Seventeen Percent of Republicans Think Trump Should Concede the Election Now

That's not a typo. Seventeen percent (17%), as in ten plus seven (as opposed to 71%) of Republicans say that Donald Trump should concede the election right now, inasmuch as he lost (as in, did not win) it. Yes, there are a couple of lawsuits left and Georgia won't announce its recount results until later today, but Joe Biden's lead in every state is over 10,000 votes. While the percentage may be small in Arizona and Georgia, changing the results would require flipping over 5,000 votes and there is zero evidence that 5,000 votes were counted wrong. But who cares about reality when Dear Leader tells you to ignore it?

Fortunately for the country, another 45% of Republicans think that Trump should eventually concede if he can't prove his claims of mass fraud. However, a hard-core group of 27% of registered Republicans think that Trump should never concede, no matter what. The rest don't know. This does not bode well for Biden bringing the country together. Even among Democrats, only 72% think Trump should concede now, with another 21% saying that he should concede eventually if he cannot back up his claims of fraud.

So why are Republicans (and even some Democrats) unwilling to say it's over and that Biden won and Trump should concede? The Morning Consult poll asked how much people trust the U.S. election system. The answers: 33% trust it a lot, 24% trust it some, 16% distrust it some, and 21% distrust it a lot. With more than a third of registered voters distrusting the system, it not surprising that a lot of people think Trump should never concede. Trust/distrust correlates closely with how people view Trump. Among people who strongly approve of Trump, 49% distrust the election system, but among people who strongly disapprove of Trump, only 8% distrust the election system. The pattern seems to be: "If I got the result I wanted, the system is working, otherwise, it isn't."

A closely related question is whether the 2020 election was a free and fair election. On that, 43% of all voters say "yes, definitely," 19% say "yes probably," 14% say "probably not," and 19% say "definitely not." Obviously, a substantial fraction of the population does not trust the election system and does not believe we have fair elections.

Another question gives some insight as to why Republicans did so well. The top issue in voters' minds is the economy (37%) with health issues second (21%). Nothing else is close. This is true across all educational levels, ethnicities, religions, and every other category. It sounds a lot like: "I want my job back and if a bunch of old people have to die as a consequence, so be it." The only group where the economy didn't rank first is seniors, who see Social Security and Medicare as the top issues, the economy second, and healthcare third.

Also in the list of questions was one about keeping the Electoral College. On this, 38% want to keep it and 45% want to toss it into the dustbin of history. To alter it, Congress has to pass a constitutional amendment and then three-quarters of the states have to approve. It is unlikely that three-quarters of the states will approve until three-quarters of the voters approve, and we are nowhere near that. The biggest demographic group wanting to dump the Electoral College is...atheists, where 56% want to dispatch it to eternal nothingness. In contrast, only 39% of evangelicals want to send it to Hell. (V)

Biden Assembles a Team to Handle Senate Confirmation Battles

Joe Biden knows that getting the 1,000+ positions that require Senate confirmation filled will be quite a project. Consequently, he is building a team of "Sherpas" to help the nominees. He has now chosen Jen Psaki, who was communications director in the Obama White House, to lead the effort. The decision to have a PR person take the lead (rather than, say, a former Democratic senator) indicates that a big part of Biden's effort will be to convince the American public that his choices are solid and then to have them put pressure on Senate Republicans to vote to confirm. The 22 Senate Republicans up in 2022 are the most likely to respond to pressure, since voting "no" on a popular nominee is going to open them to attacks of putting loyalty to their party above loyalty to their country.

Other members of the confirmation team include Andrew Bates, the campaign's rapid response director, Sean Savett, who worked on Pete Buttigieg's campaign, and Saloni Sharma, who was deputy communications director on the campaign of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

Another factor that could be important is that Biden served in the Senate for 30 years and knows many of the senators personally. He was generally well liked by his colleagues. If he calls some of them personally and asks for their support, some of them may find it awkward to refuse to confirm nominees they know very well are perfectly competent just because Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) wants to make life difficult for Biden. (V)

The 2020 Election Was Closer Than the 2016 Election

Democrats are fond of pointing out that if 77,000 votes in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania had gone the other way in 2016, Hillary Clinton would have won. They frequently use that number to say that if she had tried a little bit harder in those three states (for example, by visiting Wisconsin just one time), she could surely have gotten 77,000 more votes and pulled it off.

What are the analogous numbers for 2020? What about these:

• Biden won Arizona's 11 EVs by 10,457 votes
• Biden won Georgia's 16 EVs by 12,781 votes
• Biden won Wisconsin's 10 EVs by 20,565 votes

Add them up and you get 43,803 votes. And 37 electoral votes. If Trump had picked up 37 electoral votes to add to his 232, the score would have been 269 to 269 and the House would have picked the president with each state getting one vote. Republicans control more House delegations than Democrats, so the House would have elected Trump as president. If Trump had gotten 23,000 more votes in NE-02, he would have also won that EV and won the election cleanly with 270 EVs. So actually, the 2020 election was closer than the 2016 election because flipping a mere 44,000 votes would have given Donald Trump a second term. That's 44,000 votes out of 153 million votes counted already, with more to come. That's 0.03%. If Trump had been able to get three one-hundredths of one percent more votes carefully distributed in three states, he would have won. Of course, if he had pulled it off, then the talk would be about his narrow wins in North Carolina and the three states above. This is the nature of the Electoral College, which assigns grossly outsized importance to narrow wins, particularly narrow wins in the larger states. (V)

Cheapskate Trump Wants a Partial Recount of Wisconsin

Under Wisconsin law, a losing campaign can ask for a recount, but it has to pay for it if the margin of defeat is greater than 0.25%. A full recount would cost $7.9 million. Trump lost Wisconsin by 20,565 votes. Donald Trump still has hopes of winning Wisconsin, but he doesn't want to pay for it, so he decided to ask for a recount of only two counties: Milwaukee and Dane. Asking for a recount in just two counties saved him almost $5 million. Smart businessman! Except there is zero chance that this recount will flip the state, so it's all for show. The kabuki theater...er, recount will start Friday and take 2 days.

The Dane County clerk, Scott McDonell, guessed that the result of the recount would be a slight increase for Biden because both Dane and Milwaukee are heavily Democratic counties. He also said that it would not be anywhere near enough to change the outcome.

While we are on the subject of recounts, the one in Georgia is nearly finished. Trump did pick up some votes there, but not nearly enough. Initially, Biden led by 14,156 votes. With nearly all the votes recounted, Joe Biden's lead now stands at 12,781. So Trump did pick up a bit, but nowhere near enough to get those 16 electoral votes. The revised final total will be announced today and the results will be certified tomorrow. Close counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and dancing, but not in elections.

Elsewhere, too, the clock is ticking. Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania are going to certify their results next week. Arizona will certify on Nov. 30. Wisconsin will certify on Dec. 1. A few states allow recounts after certification, including Georgia, Michigan, and Nevada. However, Georgia has already done the recount. Biden's lead in Michigan is 146,007 votes and is completely unassailable. In Nevada his lead is 33,596, but that is 2.4% of the total vote, so there is absolutely no chance of flipping the state in a recount. In short, the window for a challenge is rapidly closing. What Trump will do after all the states have certified the winner is unclear. Probably he will continue ranting and raving that the election was stolen from him, without giving a shred of evidence to indicate that. (V)

Will Trump Hamper Vaccine Distribution so Biden Won't Be Able to Deliver?

Two groups, Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, have developed vaccines that appear to be over 90% effective, although these results haven't been published in peer-reviewed journals yet. Bill Gates, who actually knows quite a bit about vaccines, since his foundation is actively distributing them in Third World countries, said that vaccines from Novavax and Johnson & Johnson still being tested appear to be even better. Oxford University has a vaccine that is far along as well, and there are dozens of other candidates in various stages of testing. So problem 1 (constructing a vaccine that is safe and works) seems to be close to solved.

Problem 2 is distributing the vaccine and determining who gets it first. If the federal government doesn't take a leading role here, distribution will be chaotic, just as it was with getting ventilators back in the spring when Donald Trump told the governors: "Your problem, not mine," and even tried to steal ventilators ordered (and paid for) by blue states so he could give them to red states. All indications are that Trump is making no effort at all to have the federal government coordinate distribution of the vaccine. Worse yet, while some federal officials far from the top of the tree are working on distribution plans, Trump has refused to order General Services Administrator Emily Murphy to allow Joe Biden's team to work with them. The consequence is that it will take unnecessary time for the vaccine to be distributed. That will result in more Americans dying. Trump clearly couldn't care less. He would likely prefer that Biden botch the distribution so Biden doesn't get credit for solving the pandemic. If the 2024 election is, say, Trump vs. Biden or Trump vs. Kamala Harris, he doesn't want the Democrats to be running on "You let a quarter of a million Americans die and we stopped the pandemic."

Vaccine distribution is extremely complicated. For starters, the Pfizer vaccine must be stored at -70C (-94F) or ideally lower to keep the fragile mRNA from breaking up. This requires special very large medical freezers like these at a Pfizer facility in Belgium.

These babies do not run on four AA batteries. They need to be plugged into electrical outlets. The vaccines will be produced in perhaps half a dozen factories initially, which means they will have to be transported all over the world by air. While some airplanes have 110v or 220v outlets in first and business class to power laptop computers, shipping vaccines long distances at -94F or colder is a whole different ball game. Airlines want to know if they will get contracts to transport vaccines so they can start talking to Pfizer and the other companies to find out if they will have to retrofit cargo aircraft to transport the vaccines without them losing their effectiveness.

Or maybe the vaccines can be kept cold for long periods by dry ice. Where will the dry ice come from? What if a flight is delayed due to bad weather and the dry ice evaporates midflight and fills the airplane with carbon dioxide? It is impossible for the governor of Georgia to call up the CEO of Delta Airlines, even though Delta is headquartered in Atlanta, and make a deal about transporting vaccines. Only the federal government can do that, and it requires multiple parts of the government to be deeply involved. Obviously the Dept. of Transportation is involved, but also HHS, and given the possibility of sabotage and terrorism, Homeland Security as well, to name just three. Has Trump set up a working group with the secretaries of the relevant departments present to manage the distribution? Of course not. And if he does, will he allow people from Biden's transition team to be present, since nearly all the heavy lifting (literally) will occur during Biden's administration? Don't count on it. Does Trump even want Biden to succeed since if he does, he will get all the credit for saving the country? That is a rhetorical question.

Who will get the first batches? The people with the most money? The people with the most political clout? Other? Governors need to know how many doses they will be getting so they can prepare to allocate them. Getting 100,000 doses the first month is completely different from getting 10,000 doses or 1 million doses the first week and each scenario requires different plans. Will retail pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens get doses to sell to customers? If so, they will need to find, hire and train qualified personnel to give the shots and allocate space in their stores where the shots can be given. Doing this costs money. Will the government pay for it? Will the pharmacies be able to match supply to demand by charging, say $5,000 per shot, thus reducing demand (in the economic sense)? Only the government can answer these and numerous other questions, and that requires a president who is engaged, willing to listen to experts, and who wants the country to succeed. (V)

Biden Has His Work Cut Out for Him Dealing with COVID-19

When Joe Biden takes over on Jan. 20, dealing with COVID-19 will be at the top of his "to-do list." If he is lucky, two or more vaccines will be available, so he will have to coordinate distribution, as discussed above. That will be a logistical challenge, but the country has plenty of logistics experts he can call on for advice.

A bigger problem may be getting people to take the vaccine. What follows is not directly related to vaccines, but indicates the scope of the problem Biden will face. The Washington Post has been running a series of first-person stories about how people have been affected by the coronavirus. The latest one is scary, even though the storyteller didn't catch the virus. She is Amber Elliott, a public health employee working in rural Missouri. Her job is to save lives. If you think that is not controversial, boy are you wrong. She lives and works in St. Francois County, not far from the Illinois border. The county has had 900 new cases of COVID-19 in the past few weeks. The positivity rate is 25% and rising. The hospital is full and has run out of staff. The virus is spreading unchecked. So what is Elliott's biggest problem? Something like lack of ventilators? No, it is a hostile community.

When her small staff calls people to do contact tracing, half the people they call are skeptical or combative. They refuse to talk. They deny their own positive tests. They hang up. They say they will hire a lawyer. They give fake contacts and fake contact phone numbers. They say they are quarantining at home—with the sound of beeping scanners at the local Walmart in the background.

Elliott was desperate to get people to help stop the spread so she arranged a public health meeting at a local church to discuss whether social distancing and wearing masks might just be something to consider. Over 100 people showed up. Most were opposed, even though she had three doctors and nurses in white uniforms there to explain how important it was. Some of the people brought guns.

Despite the negative reaction, the health board imposed a mask mandate. What happened next was strange cars driving back and forth in front of her house. People followed her to her son's baseball game, took pictures of her kids, and posted them all over social media. She was called a bitch and a Communist. Her daughter asked her: "Mom, why does everybody hate you?"

Is there a happy ending to Elliott's story? Well, it depends on what you mean. She quit her job and took a different (lower profile) job as a nurse. She's happier now. Will the families whose loved ones die of COVID-19 be happier? Maybe, since they know that the loved one died for a good cause (keeping the government from saving lives).

Now this was just about wearing masks. Imagine what is going to happen when Biden tells people that a vaccine is available, it is free, and please take it because it could save your life and those of people you love. In the blue states, most people will probably get it, but in the red states there will be a huge amount of opposition, with all kinds of crazy stories about how the vaccine turns you into a {zombie, lesbian, Communist, vegetarian, Muslim, cow, add your own term here}. If even a third of the population refuses to get vaccinated, the country will take years to achieve herd immunity, which is needed to protect babies and people who are immunocompromised. If asking people to wear masks got this kind of response, asking them to be injected with something made by Big Pharma and approved by Big Government is going to be a Big Challenge for Biden. (V)

The 2024 Presidential Race Has Started

Donald Trump is already flirting with a 2024 run. After all, nonconsecutive terms worked for (Democrat) Stephen Grover Cleveland, so why not for him? In politics, a week is a long time and 4 years is beyond forever. But for now, Trump's interest in a 2024 run could freeze the field. Other potential candidates cannot even enter the invisible primary, lining up donors, consultants, pollsters, endorsements, and other forms of support with the specter of Trump floating above the race.

Any visible attempt at launching a campaign by Mike Pence or Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR) or Josh Hawley (R-MO), or former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, or anyone else will immediately elicit the tweet of death from Trump, who will feel threatened. It could mean nothing happens for years. In fact, Trump could hijack the nomination up until the filing date for Iowa (assuming it goes first again, which is far from certain given this year's fiasco) or New Hampshire. Then he could announce that he is not running, leaving the Republican Party in disarray. Of course, it is also possible that Trump has no intention of running but just wants to stay relevant and raise money for his super PAC, so he and his kids can be paid fat salaries working for it. Once grift has become a way of life, it is hard to give it up. Besides, the rubes don't know or care.

Some potential Republican candidates are looking for ways to raise their profiles without openly antagonizing Trump. Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) is taking over the NRSC, which will allow him to travel around the country talking to donors—ostensibly to raise money for Republican senatorial candidates in 2022. However, if the subject of 2024 were to come up, Scott could mention that he is potentially available, should the country need him. Gov. Doug Ducey (R-AZ), who is term limited in 2022 and thus will be looking for a new job in Jan. 2023, is about to take over the reins of Republican Governors Association, so he, too, can go traipsing around the country talking to donors without having to worry about Trump attacking him.

However, Republicans who really dislike Trump might not be deterred at all. One possibility is Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD), who has warned that Trump's "divisive rhetoric and toxic politics is alienating large parts of the country." Hogan could run on a platform of returning the Republican Party to Reaganism. Imagine if the Hogan slogan were "Don't vote for a loser." It would make Trump's blood boil and might lead him to say things that could hurt himself.

If Trump decides to run again, a key factor is whether the rest of the Party can get together and support a single opponent. If the story is Donald Trump and the Seven Dwarfs, Trump will win. But if it is Trump vs. one other candidate, there might be a real fight, especially since the big donors don't really like Trump, so a single opponent would be very well financed.

Another major factor will be where Trump is living in 2024. If it is in Palm Beach, FL, he will be in a stronger position than if he is in Attica, NY. It won't be entirely Trump's decision though, since if Manhattan D.A. Cyrus Vance doesn't have Trump's tax returns by Jan. 20, 2021, he will probably be able to get them shortly thereafter by merely asking the IRS for a copy. If Vance puts the Donald on trial and convicts him for tax fraud, bank fraud, and/or insurance fraud, that is not going to help Trump's campaign much.

The Democratic side is also unpredictable. Joe Biden will be 78 tomorrow. Happy pre-birthday, Joe. According to our calculator, he will be 82 on Jan. 20, 2025. That is a bit long in the tooth to start another 4-year term doing the toughest job in the world. It seems pretty likely that sometime in 2022, maybe just after the midterms, he will announce that Mitch McConnell will get his fondest wish and he (Biden) will be a one-term president. That will start a feeding frenzy on the Democratic side. Kamala Harris will obviously be a candidate, but it is inconceivable that all other Democrats will bow low to her and calmly watch her coronation. Few other prospective candidates are going to be happy cooling their heels for 8 years. There will be plenty of competition and a lively primary. At the very least, there will one or more progressive candidates in the mix. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) will be 83 in Jan. 2025, so probably he has already had his last hurrah. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) will be (barely) old enough to run if she wants to. If Pete Buttigieg gets a nice job in the cabinet and stays visible, he might give it another shot, especially since Democrats do well with smart, charming, young candidates like Jack Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. There could be 10 or even 20 serious candidates, just as in 2020. (V)

Chasing the Latino Vote Was Not a Good Idea

Joe Biden made an effort to go after the "Latino vote." It wasn't a good idea, because there is no Latino vote. It's like going after the white vote, and expecting white coal miners in West Virginia and white college-educated women in Santa Monica to respond the same way simply because they are white.

The nonexistence of a "Latino vote" was made crystal clear by what happened along the Rio Grande in Texas. Zapata County, which is 94% "Latino," turned red for the first time in 100 years. In nearby Webb County (95% "Latino"), Republicans doubled their turnout. In Starr County to the South (96% "Latino"), Republicans gained 55 percentage points compared to 2016. So it is not so surprising that Democrats failed to take Texas.

What these counties, and others in South Texas, have in common, is that most of the people there have Mexican heritage, and when forced to fill out a government form will choose "Latino," but they see themselves as Tejano, not Latino. Nearly all of them speak Spanish, but many have been in the U.S. for generations and act and vote like other working-class men and women, and not like some imaginary "Latino." They have very little in common with new arrivals from Venezuela who fled to Miami, with Cuban Americans, or with Puerto Ricans, other than speaking Spanish. Immigration is not a major issue for Tejanos, but the future of the oil industry, gun rights, and abortion are. The Trump campaign understood this and acted on this information. The Biden campaign just assumed they were generic Latinos and blew it badly.

Another important characteristic of Tejanos is that few of them identify as people of color. Most see themselves as white. Spiels about how the Democrats will help people of color are lost on them. In contrast, the Trump campaign made the same pitch to them as it made to blue-collar workers elsewhere. In particular, it defended the oil and gas industry, which is important in South Texas. That worked. Trump also treated them like any other rural group, where guns and religion are important. That worked, too.

Sergio Garcia-Ross, a professor of government and Latino studies at Cornell and polling director for Univision, says he doesn't understand how campaigns can treat whites in rural Pennsylvania and whites in Philadelphia as different groups, but all Latinos are considered the same. Team Trump understood that. Team Biden didn't.

Cynthia Villarreal, a lifelong resident of Zapata, explained why she is not Latino. She traces her ancestry back to the time of the Spanish regime along the Rio Grande. Her family has been in Texas for hundreds of years. That's a different experience from that of someone whose father crossed the border without documentation a few decades ago. There's a good reason many people in the region identify as white. In 1848, when Mexico ceded all the land north of the Rio Grande to the U.S., Texas was still a slave state. But the Tejanos were specifically declared to be white and thus free men and women. Given this history, it is not surprising that most people in the region see themselves as white Americans, not Latinos.

It is not impossible for Democrats to win in South Texas. Villarreal is a Democrat because she believes Democrats will help the economy. But she also is pro-law enforcement, pro-gun, and anti-abortion. Most Democrats can't handle that. Actually, one Democrat could and did: Bernie Sanders. He did very well there because he talked about how the economy is rigged against working-class people and Medicare for All. Biden didn't have a message for South Texas, so he lost there.

South Texas is not the only part of the South where Democrats were mauled. South Florida is another such place. Not only did Joe Biden barely eke out a tiny win in Miami-Dade County (which Hillary Clinton won by 30 points) but the Democrats also lost two House seats in South Florida. One of the losers, Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-FL), let loose with criticisms of the Democrats yesterday. She said that fear of socialism is strong among people who fled various socialist strongmen in Latin America, but that is far from the whole story. She specifically said that Democratic thinking that lumps Latinos together and expects them to vote based on racial identity is wrong.

As in South Texas, Democrats didn't realize that many of the voters are actually quite conservative in many ways. And they certainly didn't realize that the many different subgroups and subcultures in South Florida respond to different cues. She is convinced that Democrats have a future there, but they have to focus on economic issues, and do it in both English and Spanish. (V)

House Democrats Have Chosen Their Leadership Team

Yesterday, House Democrats nominated Speaker Nancy Pelosi (80) as speaker, Steny Hoyer (81) as majority leader, and Jim Clyburn (80) as majority whip. With a total of 241 years on Earth under their belts, they are rather more likely to campaign on "experience," rather than "time for fresh blood." However, as a concession to the youth vote, they picked a spring chicken, Katherine Clark (57) of Massachusetts, as the #4 and Hakeem Jeffries (50) as the #5. Pelosi needs 218 votes in the entire House to be elected speaker. With a reduced caucus, that could be a problem, especially since at least one member of the caucus (Elissa Slotkin) has vowed to vote against Pelosi. The other four merely need a majority of their caucus, not the entire House.

In any successful organization, management needs to prepare a succession plan. That is doubly or triply true when all of the high-ranking members of it are 80 or more. The House Democrats have been remiss about doing that. If the Republicans win control of the House in 2022, which is likely simply because nearly all the time the president's party takes a big hit in the first midterm, the Democrats will be stuck with leaders who are 82-83 and no plans for replacing them. It could get ugly.

Pelosi has been a hugely successful leader holding a fractious caucus together, so she can be forgiven for running for speaker one more (and probably last) time. Clyburn is the highest-ranking Black official in the country and is also popular among House members, so dumping him would cause a lot of anguish in the Black Caucus. Hoyer, however, is from Maryland, which is not a swing state, and Hoyer doesn't represent any particular demographic group or faction. He is definitely dispensable. Clark and Jeffries are regarded as the likely contenders when it comes time to choose the next generation of party leaders, so it might have been wise to give Hoyer a gold watch, thank him for his service to the Democratic Party, and move that duo up the ladder, possibly with the intended new leader in Hoyer's slot.

In contrast, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is 55, Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) is also 55, and Conference Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) is 54. Furthermore, Republicans have a clear plan for the future. If they win the majority in 2022, Cheney is the favorite to become speaker. (V)

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