Election Update
Be prepared for the possibility that we could still have some tough days ahead.
Editor’s note: See below for an afternoon update.
It’s just past midnight on the East Coast. Here’s what we know so far:
The American polling industry is broken. Either intentionally broken or out of incompetence broken. It was still showing an 8- to 10-point national lead for Biden Tuesday morning. Many pollsters were reporting a blue-wave landslide. That’s not happening.
Having said that, it is very hard to come to definite conclusions on exactly where we stand. None of the networks, including Fox News, are doing an adequate job of telling us how many of the mail-in votes are included in the state totals. Remember, the mail-in voting would have been significantly tilted toward Democrats.
Pennsylvania has announced that it will count no more mail-in voting tonight. Georgia has reported very little from Fulton County, using the excuse of a water main break that could take days to repair.
With all these caveats, as of now the map is beginning to look very close to the final map in 2016. The big unknown remains: Can Trump win Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin as he did four years ago?
The biggest disappointment and loss of the night is Arizona. That takes Biden up to 223 Electoral College votes, only 47 short of winning the White House. That means the margin of error for the president is small.
Some states where Trump is leading have not yet been called for Trump. If those states are called for him, then his most likely path to victory will be winning Pennsylvania and at least one other of the Blue Wall states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, exactly the position he was in four years ago.
Here’s an encouraging sign: Blue-collar counties in eastern Ohio that border Pennsylvania appear to be going strongly for Trump, just as they did in 2016. That suggests neighboring counties in western Pennsylvania will do the same.
Odds are improving by the hour that we will narrowly hang on to the Senate, which would be tremendously significant, particularly if Biden wins.
Finally, to reiterate how I started this brief update, it is almost breathtaking how wrong the entire chattering class, Wall Street, pollsters, and elite opinion everywhere were about the blue wave that they imagined tonight. They were predicting a complete repudiation of conservative populism. The election has not been settled, but that scenario that was widely expected, that Republicans were facing a disaster, has not come to pass.
Just to give two more examples: They told us that the margin in Florida was razor thin. Trump appears to have carried the state by more than 400,000 votes, expanding his margin from 2016. The Washington Post told us last week that Trump was down 17 points in Wisconsin. With more than half the vote in, Trump has a narrow lead.
Keep on praying. And be prepared for the possibility that we could still have some tough days ahead before we know for sure who has won.
Thank you, once again, for your partnership with us in this battle.
It’s NOT Over
Last night, former Vice President Joe Biden did what the media warned Donald Trump not to do. Biden ran to a microphone and insisted that he had basically won the election, saying, “We’re on track to win this election.”
President Trump and Vice President Pence came out later and warned that the left was trying to steal the election. President Trump said:
This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country… Frankly, we did win this election… We want the law to be used in a proper manner. So we’ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop. We don’t want them to be finding any ballots at 4 o'clock in the morning.
The vice president added:
While the votes continue to be counted, we’re going to remain vigilant. The right to vote has been at the center of our democracy since the founding of this nation, and we’re going to protect the integrity of the vote… But I truly do believe that we are on the road to victory.
People wondered in this election if we would have another “Florida situation” similar to what happened in 2000 between George W. Bush and Al Gore. It’s worse than that.
We’ve got multiple states hanging in the balance with growing evidence of illegality — all the things we have seen in big Democrat cities for decades.
When Kennedy beat Nixon, everyone knew it was because the Daley machine in Chicago manufactured votes. Richard Nixon and the Republican Party chose not to fight back because they felt it would hurt the country.
Donald Trump and Mike Pence are going to fight back because the left will hurt the country!
Every Legal Vote
Unfortunately, many commentators today, including on Fox News, are repeating the progressive socialist talking point that was echoed for the past two weeks and is now becoming a chorus: “Every vote must be counted.”
They keep leaving out the most important word that should be in that sentence. Every LEGAL vote should be counted. The Democrats can manufacture votes from now until Christmas!
I believe Donald Trump and Mike Pence won yesterday. Let me repeat that: I believe Trump/Pence won. President Trump won four million more votes than he did in 2016.
Now Democrats will try to steal this victory from them. They changed the rules in North Carolina and Pennsylvania. The president warned weeks ago that mail-in balloting could lead to fraud and chaos, and that’s exactly what we have now.
A Dicey Situation
Because of the unprecedented vote-by-mail juggernaut the Democrats rammed through in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, we are facing a dicey situation. But there are ways it could still work out.
I believe there is ample evidence that mail-in votes were handled in such a way that inevitably resulted in fraud for the Democrats. There were duplicate ballots being sent to households. Incorrect ballots were mailed out.
The Trump campaign went into court multiple times to get this under control, and I know it will continue to fight.
But given where the uncounted vote remains in Michigan and Wisconsin, I think it is very possible that these states could be called for Joe Biden sometime today. That takes Biden up to 264 Electoral College votes.
In Nevada, Biden has an 8,000-vote lead. The state is still counting mail-in ballots, and officials are indicating they will not announce results until tomorrow. If Biden maintains his lead and wins Nevada, he will claim 270 Electoral College votes, exactly the number needed to win.
Not So Fast!
Nevada had serious problems with mail-in votes during its primary elections, and it could also be headed to a recount with contested results.
The odds are overwhelming that the Trump campaign will demand a recount in Wisconsin. If Biden loses those 10 Electoral College votes, everything is back up in the air.
And here’s a real possibility: Arizona was called too early for Biden. Our sources are saying there are as many as a half-million uncounted ballots in Arizona, and Trump is down by only 90,000 votes.
Governor Ducey has reportedly told the White House that he believes the GOP’s absentee ballot campaign will overwhelmingly win those yet-to-be-counted ballots. If he’s right, another 11 Electoral College votes flip from Biden to Trump.
So there is still hope for this working out. And given what a fighter Donald Trump is, I know he will do everything possible to ensure that every option is utilized.
Lessons From Donald Trump
The state of Florida is among the most racially diverse states in the country. It is a microcosm of America — from the conservative panhandle to Miami-Dade County that seems like a major city in Latin America.
Donald Trump appears to have won the Sunshine State by nearly 400,000 votes. Hillary Clinton won Miami-Dade County by 30 points. Biden only won it by seven.
This was accomplished by a president we were told would destroy the Republican Party due to his insistence that our borders be controlled. Yet he did better than every weak Republican president before him among Hispanic voters in Florida.
Trump is destroying the “lock” Democrats thought they had on Hispanics.
Zapata County, along the Texas/Mexico border, has one of the lowest median incomes in the country. More than a third of its residents live below the poverty line. Four years ago, it voted for Hillary Clinton by 33 points. Yesterday, Zapata County voted 53% for Donald Trump.
Trump’s message of manly conservatism and manly Christianity can win many votes for us. We saw it in Florida and we saw a glimmer of hope along the Texas/Mexico border.
Virtually every $1 million house that I have seen in the northern Virginia suburbs has a Biden sign. But the blue-collar, working-class neighborhoods of Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin continue to vote for Donald Trump’s conservative populism.
Now that message is taking root in Hispanic areas of Florida and Texas. We can see in conservative populism the path to becoming a governing majority for decades.
