Election

Fair Vote - Here at FairVote, we’re processing what last night’s results mean for our shared goal of better elections and better government for the American people. Here’s the good news: 

• Nearly 3 million voters across the nation voted for better elections with ranked choice voting on Election Day 2024, as of current returns.
  
• Ranked choice voting is poised to win majority support in all five cities where it was on the ballot, most notably with an overwhelming win in Washington, DC – 73%-27%. As results stand now, ranked choice voting isn’t just winning all eight of Washington, DC’s wards; it’s winning every single precinct.
  
• Alaska and Maine also used ranked choice voting to elect the president and other key officials, and 10 cities across the nation held smooth and successful RCV elections. Portland, Oregon used RCV for the first time – including the proportional form of RCV to elect an entirely new city council. FairVote's David Daley wrote about reform in Portland – and how it’s already improving representation in the city – for Salon. 

But it was a mixed day for our movement. For state ballot measures, the status quo won the day – with a ballot measure to implement RCV losing in Oregon, and ballot measures to implement open primaries and RCV falling in Colorado, Idaho, and Nevada. A ballot measure to keep RCV in Alaska is neck-and-neck and may take several days to call, as absentee ballots continue to arrive for 15 days.

 David Doney  - Voting based on the economy? 1. Gains in wages, net worth, stocks, and home prices have exceeded inflation vs. 2019, so you're much better off. 2. Biden has the lowest unemployment rate and highest hourly wages of any president back to 1964, on average.

Daily Beast -  With Donald Trump possibly bringing her father Elon Musk with him in his return to the White House, Musk’s transgender daughter, Vivian Jenna Wilson, has announced plans to leave the United States entirely. In a message posted Wednesday on Threads, Wilson said Trump’s sweeping victory “confirmed” that she is better off elsewhere more accepting of transgender people.

“I’ve thought this for a while, but yesterday confirmed it for me,” said Wilson. “I don’t see my future being in the United States.” She added, “Even if he’s only in office for 4 years, even if the anti-trans regulations magically don’t happen, the people who willingly voted this in are not going anywhere anytime soon.”  

Via Political Wire

NPR- "I've been saying for some time now that we're in the middle of a political realignment in the country," NPR's Domenico Montanaro tells Up First. One of the most surprising exit poll findings is that the share of white voters in the electorate increased for the first time since 1992. But it wasn’t just white voters: Trump managed to secure 46% of Latinos, marking the best performance by a Republican candidate among this demographic in history. Many voters expressed that they felt better off financially under Trump’s presidency, making it difficult for Vice President Harris to separate herself from President Biden on issues related to the economy and immigration.

NBC News - Eighty-six percent of voters self-identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender voted for Harris in the presidential election, according to an NBC News exit poll, a 22-point increase over 2020, when Biden won 64 percent of the LGBTQ vote against Trump.

Times of Israel  - According to exit polls, Jews appeared to hew to their longstanding tradition of voting for Democrats in percentages between 65% and 80%. One exit poll had Harris garnering 77% of the Jewish vote, another had her at 71% and a post-vote analysis estimated Harris’s share at 67%.

Guardian - The wealth of the 10 richest people in the world – a list dominated by US tech billionaires – increased by a record amount after Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election, according to a widely cited index. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimated that the world’s 10 wealthiest people gained nearly $64bn (about £49.5bn) on Wednesday, the largest daily increase since the index began in 2012.Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, registered the largest increase with a $26.5bn addition to his fortune, which now stands at $290bn. The prominent backer of Trump’s campaign, benefited from a surge in the share price of Tesla, the electric carmaker where he is chief executive and in which he owns a 13% stake.The gains came as tech business leaders, including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Facebook parent Meta, and Apple’s Tim Cook publicly congratulated Trump on his election win. 

 Some little discussed reasons why Americans didn’t vote right:

Educators in K-12 schools feel unprepared to teach civics.Younger Americans are less knowledgeable about civics than previous American generations.

Sandra Day O'Connor Institute - The research is clear: study after study shows that we Americans don't know civics. This is especially the case for younger Americans, who data reveal to be less informed about civics than their older counterparts. Obviously there is a need for more and better civic education in schools, a proposition that consistently receives strong bipartisan support. Yet American public schools are not as a rule prioritizing civic education. Why is this so?

- The time devoted to civic education in American public schools began to significantly decline in the 1960s.
- Civic education has not for many decades been prioritized by federal or state government; time devoted to civics has also declined due to unintended consequences of other educational focuses.
- The time spent in schools on civics declines when civic education itself is seen as controversial.

The rise of minorities in America has led many whites to fear what's happening to their former power. This isn't something you talk about, you just act.
 
One of our recent right wing presidents - Ronald Reagan -  also came out of show business like Trump giving him some public reaching skills traditional politicians may have a harder time with.

Among the groups less likely to vote for a black woman were white and black males

Liberals, as they have become wealthier, have become less interested in the problems of the lower classes