With news this morning that Pennsylvania and now Georgia, of all places, appears to be trending toward Joe Biden, the writing seems to be on the wall. The count is still happening in Arizona, but if President Trump cannot hold his southern wall and hold the Keystone state, there is no coming back even with a come-from-behind win out west.
Decision Desk HQ felt comfortable enough this morning to call Pennsylvania for Biden, which puts him over the 270 needed electoral college votes to claim the presidency:
Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina are still being decided. At this point, Biden could lose them all and still sit at over 270 electoral votes.
It’s hard to say where the biggest news is coming from, but it may be the downfall of the once-red Arizona trending away from Trump this year, along with deep red Georgia.
Many have been watching Arizona closely because of the large number of outstanding ballots that are trending toward the President. Recent analysis, however, says it may not be trending enough:
President Donald Trump inched closer to former Vice President Joe Biden as results from Thursday’s ballot counting were released, but he fell off the pace needed to win Arizona’s 11 electoral votes.
Trump won 55.6% of the ballots counted in Maricopa County on Thursday to Biden’s 41.7%. It was a great showing, but Trump’s challenge is he needs more than 57% of the outstanding votes to win.
Statewide, Trump chipped away 22,000 votes from Biden’s lead, closing the gap to 46,667 votes as of 9:30 p.m. Thursday. But unless the next batches of votes show Trump with a higher percentage than what the president managed Thursday, he will fall short.
There are still some 300,000 votes to count in Arizona, but if the trend holds, Biden is likely to remain ahead even as the gap closes.
Georgia is much tighter at the moment, but could widen as the day drags on into the weekend:
Trump’s lead had steadily diminished in Georgia, a Southern state that has not voted for a Democratic presidential nominee since Bill Clinton took the White House in 1992, as officials worked through tens of thousands of uncounted votes, many from Democratic strongholds such as Atlanta.
The Georgia secretary of state reported late on Thursday there were about 14,000 ballots still to count in the state.
The state also will have to sift through votes from military personnel and overseas residents as well as provisional ballots cast on Election Day by voters who had problems with their registration or identification.
Either way, with Pennsylvania in Biden’s column, the rest of these states are gravy.
As for Congress, there appears to be a bloodbath happening for Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the House of Representatives. Republicans are gaining a number of seats in the House but will likely fall just shy of taking control of the lower chamber. Many expected Republicans to lose House seats, but it appears to be Democrats right now clinging to a thin majority as the GOP made inroads around the country:
NBC estimates Democrats will hold 226 House seats, while Republicans will have 209. The figures could change, as NBC said the parties may ultimately end up with as many as eight seats more or less than those projections. (Eight fewer seats for Democrats would put them at 218, the minimum they need for a majority).
In races called by NBC, Republicans have flipped a net six seats. Democrats have won 208 seats, the GOP has carried 195 and 32 remain uncalled.
Republicans have so far cut into the Democratic majority mostly by gaining back ground they lost in the 2018 midterms, when Democrats flipped House control. The GOP will defeat at least seven House Democrats, including six first-term representatives.
It doesn’t seem plausible that the GOP will take control but has certainly eroded Nancy Pelosi’s power. Some Democrats have already started attacking party leadership for what they see as a colossal failure to maintain a strong majority and one member implored the party to never use the words “socialist” or “socialism” ever again:
Multiple reporters listening in on the House Democrats post-election conference call Thursday quoted an angry Spanberger telling her colleagues to never say “socialism” again. She warned that calls to defund the police nearly cost her any chance at re-election.
Even before the Presidential race is decided, Democrats are waging a battle on Twitter over whether the party would be more successful tacking to the left or to the middle.
Spanberger on the Dem caucus call: We lost races we shouldn’t have lost.
Defund police almost cost me my race bc of an attack ad.
Don’t say socialism ever again.
Need to get back to basics.
(Is yelling.)— Erica Werner (@ericawerner) November 5, 2020
For the United States Senate, it appears, for the moment, that Republicans will maintain control of the Upper Chamber. That means a President Biden will be dealing with a weakened majority in the House, and a GOP-controlled Senate with Mitch McConnell likely still in charge:
Democrats were coming up short in their effort to win control of the Senate, where Republicans currently hold a 53-47 majority, even as they retained control of the House of Representatives.
If those results hold, that would be a recipe for gridlock in Washington, analysts say, where lawmakers would struggle to agree even on basic duties like paying debts and funding government operations.
Biden’s plan to raise taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals would also be dead in the water, as would voting-rights and campaign-finance reforms backed by Democrats.
Biden also will likely have to settle for a much smaller economic stimulus package. Democrats have passed several bills out of the House that would provide up to $3.4 trillion to provide assistance to millions of jobless people and help local governments keep teachers, firefighters and other employees on the payroll.
Both Senate seats in Georgia look to be headed for a runoff in January where state law requires the winning candidate must receive at least 50% of the vote. Incumbent Republican David Purdue fell just under the 50% mark on Friday as the state slipped into the Biden column.
The other Georgia seat, a special election, will see Republican Kelly Loeffler and Democrat Raphael Warnock heading to a runoff as well.
If both of these seats stay in GOP hands in January, Republicans will maintain control of the Senate. Both sides will be focused intently on these runoff elections as they may decide whether Biden will govern with a divided Congress or have total one-party control.
The question remains now whether any lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign alleging vote fraud or voting irregularities have any legs and could upend the final vote counting and certification. Due to the number of Covid-related changes to accepted election procedures, many voters continue to question the legitimacy of unfettered absentee ballot harvesting with loosened validation requirements, especially in Pennsylvania.
As with everything, results are changing by the hour. Former Vice President Biden is expected to speak sometime this afternoon, possibly declaring victory.
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