Military Veterans and Patriots

Tag: Election 2024

  • 45 is 47

    45 is 47

    I’m going to start this piece off with a bit of a mea culpa. I fully expected the results of the election to drag out until the weekend. I did not expect as many of the swing states to break for Trump as they did or as early as they did.

    Instead, around 0115, Pennsylvania was called for Trump and sealed the Electoral College numbers. As of this writing, just before noon on Wednesday, he also leads the National vote with 71,660,413 votes or 51% of the total.

    The dominoes started falling for Trump fairly early last night. He picked up Georgia shortly after the polls closed with North Carolina following close behind. The big pickup came with Pennsylvania, where Trump won by some 150,000 votes.

    Right now, Trump has 286 electoral votes of the 270 need to win with two states left to be decided.

    Arizona and Michigan have yet to be called. Trump is up by a bit more than a million votes in Arizona with 67% of precincts reporting. Michigan is a bit tighter. He leads there by 60k votes with 95% reporting.

    Those two states are window dressing however, as he already surpassed the 270 threshold.

    In other races, the Republicans took control of the Senate by picking up seats in Montana, West Virginia, and Ohio. There are four Senate races yet to be called, AZ, PA, NV and MI. Of the four, it looks like the R’s will pick up Pennsylvania; Repub Dave McCormick is up by 50k over incumbent Bob Casey with 92% in. The races in Nevada and Michigan are too close to call, with the Dem Slotkin up by 7k votes in MI and our boy Captain Sam Brown up by a couple of hundred over the incumbent Dem Jacky Rosen. That leaves us with Arizona. Kari Lake is down by nearly a million votes with 66% of precincts reporting.

    The House is too close to call at this point, but it’s looking like the Republicans will retain a slim margin in that chamber. DDHQ is predicting a 220-215 R majority.

  • Almost There

    Almost There

    Today and tomorrow, that’s it. If you have not yet voted, get out and do so.

    I know I’ve mentioned this previously, but you need to vote down the ticket as well. We need to control Congress as well as the White House if we want to get anything done. State and local control would be nice as well.

    Today is the day you’ll see a lot of predictions about the election. Don’t believe any of them, especially for the Presidential race. As it stands, the race is way too close to call, and has been for most of the contest. That is why I kept on telling you to get out and vote. Every last vote is going to count this year.

    I would also be wary of whatever polling you see. I’m skeptical of all polls. Only by looking at the cross tabs and methodology can you see what and how the pollsters manipulated to get the desired sample. And nearly all polls are designed to ‘push’, that is get a desired outcome. It can be as simple as the way a question is worded or oversampling a specific demographic.

    I should warn you that we are not likely to know the outcome of the race for several days. I would also expect loads of legal challenges. If the GOP has done one thing right this cycle, it is the alacrity and quality of their election integrity suits.

    You should also expect violence no matter who wins. Obviously, there will be more if Trump wins, but both sides are more than capable of it. I just want you to be prepared for it.

  • One Week

    One Week

    No, not the Bare Naked Ladies hit from 1998. One week is how long you have to vote. Alternately, that’s how long it is until Election Day.

    Polling, at least the notionally reliable ones, seem to point to some Trump momentum going into the final seven days before the election. The Real Clear average has Trump up by 0.1% nationally and shows leads in all the swing states minus Michigan (I blame you Chance. Get the people below the Bridge in line will ya?). If the polling is correct, Trump has a realistic chance to win not only the Electoral College but the Popular Vote as well.

    Under normal circumstances, I dislike party-line, straight ticket voting, especially at the local level. At least here in NY, there are a lot of town, city and county pols that claim to be one thing but are actually the opposite. This year however, I would highly recommend a straight ticket vote. It’s just that important. At the very least you need to make sure you’re voting for your US Senator, Representative and any state legislators on the ballot.

    Here’s my obligatory call for you to get out and vote early if you can. You never know what is going to happen in the next 7 days. Bring a friend with you. For the record, your editor voted Saturday, which was the first day of early voting in NY. I brought three people with me, and I plan on doing a bunch of GOTV work in the next 5 days. (NY early voting runs from two Saturdays prior to election day until the Sunday before election day.)