The Patriot Post® · Trump and Biden Both Declare Victory

“We were getting ready to win the election. Frankly, we did win this election,” President Donald Trump said from the White House in the wee hours Wednesday morning. “We will win this. As far as I’m concerned, we already have won.”

For an election that media pollaganda told us was supposed to be a Joe Biden landslide, that’s a remarkable thing for Trump to be able to say. But the election is not yet decided with several states still counting votes. As we go to press, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Alaska remain uncalled, and may remain so for days.

But that wasn’t all the president said. “This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country,” he proclaimed of continued counting of mail-in ballots. “We’ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop. We don’t want them to find any ballots at 4:00 in the morning and add them to the list.”

The president does have a way of squandering good will with his bravado, even if every American should be used to it by now. Prematurely claiming victory in a divided nation is one thing, but to then be complaining about fraud before the votes are tabulated is a job for surrogates and lawyers, not the president of the United States. And some of his surrogates rebuked him. That said, and as usual, he’s got a point. Trump won 63 million votes in 2016 versus Hillary’s 66 million. Trump increased his vote total by at least four million. The record vote total was for Barack Obama in 2008, when he won 69.5 million. Biden will almost certainly exceed that, which could well be because the Democrats rigged the game with all those bulk-mail ballots. It’s hard to believe there’s more energy and more enthusiasm for Biden in 2020 than there was for Obama in 2008.

Contrary to leftist claims that we’re “losing our democracy,” voter turnout was massive. With many votes yet to be counted, 2020 will easily surpass the 139 million ballots cast in 2016.

Indeed, hate is a significant motivator and Democrats are masters at division and hate. Additionally, Leftmedia pollaganda that proclaims Biden winning by 10 points or more is tantamount to voter suppression. Biden can hardly lose given the overwhelming aid of the Leftmedia and the outright censorship on his behalf by social media.

In any case, Trump’s comments triggered exasperated Leftmedia “fact-checks” as various outlets rushed to rebut his assertions, insisting there couldn’t possibly be any fraud out there. There isn’t gambling in casinos, either.

On the other side of the aisle, Biden declared that he’s “on track to win this election.” He added, “We’re feeling good about where we are. … We’re gonna win this.”

As for the count, Biden said, “It ain’t over until every vote is counted.” His campaign declared, “The president’s statement tonight about trying to shut down the counting of duly cast ballots was outrageous, unprecedented, and incorrect.” Trump’s comments may have crossed the line, but he’s right to warn that Democrats will “count every vote” until they win.

As Andrew McCarthy aptly notes, “By ‘every vote counts,’ the Left means each vote must be tallied regardless of whether the voter is lawfully qualified to vote, and regardless of whether the vote was cast within the properly enacted rules of the election. This is why Democrats fight tooth-and-nail against every proposal to require voter identification, to match signatures, to outlaw vote ‘harvesting,’ etc.”

In Pennsylvania, where the attorney general declared Monday that “Trump is going to lose,” there are still more than a million mail-in ballots to count. Results probably won’t be known for days, but Trump’s current lead of more than 600,000 isn’t as secure as it looks. In Georgia, Fulton County (Atlanta) officials decided that a water-main break meant counting couldn’t be completed, and with neighboring DeKalb County likewise still unfinished, the Peach State has yet to be called.

Notably, based on exit polling, the president expanded his reach with every minority group. Blacks went from 8% in 2016 to 12% this year. He gained with Hispanics, from 28% to 32%. And his portion of the Asian vote grew from 29% to 31%.

If Trump is the most “racist” president we’ve ever had, he’s doing a really bad job of it.

Hispanics in Florida broke for Trump in a big way, largely because his message against socialism resonates with immigrants who’ve seen it destroy their home countries. The Daily Signal reports, “Cuban American voters increased their vote for Trump by 14 percentage points in 2020 from four years ago, shifting from 55% for Clinton in 2016 to 59% for Trump in 2020.” In 2016, Hillary won Miami-Dade County by 30 points. Biden won it by seven.

The Democrat strategy has been open borders and sanctuary cities, thinking that would increase their lead with Hispanics. The flaw in that strategy, however, is that many Hispanics and blacks don’t want competition for their jobs from illegal immigrants.

Obviously, however, the minority vote still heavily favors Democrats — it cost Trump Arizona — and Republicans must continue chipping away at those margins.

Trump also continued to do well with blue-collar workers, once the bluest of blue voters. To illustrate, he flipped Ohio’s Mahoning County for the first time in 50 years.

The biggest demographic — women voters — is where Trump really struggled. If he fails to win, overwhelming opposition from urban and suburban women will be why. You’ve heard it said that personnel is policy. Well, personality is too, and Trump’s style simply offends a lot of women.

There are millions of ballots still to be counted, and this election is not yet decided. But if Trump holds the tenuous leads he currently has in several yet-to-be-called states, he’ll be inaugurated for a second term. The problem is that the longer counting is drawn out, the more likely Democrats are to “find” enough votes to flip those states. Once a Republican loses a late lead, he never gets it back.

(Updated as results come in.)