Trump claims US will end military aid to Israel by end of this year.
I've long been pretty skeptical that US public opinion is, as often gets claimed, swinging dramatically against Israel at the current time. But if Trump is willing to make a stunt-announcement(*) like this the day of the election(**), I gotta think that he, at least, senses a real shift.
(*) For now, I'm putting this in the same category as "I will mail cheques to everyone if I get re-elected!", and likely to convince about as many people.
(**) I think three or four days woulda been better in terms of giving the promise time to circulate in the public consciousness, but doing it on e-day allows less time for any denials or equivocations(from Netanyahu, the Israel lobby, or other interested players players) to take hold as well.
Slate.com had an article up yesterday arguing(with a focus on Texas) that Trump's Islamophobia is alienating conservative Muslims who would otherwise be natural fits for the GOP's current coalition. It would almost seem like one of Trump's aides saw that article and pushed the aid-cutoff forward as a response.
One interesting early sign, which may or may not turn out to hold:
Democrats appear to have won two districts in Florida that were redrawn this past year in response to Trump’s demands that GOP-controlled legislatures redraw districts to turn them from Democratic seats to Republican seats. When all is said and done, I’ll be interested what the track record on all of the districts redrawn to yield Republican wins turns out to be—whether on the whole they were indeed effective gerrymanders, or whether they turn out to be dummymanders.
Meanwhile, I’m thrilled that North Carolina has flipped a Senate seat. And the loser in that race was Trump’s hand-picked chairman of the Republican National Committee, whom the national Republicans gave up on a month or two ago.
Edit: Sorry, I was still on the previous page when I wrote this.
Florida Republicans re-drew four of their House seats to make them safe for Republicans, but three have been called for Democrats and the Democrat is very narrowly leading in the fourth where they'll probably have to count every last ballot before anyone can call it.
And at least per CNN’s projection, District 11 in western North Carolina has just provided the first Democratic pick-up of Republicans seat in the House.
Jon Ossoff is reported as having won Georgia. If I read the piece correctly(I'm mostly just skimming right now), it was by considerably more than he won in 2020.
Awake at 3am in my corner of the world and feeling cautiously optimistic, given the caveats on slow results from @Ruth and others.
Democrats flipped a seat in Indiana that was leaning Republican and had been R since 1990. Indiana will for the first time send a gay man to the House of Representatives. This seat is an early indicator of a strong blue wave.
Sorry for the triple post, but CNN has now called Democrat Annie Andrews as the winner in South Carolina Senate race, beating Lindsay Graham’s sister Darlene.
And the New York Times is reporting that Tom Kean, the Republican representative from New Jersey who was AWOL for months, has lost his seat.
Dr Annie Andrews, Democrat, has been projected by CNN to win the South Carolina Senate seat. It now looks odds on that the Democrats will win the Senate.
CNN have also projected (unsurprisingly) that the Democrats will win the House. Current projections suggest between 230 and 240 House Democrats.
I really don't think he has much fight left in him, and I think he'd need to lose by a smaller margin if he wanted to rally the nation around a coup d'etat.
But it’s still a forecast or projection until results are ratified officially.
True. It's not over till it's over. But it is much harder to screw with an election that is as decisive as this one than with a close election. Republicans like Sen. Collins in Maine and Gov. Abbott in Texas have conceded their losses and made the traditional congratulatory phone calls to the winners. This respect for norms is an extremely good sign.
It's not quite 10 pm here, and I'll be able to go to bed at a decent hour and get a good night's sleep, which is not at all how I thought things would go. Back in August I said Texas and Iowa were big stretches for Democrats. Kansas wasn't in the discussion, but that seat flipped. Right this minute NBC is showing how close the Mississippi Senate race is.
But it’s still a forecast or projection until results are ratified officially.
True. It's not over till it's over. But it is much harder to screw with an election that is as decisive as this one than with a close election. Republicans like Sen. Collins in Maine and Gov. Abbott in Texas have conceded their losses and made the traditional congratulatory phone calls to the winners. This respect for norms is an extremely good sign.
What's especially noteworthy is just how unrelentingly positive a night it's been for the Democrats, right from the very first numbers coming in.
I'd say this settles the wave vs. tsunami debate, except I think for a genuine tsunami, the senate majority should be veto-proof, and at the moment that appears up in the air.
I guess the last of the major races to be decided for DC office is Alaska. Earlier reporting said Peltola was ahead.
But it’s still a forecast or projection until results are ratified officially.
True. It's not over till it's over. But it is much harder to screw with an election that is as decisive as this one than with a close election. Republicans like Sen. Collins in Maine and Gov. Abbott in Texas have conceded their losses and made the traditional congratulatory phone calls to the winners. This respect for norms is an extremely good sign.
What's especially noteworthy is just how unrelentingly positive a night it's been for the Democrats, right from the very first numbers coming in.
I'd say this settles the wave vs. tsunami debate, except I think for a genuine tsunami, the senate majority should be veto-proof, and at the moment that appears up in the air.
I guess the last of the major races to be decided for DC office is Alaska. Earlier reporting said Peltola was ahead.
The Senate can't become veto-proof this year. In 2 years, maybe.
But it’s still a forecast or projection until results are ratified officially.
True. It's not over till it's over. But it is much harder to screw with an election that is as decisive as this one than with a close election. Republicans like Sen. Collins in Maine and Gov. Abbott in Texas have conceded their losses and made the traditional congratulatory phone calls to the winners. This respect for norms is an extremely good sign.
What's especially noteworthy is just how unrelentingly positive a night it's been for the Democrats, right from the very first numbers coming in.
I'd say this settles the wave vs. tsunami debate, except I think for a genuine tsunami, the senate majority should be veto-proof, and at the moment that appears up in the air.
I guess the last of the major races to be decided for DC office is Alaska. Earlier reporting said Peltola was ahead.
The Senate can't become veto-proof this year. In 2 years, maybe.
Ah, okay. So, it's as much of a tsunami as we can get. Thanks.
Thank you America. Let’s hope our decent people turn out in numbers at future elections. I’m sure our problem is that while the nutters are enthusiastic and get out to vote against their interests, too many reasonable people are reluctant to keep the selfish and greedy out.
1 watched fascinated for a long time. Rather than being biased in favour of the Democrats the polls underestimated the Democratic win.
From this side of the pond, I couldn’t be happier. Especially for many US Shipmates who have expressed, rightly, that Trumpism does not accurately represent a very large number of US citizens.
I am so thrilled for America, especially those Americans in the South and Midwest. Angie Nixon also did an AMAZING job and Dems in Florida should be very proud of how close it was - if Texas can be flipped blue, so can Florida! Unfortunately some nasty anti-trans bills also went through across the country (thinking especially of Washington and Colorado) but it ain't over til it's over.
I'd say this settles the wave vs. tsunami debate, except I think for a genuine tsunami, the senate majority should be veto-proof, and at the moment that appears up in the air.
No, it’s not up in the air. As things currently stand, between seats they won and seats that weren’t up for election, Republicans hold at least 44 seats in the Senate. That means the most seats Democrats + Independents could hold is 56, 11 short of a veto-proof supermajority.
Barack Obama: “Tonight, the American people sent a clear message — they want a politics that brings people together rather than divides them, and leaders who offer concrete solutions to the challenges they face.”
I'd say this settles the wave vs. tsunami debate, except I think for a genuine tsunami, the senate majority should be veto-proof, and at the moment that appears up in the air.
No, it’s not up in the air. As things currently stand, between seats they won and seats that weren’t up for election, Republicans hold at least 44 seats in the Senate. That means the most seats Democrats + Independents could hold is 56, 11 short of a veto-proof supermajority.
Fair enough, @stetson. I thought @mousethief and I were saying slightly different things, but maybe not.
Meanwhile, returning to the gerrymander vs. dummymander question, it’s turning out interesting here in North Carolina.
The 2024 election yielded a 10 Republicans-4 Democrats state delegation to the US House.
Our Republican-controlled legislature heeded Trump’s demands and redistricted our congressional districts to make the seat of an African American incumbent, Don Davis, a safe seat for Republicans, yielding a map designed to be favor the GOP 11-3. (This was a Voting Rights Act district, but thanks to SCOTUS, such districts are no longer required.)
As the dust settles here, three districts are close enough that recounts may be coming. (Republicans incumbents lead in two of those districts, and the Democratic challenger leads in the third.) If the numbers hold, North Carolina will be sending a delegation to the 120th Congress of 10 Democrats and 4 Republicans.
One of the Republican incumbents who lost is Richard Hudson, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.
And Don Davis won his redrawn district.
And Republicans lost control of the North Carolina House of Representatives and lost their supermajority in the North Carolina Senate. As we have a Democratic governor, the loss of the ability to override vetoes is major. It’s also significant given how heavily state legislative districts are gerrymandered.
I have felt that as a foreigner I should not hitherto have even been following, yet alone commenting on, this thread. With the wonderful news for you now it has happened, I feel I just have to share a Facebook comment from over here that I saw this morning.
"For once, the American people did as he asked, without question.
He said, "Vote as if my name were on the ballot."
They did!
The Democratic Party is directly reporting that Senator Chris Coons has been re-elected in Delaware.
No surprise there. Coons won with 63.57% of the vote (240,347 votes).
Delaware also re-elected Sarah McBride as its Representative. Sarah is transgender and, when she was originally elected, the House Republicans tried to make a talking point of her by passing rules as to which bathroom she could use. Sarah just shrugged and focused on doing her job representing the people of Delaware. Which she has done quite well, IMHO. She won re-election with 64.34% of the vote (243,467 votes) (yes, more Delawareans voted for her than for Coons).
Comments
I've long been pretty skeptical that US public opinion is, as often gets claimed, swinging dramatically against Israel at the current time. But if Trump is willing to make a stunt-announcement(*) like this the day of the election(**), I gotta think that he, at least, senses a real shift.
(*) For now, I'm putting this in the same category as "I will mail cheques to everyone if I get re-elected!", and likely to convince about as many people.
(**) I think three or four days woulda been better in terms of giving the promise time to circulate in the public consciousness, but doing it on e-day allows less time for any denials or equivocations(from Netanyahu, the Israel lobby, or other interested players players) to take hold as well.
Democrats appear to have won two districts in Florida that were redrawn this past year in response to Trump’s demands that GOP-controlled legislatures redraw districts to turn them from Democratic seats to Republican seats. When all is said and done, I’ll be interested what the track record on all of the districts redrawn to yield Republican wins turns out to be—whether on the whole they were indeed effective gerrymanders, or whether they turn out to be dummymanders.
Meanwhile, I’m thrilled that North Carolina has flipped a Senate seat. And the loser in that race was Trump’s hand-picked chairman of the Republican National Committee, whom the national Republicans gave up on a month or two ago.
Florida Republicans re-drew four of their House seats to make them safe for Republicans, but three have been called for Democrats and the Democrat is very narrowly leading in the fourth where they'll probably have to count every last ballot before anyone can call it.
Democrats flipped a seat in Indiana that was leaning Republican and had been R since 1990. Indiana will for the first time send a gay man to the House of Representatives. This seat is an early indicator of a strong blue wave.
And the New York Times is reporting that Tom Kean, the Republican representative from New Jersey who was AWOL for months, has lost his seat.
CNN have also projected (unsurprisingly) that the Democrats will win the House. Current projections suggest between 230 and 240 House Democrats.
The headline I just saw there stated it as a done-deal.
Thanks! I'm actually not sure I coulda answered that one myself. I think I saw it on CNN.
Well, scratch that. CNN called Texas and Ohio while I was typing.
I know lots of Presbyterians who’re thrilled about Talarico. (My daughter is one.)
I was gonna cite Woodrow Wilson as a precedent, but he was never a seminarian himself, just the messianically inclined son of a Presbyterian minister.
Proof if needed that you have to deceive yourself before you can deceive others.
“Trump Says in Interview That He Will Accept Election Results.”
I really don't think he has much fight left in him, and I think he'd need to lose by a smaller margin if he wanted to rally the nation around a coup d'etat.
That is very generous and thoughtful of him................
a) all the votes have not been counted.
b) despite that “we” (the media analysts) can no longer see a winning route of the other candidate.
The analysis is nearly always accepted as an accurate forecast of the final result. It’s very very rare for the media analysts to get it wrong.
But it’s still a forecast or projection until results are ratified officially.
True. It's not over till it's over. But it is much harder to screw with an election that is as decisive as this one than with a close election. Republicans like Sen. Collins in Maine and Gov. Abbott in Texas have conceded their losses and made the traditional congratulatory phone calls to the winners. This respect for norms is an extremely good sign.
It's not quite 10 pm here, and I'll be able to go to bed at a decent hour and get a good night's sleep, which is not at all how I thought things would go. Back in August I said Texas and Iowa were big stretches for Democrats. Kansas wasn't in the discussion, but that seat flipped. Right this minute NBC is showing how close the Mississippi Senate race is.
What's especially noteworthy is just how unrelentingly positive a night it's been for the Democrats, right from the very first numbers coming in.
I'd say this settles the wave vs. tsunami debate, except I think for a genuine tsunami, the senate majority should be veto-proof, and at the moment that appears up in the air.
I guess the last of the major races to be decided for DC office is Alaska. Earlier reporting said Peltola was ahead.
The Senate can't become veto-proof this year. In 2 years, maybe.
Ah, okay. So, it's as much of a tsunami as we can get. Thanks.
I've just seen a post on BSky describe the result as "Chuddnarok" which I thought was pretty good.
From this side of the pond, I couldn’t be happier. Especially for many US Shipmates who have expressed, rightly, that Trumpism does not accurately represent a very large number of US citizens.
Barack Obama: “Tonight, the American people sent a clear message — they want a politics that brings people together rather than divides them, and leaders who offer concrete solutions to the challenges they face.”
Amen
Yeah, I know. See @mousethief's previous post.
Meanwhile, returning to the gerrymander vs. dummymander question, it’s turning out interesting here in North Carolina.
The 2024 election yielded a 10 Republicans-4 Democrats state delegation to the US House.
Our Republican-controlled legislature heeded Trump’s demands and redistricted our congressional districts to make the seat of an African American incumbent, Don Davis, a safe seat for Republicans, yielding a map designed to be favor the GOP 11-3. (This was a Voting Rights Act district, but thanks to SCOTUS, such districts are no longer required.)
As the dust settles here, three districts are close enough that recounts may be coming. (Republicans incumbents lead in two of those districts, and the Democratic challenger leads in the third.) If the numbers hold, North Carolina will be sending a delegation to the 120th Congress of 10 Democrats and 4 Republicans.
One of the Republican incumbents who lost is Richard Hudson, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.
And Don Davis won his redrawn district.
And Republicans lost control of the North Carolina House of Representatives and lost their supermajority in the North Carolina Senate. As we have a Democratic governor, the loss of the ability to override vetoes is major. It’s also significant given how heavily state legislative districts are gerrymandered.
No, I think you were both making the same point. But your numbers were helpful, so thanks.
No surprise there. Coons won with 63.57% of the vote (240,347 votes).
Delaware also re-elected Sarah McBride as its Representative. Sarah is transgender and, when she was originally elected, the House Republicans tried to make a talking point of her by passing rules as to which bathroom she could use. Sarah just shrugged and focused on doing her job representing the people of Delaware. Which she has done quite well, IMHO. She won re-election with 64.34% of the vote (243,467 votes) (yes, more Delawareans voted for her than for Coons).