Tag: Congress

Trump wins West Virginia. No surprise, there. West Virginia used to be reliably Democratic because of the presence of the mining unions. But those jobs have been gutted by changing extraction processes. Much of West Virginia is isolated by geography. It’s always been socially conservative and the unions exercised influence that outweighed what the population really desired. West Virginia is the prime example of the devastation wrought by America’s transition from the Industrial Revolution to the Information Age when communities are unprepared. Such is life.

Ohio and North Carolina are about to close. In my picks column, I wrote that Ohio is probably out of reach for Clinton. It’s so disappointing to me, personally. I haven’t lived in Ohio since 1999, but I still have strong social and familial connections to the state.

North Carolina going Trump would be a fairly significant blow to Clinton’s night. It, and New Hampshire, going for Trump would basically require a Clinton win in Florida to stop Trump from winning. That’s why NBC’s reporting on Hispanic turnout in Florida is significant. An extra 4 million Hispanic voters could represent a net gain of 2.5 to 3 million voted for Clinton. Fingers crossed.

Not even 7:01 and some states are being called. Indiana and Kentucky to Trump, Vermont to Clinton. No surprises there at all.

What a shitshow. The stakes in elections this century always seem to be high. The 2004 election, as a friend reminded me this afternoon, really did a number on me. I couldn’t fathom how so many people could take an honest look at the performance of George W. Bush as president and decide he had earned another term. The man was incompetent, and some of his people were war criminals.

Now here we are in 2016 and the most unqualified major party candidate in American history will probably find 60 million Americans voting for him. Incredible. That’s 60 million of our fellow citizens who are incapable of recognizing the danger Donald Trump represents to the United States and the world.

Only a couple of minutes before some real returns start coming in. New Hampshire is making me nervous, but NBC just reported Hispanic turnout is up by 4 million in Florida. If that is accurate, this night is probably already over.

And they’re off! Polls have now closed in eastern Kentucky and in most of Indiana. Those two states are solidly in the red, but Democrat Evan Bayh’s race to get back into the Senate is very important for control of the upper house. Hopefully there will be reporting shortly after the remaining polling sites in Indiana close at 7.

I just returned from voting. My district in NYC has been good to me since I moved to this neighborhood. There has never been a line. In contrast, a buddy in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina (elevation 16 feet above sea level and flat as a pancake), had to wait 90 minutes to vote. Out in San Francisco, another friend waited 5 minutes. This is only the most important day in our country, and it comes around every 4 years. No need to get it right.