myself for this issue. If I were working for the Trump campaign, I’d do the same thing. And if I held a leadership position in a state legislature with no law or a vague law on this matter, I’d be urging my colleagues to act now or, if it’s too late for this cycle, in time for the 2028 presidential election. 

[pearmainht-blog]

It’s Math. Not Cynicism.

Math. That’s all it is. Simple addition and subtraction. Simple equations of “if, then”. Simple questions of yes or no.

Politics is all math. If you find a political adviser who says otherwise, then you have found a political adviser who is lying to you (shocking!). Pollsters from both parties understand this one, unspoken truth: it’s a numbers game and nothing more than a numbers game.  

The path to the presidency is the perfect example. An entire population – hundreds of millions of voters – are distilled into an extremely simplified math game.

Like any game or sport, this one has rules. Understanding these rules allows the viewer to understand the actions behind the players.

Make no mistake: when I say “understanding the rules” I mean that one must understand the basic math of the Electoral College.

For starters, here’s a rule people need to accept: individuals don’t matter.

That’s not a generalization or a talking point; it’s literally true. Individuals don’t matter in the sense that they have zero impact on the math.

If 10,000 voters in South Carolina get screwed by an administration’s policy, they have no recourse.

“Of course they do! They can vote just like everyone else!”

No, they don’t. Yes, they can vote, but it doesn’t matter. Literally. Mathematically. It doesn’t matter. The impact on the final score is zero.

Here’s what I mean: republican candidate gets 100% of SC’s EC votes. If 10,000 voters in SC swing blue, then… wait for it…

Wait for it…

…then republican candidate gets 100% of SC’s EC votes.

The 10,000 vote swing had zero impact on the EC. Zero. Literally zero. None.

100% - 100%  = 0%.

So when I say votes don’t matter, I’m not giving an opinion. I’m stating a mathematical fact.

Now I’m fully aware that there are certain states that matter, and in which individuals do count. I’ll get to that in a second. But first: a sports analogy!

***

Think of a basketball game. 5 players on your team: A, B, C, D and E. If the rules were such that baskets scored by players A, B, C, and D were awarded with zero points, then you would never let those players shoot. You would employ a strategy in which only player E ever shot the ball. Any shooting from the other players would be pointless since it doesn’t improve your point total.

This is the EC.  Any change in voter habits in South Carolina will have zero impact on the final score.

“What if there’s a HUGE wave election and South Carolina flips blue! Then the votes matter!”

True in a hypothetical universe, but not true in the real world. This is equivalent to saying the following:

“Player A does get points! If she shoots from 75 feet away and makes the basket we will award extra points for your team!”

No coach would ever devise a strategy around letting player A take near-impossible shots from 75 feet away. It would be ridiculous.  

So when you see a president or a presidential hopeful ignoring voters in 80% of the states, don’t act surprised. These are the rules of the game. This is the math. Player E gets points and nobody else does.

***

Now you may say that this is unethical, or that it violates the spirit of American politics, or some such rejoinder. But like basketball players, politicians are charged with one object: win.

If the rules of the game do not reflect the correct ethos (say, if they render the majority of both parties’ voters irrelevant), or they encourage a strategy of which you do not approve, then the rules need to be changed.

The players do not need to change; the players and coaches will adapt strategies according to new rules. If there are certain players who cannot compete as well under new rules, then they will be self-selected out of the game.

But until that time, these ARE the rules and politicians WILL play the game accordingly. They have no other choice.

***

Straight from the headlines!

The idea of steel and aluminum tariffs are being tossed around by a certain popular-vote loser. Many will say that this is stupid. I agree that it’s bad economic policy, but it’s not necessarily stupid political strategy. (note: “desperate” is not the same as “stupid”)

At the risk of beating the dead drum again, let’s look at the math…

The EC in 2016 was decided by three states. Wisconsin went red due to extremely low turnout among Black voters. This is unlikely to repeat itself as long as some decent voter registration and Get Out the Vote drives are done. Michigan went red by an even narrower margin, and is unlikely to do so again for numerous reasons. Obviously nothing from these two states is guaranteed but these are fair assessments of where they currently stand, so let’s roll with them for purposes of this discussion.

That leaves Pennsylvania; it’s our Player E.

[[ Before other wonks jump all over me, let me concede that I am ignoring Florida for sake of this discussion. If Florida swings blue then PA is rendered irrelevant. Same with North Carolina (just elected a Dem governor) or Ohio. Those two are more challenging for Dems to flip but still well within the realm of possibility. Arizona, Georgia and Texas may be considered “in play” by some but I’m not putting them in that category until 2024. And Iowa may flip but it has so few EC votes that it is also irrelevant. ]]

p45 is in a position where he has to win PA. No choice. If PA goes, then the rest of the map is irrelevant.  

So ask yourself: why would he care about the economic fortunes of any other states? Tariffs will likely harm many people across the country. But we’ve established that those votes don’t count (we used math to prove it!), and we have isolated the one and only state that does matter. Only a fool would ignore this mathematical truth. If he can’t hang on to PA, then Florida, et al are worthless. This arrangement is not by his choice; this is not his doing; this is the centuries-old scoring system.

If we have a scoring system in which the votes of a specific industry in a specific state determine the outcome, then we cannot be surprised or chagrined when a policy maker acts accordingly.

Elections have consequences.

Rules have consequences, too. If we want to change the way the game is played, we must change the rules.

***

Several states across the country have instituted laws requiring their EC voters to vote for the national popular vote winner. If enough additional states adopt this same rule, the EC will be rendered irrelevant and all votes nationwide will count equally.

“But what about those 10,000 votes in South Carolina!? They won’t matter under a national popular vote either!”

Incorrect. They will matter. They will count towards the total vote tally. Yes, 10,000 is a small number in the grand total: 10k out of 100 million is only 0.01%.

So, yes, the popular vote will only count them as 0.01%. But the EC currently counts these votes as zero.

0.01% is not a lot; but it is more than zero.

[darkmaga-returns]

If Trump prevails next week, winning the popular vote may silence some of the anticipated Democratic butt-hurt labeling Trump an "illegitimate president.”

However, the national popular vote does not establish the winner, a lesson that Hillary Clinton learned in 2016.

The next occupant of the White House is determined by the Electoral College, which consists of 50 individual state elections.

According to AtlasIntel, the most reliable pollster from the 2020 election, Trump is forecasted to secure victory with 296 electoral votes, while Harris is expected to receive 242. This isn't a landslide, but it is a solid win. For a third opinion, Nate Silver has Harris up by a point nationally in his model. But the trend lines nationally and in battleground states are rising for Trump and falling for Harris. Most states are firmly aligned as red or blue, Republican or Democrat, respectively, and are unlikely to change. As in previous elections, just a few key battleground states will decide the outcome. RealClearPolitics presents the average polling results from the seven battleground states, providing perspective on the election in relation to the Electoral College. In these states, Trump leads by +1.0.

Looking at specific states, Arizona is Trump +2.5, Nevada is Trump +0.5, Wisconsin is Harris +0.2, Michigan is Harris +0.4, Pennsylvania is Trump +0.8, North Carolina is Trump +1.0, and Georgia is Trump +2.4. Trump needs the majority, though not necessarily all, of these states to prevail on Nov. 5. While it’s possible to speculate numerous combinations and permutations of these states, the current data, just a week before Election Day, favors Trump.

[democratsunited-blog]

‘The map is different now’: Trump blows the 2020 race wide open

https://uniteddemocrats.net/?p=6990

‘The map is different now’: Trump blows the 2020 race wide open

For years, presidential campaigns followed relatively predictable lines of trench warfare, with the outcome decided in a handful of battleground states.

But the era of the hardened electoral map — 40 of 50 states voted for the same party from 2000 to 2012 — may be coming to an end.

Story Continued Below

Interviews with more than two dozen politicians, consultants and activists throughout the country suggest that between Donald Trump’s sweep through the upper Midwest and the demographic shifts powering Democrats in the South and West, the field of competitive states stands to be dramatically reshaped in 2020.

Minnesota, which hasn’t gone for Republican for president in nearly a half-century, suddenly rates high on the GOP wish list. Arizona and Georgia, until recent years considered red-state locks, are undeniably within Democratic reach.

Democrats are engaged in shoot-the-moon speculation about Texas — the red citadel of the modern GOP — while Brad Parscale, Trump’s 2020 campaign manager, views Colorado as a target despite three consecutive Republican defeats there.

Then there is the class of states that Trump improbably pried free in 2016 after three decades of Republican futility: Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. The president has made early overtures to all of them — on Thursday, when Trump appears in Wilkes-Barre, he will be making his fifth trip to Pennsylvania in less than two years.

“You could have a dozen states — not five or six — but a dozen states that are of significant importance and highly competitive from both sides,” said Paul Maslin, a top Democratic pollster who splits time between Los Angeles and Madison, Wisconsin.

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Though the electoral map has shifted over time, Maslin said, the number of potential swing states in 2020 “may be at its peak … I think they’re all going to be pretty strongly competed for.”

Democrats have seized on early signals about a favorable climate awaiting them in the fall and extending into 2020. In the Midwest, following upset special election victories in Wisconsin this year, recent NBC News/Marist polls put Trump’s approval ratings in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin at a seemingly fatal level — below 40 percent.

In the South, where Democrats swept the 2017 Virginia elections, Doug Jones flipped an Alabama Senate seat to Democrats for the first time since 1994. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said Jones’ victory “means we can win anywhere,” suggesting that even Texas, which Trump won by 9 percentage points, could be contested in 2020.

“If Beto [O’Rourke] can win or come really close” to defeating Sen. Ted Cruz in the U.S. Senate race in Texas this year, Dean said, “Texas will be in play.”

David Pepper, chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party, described electoral prospects for Democrats as “getting better.” Of the upcoming electoral map, he said, “I do think it’s broader.”

Yet conversations with Democratic leaders depict a party riven by conflict about how to proceed, with rifts between those focused on traditionally Democratic Midwestern states and those seeking to mine new ground in more diverse states that many in the party believe better represent the party’s future.

The uncertainty about where to compete in a general election against Trump has already forced a large field of potential Democratic candidates to widen their apertures.

In a Democratic presidential primary that is widely expected to be colored by candidates’ perceived electability in a match-up with Trump, trips by candidates to such states as Georgia and Arizona have drawn attention rivaling visits to the early nominating states of Iowa and New Hampshire. When one likely candidate, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, announced last week that he will hold a September fundraiser to raise $1 million for state Democratic parties — ingratiating himself to Democrats outside of his home state — he listed 10 different states as beneficiaries.

In the 2020 primary, said former New Mexico Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson, who ran for president in 2008, “This could be a race that ends up at the convention. I think it’ll go all the way, because everyone will want to see the candidates go through the entire process, not just who the early flavor of the months are.”

For Richardson and other longtime Democrats, the perils of an altered presidential map became apparent the night of Trump’s victory in 2016.

“I never thought I’d live to see the day a Republican would carry Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania,” said Ed Rendell, a former governor of Pennsylvania and DNC chairman.

In 2020, Rendell said, “We should contest in Georgia and places like that, and maybe even Texas. But I think the first thing we’ve got to do is focus on taking back our traditional voters.” Echoing Richardson, Rendell said, “For us, there is no map that we can carry the Electoral College without Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.”

Even in heavily Democratic, urban coastal states, the desire to select a nominee who can re-anchor the party in the Midwest hangs heavily over the pre-presidential campaign. In California, where at least three Democrats are mulling campaigns — Garcetti, Sen. Kamala Harris and billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer — former Gov. Gray Davis said “ideally, our nominee would come from the Midwest, would espouse Midwestern values.”

“And if we don’t have a nominee from the Midwest, our candidate has to basically take up residence in the Midwest. Because I don’t care how charismatic, how persuasive our candidate is, if we cannot re-establish our trust in the Democratic brand in the Midwest, we will not capture the presidency,” Davis said. “Do they have to be from the Midwest? No. Would it help? Absolutely.”

But as Democrats prepare to confront Trump again in the upper Midwest, the evolution of the map is likely to force some hard decisions about which states to target. Four years after Barack Obama won Ohio and Iowa, for example, Hillary Clinton lost each by margins wide enough to raise serious questions about their competitiveness at the presidential level: Trump carried Ohio by 9 percentage points and Iowa by nearly 10 percentage points.

Comparing Trump’s performance in Iowa to Georgia — which Democrats lost by less than 6 percentage points — Sean Clegg, a senior adviser to Harris, said, “I think you can make a straight-faced argument that Georgia is more in play than Iowa as a long-term question.”

“You really look at the places that are growing demographically kind of in the Democrats’ direction,” he said, “and it’s Arizona and Georgia and North Carolina and Florida that show more potential to be states where you could also change the map for the future.”

As in Texas, where Democrats have been buoyed by O’Rourke’s unlikely run at Cruz and recent suburban gains, the party is putting stock for 2020 in the performance of Stacey Abrams in the gubernatorial race in Georgia. The election of a Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, in North Carolina, has helped Democrats improve their fundraising and organizing operations in a state that Trump won by fewer than 4 percentage points.

“I do think there are some potential states that could come on the horizon in the South,” said Jaime Harrison, associate chair of the Democratic National Committee and a former South Carolina state party chair. “My theory has always been that the Democratic Party needs to stop writing off these states.”

In a presidential election, Harrison said, “the real key to all of this is how do you engage the African American community … The question is what can we do as a party, and then in 2020, what can our nominee do, in order to feel that those folks are engaged.”

Tom Perez, the DNC chairman, said recently that the “mission of the new DNC is to organize everywhere,” and Pepper said the right nominee can appeal to Democrats regardless of geography.

“I think with the right candidates, you can do very well in the Midwest,” Pepper said. “And I think with the changing demographics and changing politics these days, I think you can also … compete in Arizona, Georgia and a few other places.”

But many Democrats in states that Clinton narrowly lost remain infuriated by her attempt to expand into Arizona and Georgia — the feeling is especially acute in Wisconsin, where Clinton did not campaign at all in the general election. And the party’s effort to capitalize on its more urban, Obama coalition of young people, women, non-white voters and the college educated, has left many rural Democrats wondering at what cost in their own states.

In Minnesota, which Trump lost by only 1.5 percentage points — and where the president is already offering evidence he intends to compete aggressively there in 2020 — veteran Democratic Rep. Rick Nolan, who is running for lieutenant governor, lamented that messaging from national Democrats in recent months has focused so heavily on urban issues that “basically reading between the lines, [it] said, ‘Kiss rural America goodbye.’”

In part because of his relatively moderate positions on mining in his historically blue-collar, Iron Range district — which broke hard for Trump — Nolan doubted activists in his own party would have endorsed him had he run again for re-election.

He said, “It makes you wonder where the hell your party’s going.”

Matt Barron, a Massachusetts-based consultant who left the Democratic Party last year over his frustration with what he described as a lack of rural outreach, scoffed, “The coalition of the ascendant argument, this argument that demographic forces are just going to take our little surfboards and we’ll all be floating along the big wave … That’s great for maybe 2024 or 2028. I don’t know if it’s good for 2018 or 2020.”

In a recent trip to Nolan’s district in northeastern Minnesota, Trump made clear that his narrow loss there remained on his mind — and flatly asserted that he will win Minnesota in 2020.

“I hate to bring this up, but we came this close to winning the state of Minnesota,” Trump said to a crowd of thousands at a Duluth rally. “And in two and a half years, it’s going to be really, really easy, I think.”

Matt Schlapp, chairman of the influential American Conservative Union, said he expects Trump to compete not only in Minnesota, but in two Western states he lost in 2016: Colorado and Nevada.

“There’s always this game of who can expand the map, and where do you have to play defense, and obviously Trump just kind of threw all that on its head by winning states that nobody really anticipated — in the broader context — that he was going to be able to succeed in,” said Schlapp, a former political director for President George W. Bush. “I think the map is different now.”

For his part, Dean, who ran unsuccessfully for president in 2004, predicted Democrats will reclaim Pennsylvania and Michigan in 2020, with a more difficult road in Wisconsin and North Carolina.

Dean, who urged Democrats to select a nominee younger than 40 or 50 years old, said the real division within the Democratic Party is generational, not geographical. But he suggested a broader map would only help a younger nominee disinclined to “mousy-mouse around” in an attempt to appeal to narrow segments of the electorate.

“We see it as a zero-sum game,” the 69-year-old Dean said of his own generation. “They see it as an addition game, and I think that’s where we’re headed in this country.”

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What Happens If Republicans Win The House

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What Happens If Republicans Win The House

Gop Lawmakers Threaten To Punish Democrats If They Win Back Control Of Congress

Trump to decide on 2024 presidential run once Republicans ‘take back the House’

‘When we take the majority back in 2022, I’ll make sure consequences are doled out,’ said Rep. Madison Cawthorn.

Republicans are outraged that Democrats are governing by majority rule in the House. In retaliation, they are vowing to do the same things they now decry as unprecedented and wrong.

“Never in the history of our country has a Speaker acted like such an authoritarian,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy tweeted on Thursday.

He was upset that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had rejected his request to appoint Republican Reps. Jim Banks and Jim Jordan to the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol. Both men voted to overturn the 2020 election results and pushed the lie that President Joe Biden only won because the election was stolen.

“Never in the history of Congress and the select committee I checked with the historian has this ever taken place, where the one party decides who’s all on the committee,” McCarthy told Fox News in a video he with his tweet. McCarthy in fact voted to give Republican then-Speaker John Boehner the exact same unilateral appointment power in 2014 for the Select Committee on the Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi.

But while House Republicans claim they are being mistreated because the majority won’t let them have their way, they are also promising to retaliate by turning the same actions they criticize now against Democrats in 2023.

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How Congress Counts The Votes

Congress will meet in a joint session around 1 p.m. Eastern time, meaning both the House and Senate are together. Pence will preside over the process. He could delegate the job to another senator, but we dont expect that.

They will go through the states alphabetically. For each state, clerks sitting below Pence will hand him the envelopes, tell him the votes, and he is supposed to read them out loud. Then they move on to the next state.

There will be precautions for coronavirus. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told lawmakers to stay in their offices during debate. The plan is for lawmakers to stream in to vote in small groups. And masks are required on the House floor.

Why Republicans Are Likely To Win The 2022 Mid

The public opinion in the United States may indeed be generally opposed to the Republican Party coming to power in the 2022 mid-term election, yet we should not close our eyes to the fact that the GOP is still well-positioned to take back the House and change the balance of power in its favor.

Taking a glance at what happened during recent months, it seems highly probable that the Republican party may have little to no chance to win the 2022 mid-term election. The first and the most noticeable incident that helps this idea prevail is that it was a Republican president who instead of leading the country towards peace in a time of crisis back in January, actually added fuel to the huge fire of division and riot in the U.S. and encouraged his extremist supporters to attack the Capitol Building, creating a national embarrassment that can hardly be erased from peoples memory.

To compound the puzzle, while no one can deny the destructive role the former president Donald Trump had in plotting for and leading the , in the battle of Trump against the truth, the members of the Republican party chose to opt for supporting the former at the cost of sacrificing the latter; It was on this Wednesday that Republican leaders in Congress expressed their opposition to a proposed bipartisan commission designed and created for investigating the Capitol riot that was carried out by Trumps supporters.

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What Happens If The House Has To Decide The Next President

The unlikely scenario has been discussed by the president and Nancy Pelosi.

Election year 2020 by the numbers

A bitterly divided country deadlocked in a 269-269 Electoral College tie turns to the House of Representatives to select the next president.

The unusual constitutional scenario is considered so far-fetched — it hasn’t happened since 1824 — that it was written into the plot of the fifth season of HBO comedy series “Veep” and its send-up of the political class.

But in a year when coronavirus-related voting changes could have an unpredictable impact on an already competitive presidential race between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, it’s a potential, if remote, election outcome Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have openly acknowledged.

“I don’t want to end up in the Supreme Court and I don’t want to go back to Congress either, even though we have an advantage,” Trump said of the election at a Sept. 26 Pennsylvania rally.

Pelosi fired back in a letter to House Democrats two days later, encouraging members to support candidates in “key districts” across the country.

“If Trump can’t win at the ballot box, he wants the House to deliver him the presidency,” she wrote. “It’s sad we have to plan this way, but it’s what we must do to ensure the election is not stolen.”

Republicans hold advantage in the House

Pelosi ‘prepared’ for every election scenario

Reality Check #4: The Electoral College And The Senate Are Profoundly Undemocraticand Were Stuck With Them

Because the Constitution set up a state-by-state system for picking presidents, the massive Democratic majorities we now see in California and New York often mislead us about the partys national electoral prospects. In 2016, Hillary Clintons 3-million-vote plurality came entirely from California. In 2020, Bidens 7-million-vote edge came entirely from California and New York. These are largely what election experts call wasted votesDemocratic votes that dont, ultimately, help the Democrat to win. That imbalance explains why Trump won the Electoral College in 2016 and came within a handful of votes in three states from doing the same last November, despite his decisive popular-vote losses.

The response from aggrieved Democrats? Abolish the Electoral College! In practice, theyd need to get two-thirds of the House and Senate, and three-fourths of the state legislatures, to ditch the process that gives Republicans their only plausible chance these days to win the White House. Shortly after the 2016 election, Gallup found that Republican support for abolishing the electoral college had dropped to 19 percent. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, a state-by-state scheme to effectively abolish the Electoral College without changing the Constitution, hasnt seen support from a single red or purple state.

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Democratic Accomplishments Just Give Republicans Something To Undo

Yes, even if the Democratic trifecta is very likely to end next year, and even if Republicans win their own in 2024, theres no way around the fact that in an amazingly short period of time Biden and his party may wrack up a mini-New Deal that reverses many years of atavistic Republican and meh Democratic policies. That has to be an enduring blow to Republicans, right?

Maybe not so much any more. One of the benefits of being conquered by a free-spending protectionist and isolationist is that the GOP is now pretty flexible in terms of its old Reaganite core ideology. As Rand Paul just cheefully said, if Democrats raise taxes something that horrified old-school Republicans like the ugly face of sin itself theyll just lower them next time they have the power to do so! Bidens accomplishments give the opposition an agenda, which is useful at a time when it isnt exactly brimming with policy ideas. Republicans may very well embrace the most popular Biden initiatives while demonizing the ones that dont poll so well. Its an easier strategy than the one they followed in those more principled days when they lectured voters about the need for entitlement reform.

Redistricting Is The Next Step On A Path To One

The redistricting process kicked off this week in Washington. The Census Bureau released initial data from the 2020 census Monday afternoon, , which means that congressional district boundaries will soon be redrawn to account for changes in population.

These changes will probably tend to benefit the Republican Party, as conservative states will get more seats for instance, Texas will gain two seats, while New York, California, and Illinois will all lose one. Republicans are also certain to use the process to try to gerrymander themselves as many additional congressional seats as possible by leveraging their control of a majority of state legislatures. And that is just the opening tactic in a long-term strategy to abolish American democracy and set up one-party rule.

Today in Michigan, gerrymandering means Republicans enjoy a 3.4-point handicap in the state House and a 10.7-point handicap in the state Senate; in Pennsylvania, it’s a 3.1-point handicap in the House and a 5.9-point handicap in the Senate; and in Wisconsin, a 7.1-point handicap in the House and a 10.1-point handicap in the Senate.

It’s impossible to gerrymander the Senate, of course, but luckily for Republicans that chamber is inherently gerrymandered due to the large number of disproportionately white, low-population rural states that lean conservative. The swing seat in the Senate is biased something like 7 points to the right.

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Republicans Will Likely Take Control Of The Senate By 2024

The usual midterm House losses by the White House party dont always extend to the Senate because only a third of that chamber is up for election every two years and the landscape sometimes strongly favors the presidential party . But there a still generally an out-party wave that can matter, which is why Republicans may have a better than average chance of winning in at least some of the many battleground states that will hold Senate elections next year . If they win four of the six youll probably be looking at a Republican Senate.

But its the 2024 Senate landscape that looks really promising for the GOP. Democrats will be defending 23 seats and Republicans just 10. Three Democratic seats, and all the Republican seats, are in states Trump carried twice. Four other Democratic seats are in states Trump won once. It should be a banner year for Senate Republicans.

What Happens If One Chamber Votes To Accept A Challenge To A States Electors

What will happen if Democrats take back Congress?

Now we are almost certainly getting out of the realm of possibility, given the numbers. But if the Senate decided to vote in favor of a challenge to a states electors, there are still many hurdles to overturning Bidens win.

The law requires both chambers of Congress to affirmatively vote to object to a states electors, which wont happen with a Democratic-controlled House.

Even if both chambers somehow agreed to accept the challenge, the tiebreaker would go to the governor of the state. And all governors in contested states have certified results that Biden won.

So even if we drift far into hypotheticals on this, there are numerous checks that would protect Bidens win.

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The Future Could Actually Be Bright For Republicans

The most common political narrative outside MAGA-land is that the Republican Party is screwed, and richly deserves the ignominious future it faces.

Until recently the GOP was a reasonably normal and intermittently successful center-right political party, not wildly different from its counterparts in other countries with a two-party system, despite some racist and militarist habits that burst into view in times of stress. But then America elected a Black president, and Republicans went a little crazy, according to those outside their circles. First they abetted a destructively antediluvian Tea Party Movement and then lurched into the arms of an evil charlatan who somehow got elected president and spent four years trashing hallowed conservative principles and losing both Congress and the White House before his disgraceful and violence-inflected departure.

Worse yet, in the face of huge demographic challenges that beg for a new approach, the Republican Party has now lashed itself to a Trumpian mast going forward, following the most consistently unpopular president in American history in his bizarre crusade to deny he has ever lost anything. Meanwhile a shockingly united Democratic Party is whipping a few decades worth of liberal legislation through Congress as Republicans whine about cancel culture and try to sell the idea that Joe Biden is actually Che Guevara.

Hope For Biden’s Agenda

For two years, the Republican-controlled Senate bottled up virtually every piece of legislation coming out of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives. With a Georgia victory, that blockage has been removed.

That’s good news for Biden’s rather extensive legislative agenda – on issues like healthcare, the environment, government reform and the economy – which should be able to survive the House and at least get an up-or-down vote in the Senate.

A 50-50 Senate tie won’t mean the Green New Deal or a public health-insurance option are coming any time soon, however. There’s still the filibuster, which mandates 60 votes to pass major legislation, to contend with, and even bills that can get by with a simple majority will have to satisfy Democratic centrists like Joe Manchin of West Virginia and the two senators from Arizona.

Another round of coronavirus relief seems probable, however, including larger per-person relief payments to all Americans. A simple congressional majority can also vote to rescind any regulations the Trump administration enacted in the final months of his presidency. That will, at the very least, get the Biden presidency off on the right foot.

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The Plausible Solution: Just Win More

Whether the public sees Democratic demands for these structural changes as overdue or overreaching, the key point is that they are currently exercises in futility. The only plausible road to winning their major policy goals is to win by winning. This means politics, not re-engineering. They need to find ways to take down their opponents, and then be smarter about using that power while they have it.

They certainly have issues to campaign on. In the few weeks, we have learned that some of Americas wealthiest people have paid only minimal or no federal income tax at all. Even as the Wall Street Journal editorial writers were responding to a Code Red emergency , the jaw-dropping nature of the reportfollowed by a New York Times piece about the impotence of the IRS to deal with the tax evasions of private equity royaltyconfirmed the folk wisdom of countless bars, diners, and union halls: the wealthy get away with murder.

Of course this is a whole lot easier said than done. A political climate where inflation, crime and immigration are dominant issues has the potential to override good economic news. And 2020 already showed what can happen when a relative handful of voices calling for defunding the police can drown out the broader usage of economic fairness.

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Why This Could Stretch Well Into The Night Anyway

Trump lost about six swing states, and theyre spread out throughout the alphabet Arizona to Wisconsin. Republicans who question the election results have indicated they will try to challenge all of them. Each time theres a challenge supported by at least one member of each chamber, Congress has to split off and vote on it. Then they come back together and keep counting states. Voting will also take longer than normal because of coronavirus precautions to space lawmakers apart from each other.

What is a normally quick and easy process could get dragged into the wee hours.

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Reality Check 3: The Democrats Legislative Fix Will Never Happenand Doesnt Even Touch The Real Threats

Its understandable why Democrats have ascribed a life-or-death quality to S. 1, the For the People bill that would impose a wide range of requirements on state voting procedures. The dozensor hundredsof provisions enacted by Republican state legislatures and governors represent a determination to ensure that the GOP thumb will be on the scale at every step of the voting process. The proposed law would roll that back on a national level by imposing a raft of requirements on statesno excuse absentee voting, more days and hours to votebut would also include public financing of campaigns, independent redistricting commissions and compulsory release of presidential candidates’ tax returns.

There are all sorts of Constitutional questions posed by these ideas. But theres a more fundamental issue here: The Constitutional clause on which the Democrats are relyingArticle I, Section 4, Clause 1gives Congress significant power over Congressional elections, but none over elections for state offices or the choosing of Presidential electors.

How Challenges To States Electors Will Work

For a challenge to proceed, at least one lawmaker from each chamber must object to a states electors. More than two dozen House Republicans have said they will try to challenge results, and a dozen GOP senators will join them even though Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has urged senators to stay away from this.

Lawmakers dont have to give a detailed explanation of why they object; they just object in writing, which Pence will read out loud.

If theres an objection to a states electors raised by both a House and Senate lawmaker, the chambers have to split up and vote on that objection. Most of this will be done silently, save for Pence reading out loud the objections.

They have up to two hours to debate each one. That means there will be simultaneous debates in the House and Senate. We expect congressional leaders in both chambers to move to put down the challenges as quickly as possible. In the House, Pelosi will let lawmakers from the states being challenged do the speaking on the Democratic side.

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