Meteorologist Jim Weber explains where Hurricane Eta may go next.
TAMPA, Fla. – As Tropical Storm Eta continues to cause heavy rainfall and flooding in Central America, the storm — or whatever is left of it — could make a loop and head back into the Caribbean, and then, maybe, onto Florida.
Much of Florida is inside Eta’s cone of uncertainty, as of the National Hurricane Center’s Wednesday update. NHC forecasters says those residing in South Florida and the Keys should monitor Eta’s progress.
If there are any impacts to Tampa Bay, it wouldn’t be until Monday or Tuesday of next week, says FOX 13’s chief meteorlogist Paul Dellegato. The confidence in the current track is still low.
The slow-moving storm has weakened, but the main threat continues to be rainfall over Central Florida. After, the question remains: Where will Eta go?
Eventually, it will venture back out to the western Caribbean, explained FOX 13’s meteorologist Dave Osterberg.
“Herein lies the big problem. Does it have a nice core structure still when that happens or is it disorganized completely? Where does it come back out over the western Caribbean?,” he asked. “Once we can answer these couple of questions, then you can determine, from there, where the remnants or perhaps a reorganization can occur and where it goes.”
If it does take the projected path provided by the NHC, it could head up to South Florida as a tropical storm.
“But it can also mean a lot of rain for central and South Florida as well late weekend and into early next week,” Osterberg said. “I promise you that is not set in stone and that could change. So stay with us.”
On Wednesday, Eta continued to spin across northern Nicaragua after lashing the country’s Caribbean coast for much of Tuesday, isolating already remote communities and setting off deadly landslides in two countries that killed at least three people.
The storm had weakened by late Tuesday, but was moving so slowly and dumping so much rain that much of Central America was on high alert.
Eta came ashore Tuesday afternoon south of the Nicaraguan city of Bilwi as a powerful Category 4 hurricane after stalling just off the coast for hours. The city of about 60,000 had been without power since Monday evening. Corrugated metal roofing and uprooted trees were scattered through its streets. Some 20,000 of the area’s residents were in shelters.
It is the eighth Atlantic storm this season to hit the meteorologists’ definition for rapid intensification — a gain of 35 mph (56 kph) in wind speed in just 24 hours. It’s also the fifth to reach major hurricane status. Over the past couple of decades, meteorologists have been increasingly worried about storms that just blow up in strength.
Eta is the 28th named Atlantic storm this season, tying the 2005 record for named storms. It’s the first time the Greek letter Eta has been used as a storm name because after the 2005 season ended, meteorologists went back and determined a storm that should have been named wasn’t.
Hurricane season still has a month to go, ending Nov. 30. In 2005, Zeta formed toward the end of December.
House Republicans predicted they would maintain their majority control of the Michigan House of Representatives Wednesday morning.
The House Republican Campaign Committee declared victory in the quest for majority control at 6 a.m. Wednesday, crediting the win to a robust statewide campaign, strong candidates and the House’s legislative track record.
“The people of Michigan have spoken loud and clear – they want two more years of House Republican leadership at their state Capitol,” House Speaker Lee Chatfield, R-Levering, said in a statement. Republicans’ message “struck a chord with voters looking for real answers,” he added.
Several competitive state House districts had not yet been called by The Associated Press as of 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, and House Democrats have not yet conceded the majority. But with Republican candidates successfully flipping at least one vulnerable Democratic incumbent and performing well in other competitive races, the path to a Democratic majority appears slim.
In the 96th state House district — which encompasses Bay City and other parts of Bay County — Republican Tim Beson won 57.4% of the vote to incumbent state Rep. Brian Elder’s 42.6% with all precincts reporting. The race was called in Beson’s favor by the Associated Press early Wednesday.
Republicans are also claiming victory in the 48th District, currently held by incumbent Democratic state Rep. Sheryl Kennedy of Davison, although that race hasn’t yet been called by the Associated Press and the margins are close. With 61.9% of precincts reporting, Republican David Martin holds a slim lead with 50.48% of the vote over Kennedy’s 49.52%.
Incumbent Rep. Ryan Berman, R-Commerce Township, is ahead of Democratic challenger Julia Pulver in the state’s 39th House District, where he holds 51.91% of votes to Pulver’s 46.52% based on the latest tabulations. Republican John Roth has also declared victory in the open 104th District in Grand Traverse County. His opponent, Democrat Dan O’Neil, conceded the race Wednesday morning.
In a statement, House Democratic Leader Christine Greig, D-Farmington Hills, suggested all of Michigan’s votes should be counted before jumping to conclusions.
“Only election administrators can officially determine the winners after the ballots are counted accurately,” she said. “Michiganders made an extraordinary effort to vote and deserve to have each and every one of their ballots counted.”
In an interview with MLive, Michigan Democratic Party Chair Lavora Barnes echoed that sentiment, also pointing to projected wins in statewide races like the Michigan Supreme Court.
“I think it’s important that we allow these voters to have their voices heard before we go around declaring anything,” she said. “We’ve got some state House seats still out there. We’re still waiting for votes to come in… I want everybody’s vote to be counted, and I feel strongly that the team of volunteers and clerks’ staff that are still working hard deserve our respect while they continue to do their work.”
The party with the most seats in the state House has a critical advantage when it comes to setting the chamber’s agenda, policy priorities and top leadership positions.
Democrats had been hoping to retain gains made in the 2018 election cycle and pick up an additional four seats, investing heavily in a handful of districts deemed competitive in suburban Southeast Michigan and other areas of the state.
There were some bright spots for Democrats as of Wednesday morning, including in West Michigan’s 61st House District, where Democrat Christine Morse is expected to flip an open seat previously held by Republicans. With 100% of precincts reporting, Morse earned54.07% of the vote to Republican Bronwyn Haltom’s 45.93%.
Across the state in the 38th District, Democrat Kelly Breen holds a lead against Republican Chase Turner, with 51.62% of the vote to Turner’s 48.38%.
House Republicans are planning to meet Thursday to elect new caucus leadership. Chatfield, currently serving his third term, is term-limited out of office at the end of the year.
In an election year like no other, Election Day has turned into Election Days in Georgia, with at least one of the Peach State’s most crucial contests headed to a January runoff.
Paths to victory remain in the US presidential race for both Donald Trump and Joe Biden, but Biden has more ways to win and appears to be running stronger state-to-state based on the places – cities, mainly – where large absentee votes have yet to be counted.
Biden leads the electoral tally 238-213. Adding Alaska for Trump – which had not been called but where the result is not in doubt – gives the president 216.
From there, six states remained to be called as Wednesday dawned in the US: Nevada, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania. A final electoral vote, in the second district of Maine, which splits its electoral votes, could fall for either candidate.
Trump’s paths
The simplest way for Trump to find the 54 electoral votes he needs would be to win Pennsylvania and at least three other states. If he does not win Pennsylvania, Trump must make a clean sweep of all five remaining states to get to 270.
But a huge Democratic vote share remained to be tallied in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, meaning Trump could have difficulty hanging on to a narrow lead gained elsewhere in the state. Elsewhere, including in Wisconsin and Michigan, Trump appeared to be in even deeper trouble, in Wisconsin because he was losing with most of the vote counted, and in Michigan because the outstanding vote was expected to be heavily Democratic.
Biden’s paths
Biden had many paths to find his remaining 32 electoral votes. His most likely path lay through the Great Lakes states, where Pennsylvania and Michigan combined would net 36 votes.
Without Pennsylvania, Biden could win by winning Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada, where he held a clear but narrow lead. A Biden victory in either of the two reddest states in the mix – Georgia or North Carolina – would almost certainly foretell wins elsewhere and a Biden victory.
Shares of Uber and Lyft were up big in premarket trading after early voting projections suggest that Californians have decided both companies should be exempt from a labor law that aimed to make drivers employees instead of contractors.
Shares of Uber were up more than 12% and Lyft was up over 17% before markets opened Wednesday.
Voters were deciding on California’s Proposition 22, a ballot measure that Uber and Lyft were using as a last hope in the state to continue operating as they currently do. The proposition would allow drivers for app-based transportation and delivery companies to be classified as independent contractors in many circumstances. While that would disqualify them for benefits granted to employees, the measure also entitles drivers to new benefits like minimum earnings and vehicle insurance.
The companies had warned ahead of time that any increased costs from the decision would have been passed on to their customers.
“We would expect other states to now be less aggressive in trying to pass similar legislation to AB5, which would be an important win for Uber and its peers,” Bank of America analysts said in a note Wednesday. “Overall, while Uber still faces regulatory challenges in the UK and other US States, the vote helps alleviate a big uncertainty, and could open the stock to new investors, potentially aiding valuation.”
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, tweeted early Wednesday that a “partisan attack” had been launched on Pennsylvania’s elections.
Wolf’s tweet came after Trump tweeted that the election is being stolen from him.
Wolf cautioned that the state still has to count more than 1 million mail ballots in the state. “I promised Pennsylvanians that we would count every vote and that’s what we’re going to do,” he said.
“Let’s be clear: This is a partisan attack on Pennsylvania’s elections, our votes, and democracy,” Wolf tweeted. “Our counties are working tirelessly to process votes as quickly AND as accurately as possible. Pennsylvania will have a fair election and we will count every vote.”
As of Wednesday at 4 a.m. ET, Trump leads former Vice President Joe Biden by a little more than 675,000 votes in the state he narrowly flipped in 2016.
CBS News projects that President Trump will win Ohio, a state that he won by 8 points in 2016. The president expanded upon his 2016 margins with White voters without a college degree, according to CBS News exit polling.
In 2020, the president won this demographic by 35 points, according to CBS News exit polling. He won White voters without a college degree by 30 points in 2016.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden made significant gains with White voters with a college degree, defeating Mr. Trump by 12 points, according to CBS News exit polling. In 2016, Mr. Trump won that demographic by 25 points. But that swing was not enough for Mr. Biden to defeat Mr. Trump in Ohio.
CBS News exit polling also showed that Ohioans believe that Mr. Trump would do a better job handling the COVID-19 pandemic by a four-point margin over Mr. Biden. The poll showed that the disparity is larger when it comes to handling the economy. On this issue, Mr. Trump had a 14-point margin over Mr. Biden.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The battle for control of the Senate tightened Tuesday after Democrats picked up a seat in Colorado, but suffered a setback in Alabama, and Republicans held their own in high-profile races in South Carolina, Texas and Kansas, narrowing the political map.
Republicans fought to retain their Senate majority against a surge of Democrats challenging President Donald Trump’s allies. Both parties saw paths to victory, but the Democrats’ were narrowing. With several races still too early to call, and one Georgia contest heading to a January runoff, the final verdict might not be known on election night.
Democrats ousted Cory Gardner for John Hickenlooper in Colorado, a must-win seat if Democrats were to wrest the majority. Gardner was among the most endangered incumbents as his state shifted leftward in the Trump era.
“It’s time for a different approach,” Hickenlooper said in an live video message posted on Facebook.
But several battlegrounds broke for Republicans, including an open seat in Kansas. Rep. Roger Marshall prevailed over Democratic state Sen. Barbara Bollier, a former Republican, who energized Democrats in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932.
From New England to the Deep South and the Midwest to the Mountain West, Republicans defended seats in states once considered long shots for Democrats. The Trump administration’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis, its economic fallout and the nation’s uneasy mood all seemed to be on the ballot.
Trump loomed large over the Senate races as did Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. They swooped into key states, including Iowa, Georgia and Michigan, in the final days of the campaigns. Voters ranked the pandemic and the economy as top concerns, according to AP VoteCast, a national survey of the electorate.
Securing the Senate majority will be vital for the winner of the presidency. Senators confirm administration nominees, including the Cabinet, and can propel or stall the White House agenda. With Republicans now controlling the chamber, 53-47, three or four seats will determine party control, depending on who wins the presidency because the vice president can break a tie.
In Kentucky, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell fended off Democrat Amy McGrath, a former fighter pilot in a costly campaign, but he acknowledged his GOP colleagues face tougher races.
“We don’t know which party will control the Senate,” McConnell said from Louisville. “But some things are certain already. We know grave challenges will remain before us, challenges that could not care less about our political polarization. We know our next president will need to unite the country, even as we all continue to bring different ideas and commitments to the table.”
White House confidant Lindsey Graham survived the fight of his political life in South Carolina against Democrat Jamie Harrison, whose campaign stunned Washington by drawing more than $100 million in small-scale donations. In Texas, Sen. John Cornyn turned back Democrat MJ Hegar, a former Air Force helicopter pilot, in his hardest-fought election in almost two decades.
Republicans flipped the seat in Alabama that Democrat Doug Jones had won in a special election as former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville was elected in the Trump stronghold.
In Georgia, two Senate seats were being contested.
One already is headed to a Jan. 5 runoff after no candidate reached the 50% threshold to win. GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler will face Democrat Raphael Warnock in a special election for the seat Loeffler was tapped to fill for retired Sen. Johnny Isakson.
In the other, GOP Sen. David Perdue, the former business executive Trump calls his favorite senator, tried to stave off Democrat Jon Ossoff, another candidate who has benefited from the “green wave” of campaign donations. It too, is expected to go to a runoff.
The Senate will welcome some newcomers as others retire. In Tennessee, Republican Bill Hagerty won the seat held by Sen. Lamar Alexander, who is retiring. Republican Cynthia Lummis, the former congresswoman from Wyoming, won the Senate seat opened by retiring GOP Sen. Mike Enzi.
So far, incumbent senators in less competitive races easily won.
Several Democrats were reelected, including No. 2 leader Dick Durbin of Illinois, Mark Warner in Virginia and Ed Markey, who survived a primary challenge in Massachusetts. Chris Coons kept the Delaware seat once held by Biden, defeating a Republican who previously promoted the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory.
Among Republicans, Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi, Tom Cotton in Arkansas, Ben Sasse in Nebraska, Shelley Moore Capito in West Virginia and James Inhofe in Oklahoma won.
Stuck in Washington to confirm Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett a week before Election Day, senators quickly fanned out — some alongside the president — for last-ditch tours, often socially distanced in the pandemic, to shore up votes.
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis joined Trump’s rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on Monday. Tillis has struggled against Cunningham, despite the married challenger’s sexting scandal with a public relations strategist. Cunningham traveled around the state Tuesday, talking to voters in Efland, near Durham.
In Arizona, Republican Martha McSally was trying to hold off Democrat Mark Kelly, a former astronaut.
Democrats had more than one route to secure the three or four seats needed to capture the majority, and GOP strategists privately acknowledged that the incumbents will almost certainly suffer defeats in some races. But options were closing for Democrats.
In the presidential battleground of Michigan, Republicans have made an aggressive push for John James, a Black Republican businessman, against Democratic Sen. Gary Peters.
The Maine race between GOP Sen. Susan Collins and Democrat Sara Gideon was another contest that could push past Election Day if no candidate breaks the 50% threshold.
The political landscape is quickly changing from six years ago, when most of these senators last faced voters. It’s a reminder of how sharply the political climate has shifted in the Trump era.
In Montana, Republican Sen. Steve Daines was trying to hold off Democrat Steve Bullock, the governor, in a state where Trump was popular.
Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst was fighting for a second term against Democrat Theresa Greenfield.
And in Alaska, newcomer Al Gross, a doctor, broke state fundraising records in part with viral campaign ads as he took on GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan.
A worker with the Detroit Department of Elections waits for the next absentee ballot to be sorted through at the Central Counting Board in the TCF Center on Nov. 4.
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A worker with the Detroit Department of Elections waits for the next absentee ballot to be sorted through at the Central Counting Board in the TCF Center on Nov. 4.
Elaine Cromie/Getty Images
Election Day itself went off far more smoothly than many election officials would have predicted seven months ago, as the pandemic took hold in the middle of primary season.
But for months, those officials warned that the expected influx of mail-in votes this year could mean a longer wait before the winner of the presidency was known.
As Nov. 3 turned into Nov. 4, it became clear that’s exactly what was happening.
Voting administrators worked into and through the wee hours in swing states like Pennsylvania and Michigan. Officials in those states pleaded for patience as they worked through the unprecedented amount of mail votes they received.
“We’re doing everything we can to get it done as soon as possible, but we’ll be working 24 hours — through the night — to get it done,” said Lisa Deeley, the chairwoman of the Philadelphia City Commissioners. Other counties in Pennsylvania were not set to even begin counting their absentee ballots until Wednesday.
In most states, election officials could start the arduous process that goes into counting mail votes many days before Election Day, but in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, officials had their hands tied by state laws that did not allow for such preparation.
To be clear, this sort of waiting game for results is not uncommon.
Official results have never been fully tallied by election night; the announced winners and losers on the night of the election are actually projections made by media organizations, explained Justin Levitt, an election law expert at Loyola Law School.
“We never, ever have election results on election night,” Levitt said. “We have essentially educated guesses.”
Officials in Wisconsin said they expected to get through their absentee votes by Wednesday. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson predicted her state would be done counting by Friday, and similarly, Pennsylvania Secretary of state Kathy Boockvar said the “overwhelming majority of ballots” in her state would be counted “within a few days.”
President Trump, however, was not satisfied with those announcements.
Votes counted later in the counting process typically favor Democrats, since the ballots usually tend to come from more urban jurisdictions. For months Trump has tried to get out ahead of that trend, falsely arguing that the U.S. needed to know the winner of the election immediately, or else it would indicate fraud on the part of Democrats.
A problem ballot box is placed on the end of a table where workers with the Detroit Department of Elections sorts through absentee ballots.
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A problem ballot box is placed on the end of a table where workers with the Detroit Department of Elections sorts through absentee ballots.
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He pushed that theory again early Wednesday morning, in a tweet (which Twitter labeled as misleading), and then again in his remarks from the White House.
We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed!
“This is a fraud on the American public,” Trump said. “We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election.”
Voting experts and other members of the federal government disagree with that claim.
The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, for instance, dedicated a section of its website this year to debunking false claims about voting. The page, called Rumor Control, specifically mentions the claim that a delay in results would mean the underlying data is compromised in some way.
“Election results reporting may occur more slowly than prior years,” CISA says. “This does not indicate there is any problem with the counting process or results.”
Tammy Patrick, a former Arizona election official and now a senior adviser at the Democracy Fund, noted that if vote counting were stopped, it would disenfranchise many millions of voters who cast their votes in time to meet their states’ deadlines.
“People waited in lines to cast these ballots, people went to extreme circumstances, in some cases, to get these ballots mailed to them and back in on time,” Patrick said. “And we need to make sure that we honor all of those voters by making sure those ballots count.”
NPR’s Don Gonyea, Jeff Brady, and David Schaper contributed reporting.
“I’m here to tell you tonight, we believe we’re on track to win this election,” he said. “We knew because of the unprecedented early vote and the mail-in vote, it was going to take a while. We’re going to have to be patient until the hard work of tallying the votes is finished. And it ain’t over until every vote is counted, every ballot is counted.”
Republicans yesterday did win closely contested Senate races in at least two states, Alabama and Iowa, and flipped at least six House seats, giving them a four-seat net gain in that chamber so far.
But Democrats also picked up two Senate seats, in Colorado and Arizona, and close races remain uncalled in North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan and Maine — most of them potential Democratic pickups. The party’s path to a Senate majority may have narrowed somewhat, but the fate of the chamber, it’s safe to say, still hangs in the balance.
Where we’re at
Based on the states that have already been declared, Biden needs 43 more electoral votes to get to the golden number of 270, and Trump needs 57.
The three Northern states that flipped for Trump in 2016 — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — remain uncalled. So do North Carolina and Georgia, both of which went for him in 2016 but have been heavily targeted by Democrats this cycle, and both of which are double-whammies: They have contested Senate races hitched to the presidential contest.
In many of these still-uncalled states, Trump holds the lead in terms of ballots counted — but that could easily change as more mail-in ballots and some in-person votes continue to be tabulated.
In Georgia, as Biden mentioned in his speech, Democrats are feeling bullish. Many more votes are yet to come in from the Atlanta area; in DeKalb County, for instance, one of the state’s largest, early in-person votes had not even begun to be counted until last night.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, tweeted early Wednesday that a “partisan attack” had been launched on Pennsylvania’s elections.
Wolf’s tweet came after Trump tweeted that the election is being stolen from him.
Wolf cautioned that the state still has to count more than 1 million mail ballots in the state. “I promised Pennsylvanians that we would count every vote and that’s what we’re going to do,” he said.
“Let’s be clear: This is a partisan attack on Pennsylvania’s elections, our votes, and democracy,” Wolf tweeted. “Our counties are working tirelessly to process votes as quickly AND as accurately as possible. Pennsylvania will have a fair election and we will count every vote.”
As of Wednesday at 4 a.m. ET, Trump leads former Vice President Joe Biden by a little more than 675,000 votes in the state he narrowly flipped in 2016.
CNN’s Katelyn Polantz, Ellie Kaufman, Kate Bolduan, Nick Valencia, Jason Morris, Caroline Kenny, Bill Weir, Annie Grayer, Kelly Mena, Sara Murray, Casey Tolan, Meredith Edwards, Curt Devine, Scott Bronstein, Rob Kuznia, Kevin Liptak and Ryan Nobles contributed to this report.
Shares of Uber and Lyft were up big in premarket trading after early voting projections suggest that Californians have decided both companies should be exempt from a labor law that aimed to make drivers employees instead of contractors.
Shares of Uber were up more than 12% and Lyft was up over 17% before markets opened Wednesday.
Voters were deciding on California’s Proposition 22, a ballot measure that Uber and Lyft were using as a last hope in the state to continue operating as they currently do. The proposition would allow drivers for app-based transportation and delivery companies to be classified as independent contractors in many circumstances. While that would disqualify them for benefits granted to employees, the measure also entitles drivers to new benefits like minimum earnings and vehicle insurance.
The companies had warned ahead of time that any increased costs from the decision would have been passed on to their customers.
“We would expect other states to now be less aggressive in trying to pass similar legislation to AB5, which would be an important win for Uber and its peers,” Bank of America analysts said in a note Wednesday. “Overall, while Uber still faces regulatory challenges in the UK and other US States, the vote helps alleviate a big uncertainty, and could open the stock to new investors, potentially aiding valuation.”
Into the early hours of Wednesday morning, America was holding its breath.
Following a heated and often bitterly divisive presidential campaign season, no clear winner had been declared in the race between President Trump and former vice president Joe Biden. And everyone, it seemed, was standing by: the anxious clusters of people watching at bars in Atlanta, the demonstrators gathered in Washington, the viewers glued to their TV screens in living rooms across the country.
Election officials, meanwhile, were busy counting the historic flood of ballots that poured in — by mail and in person, for weeks before Election Day and just as polls closed Tuesday. It was another sign of how the coronavirus pandemic, which already cost millions of Americans their jobs and pushed the country into a recession, has upended this year. Now, in the political climax of 2020, the virus also cast aside any hopes for a swift election night.
Both campaigns were projecting confidence about the results, with several key pickups. The perennial swing states of Florida and Ohio were called for Trump, and Arizona appeared to break for Biden, ending a decades-long losing streak for Democrats in the state. Yet many of the Northern battleground states that captured the nation’s attention after the 2016 race — Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan — were still too close to call, possibly without a final result for hours or even days.
The mood in Washington
In downtown Washington, that anxiety converged with anger as demonstrators — and a giant, blow-up chicken featuring Trump’s hairdo — gathered outside a heavily barricaded White House for what some protesters hoped would be a “going-away party” for the president. News reporters filmed just outside the gates, and an uneasy crowd of people watched returns come in. Although local and federal authorities have been bracing for the possibility of unrest, the atmosphere on Tuesday night featured only occasional friction between the crowds, law enforcement and a small minority of Trump supporters.
People gather near the White House as they await election results. (Astrid Riecken/for The Washington Post)
Protesters placed a large Trump inflatable near the White House. (Astrid Riecken/for The Washington Post)
Members of the media gather outside the West Wing of the White House. (Oliver Contreras For The Washington Post)
Protesters placed a large Trump inflatable near the White House. (Astrid Riecken/for The Washington Post)
Members of the media gather outside the West Wing of the White House. (Oliver Contreras For The Washington Post)
Niki Gotzev, Milo Shea and Ryan Thomas attend a watch party at McPherson Square in Washington. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)D.C. police officers form a line to block K Street NW as demonstrators gather near the White House. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
A night of waiting
With returns still coming in early Wednesday, people tuning in around the country were stuck in a collective state of suspense. Many traditional election night watch parties were smaller this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. But in living rooms, restaurants and chilly outdoor venues, Americans gathered to watch — and wait — together.
A man watches incoming election results in Philadelphia. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
A mostly Democratic crowd watches results at Manuel’s Tavern in Atlanta. (Kevin D. Liles For the Washington Post)
Nasir Farah from Somalia watches results at Manuel’s Tavern. (Kevin D. Liles For the Washington Post)
A mostly Democratic crowd watches results at Manuel’s Tavern in Atlanta. (Kevin D. Liles For the Washington Post)
Nasir Farah from Somalia watches results at Manuel’s Tavern. (Kevin D. Liles For the Washington Post)
John Kozak looks at results on his iPad at Manuel’s Tavern. Kozak arrived there at noon to get a table. (Kevin D. Liles For the Washington Post)Supporters of President Trump watch results at Molly Pitcher’s Cafe in New Hudson, Mich. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
The scramble to tally ballots
Election authorities worked late into the evening to tally votes. Mail-in ballots in several battlegrounds, including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, cannot be processed or counted until Election Day, even if they have been received days or weeks earlier. With many states having surpassed their 2016 vote totals before Tuesday, analysts say it could be weeks before all results are in.
Election results are received and processed in Atlanta. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
Election employees extract mail-in ballots in a secure room at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
The facility has the capacity to record 30,000 ballots an hour. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
Election employees extract mail-in ballots in a secure room at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
The facility has the capacity to record 30,000 ballots an hour. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
Workers count and sort ballots at the Multnomah County election headquarters in Portland, Ore. (Eric Thayer For the Washington Post)
Thousands of ballots needed to be counted. (Eric Thayer For the Washington Post)
Workers count and sort ballots at the Multnomah County election headquarters in Portland, Ore. (Eric Thayer For the Washington Post)
Thousands of ballots needed to be counted. (Eric Thayer For the Washington Post)
Poll workers gather for a meeting before counting ballots in Detroit, Mich. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
Biden, Trump address supporters
Biden supporters assembled for a socially distanced viewing party in Wilmington, Del., at the same site where he had accepted the Democratic nomination. Speaking after midnight beneath a nearly full moon, he encouraged the crowd to “keep the faith” and said he believed “we’re on track to win this election.” More than an hour later at the White House, Trump falsely claimed fraud in the election and declared himself the winner, even though millions of votes still need to be counted.
Former Vice President and presidential nominee Joe Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, appear in Wilmington, Del. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
Lydia Massey waits at Joe Biden’s Election Night event in Wilmington. (Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post)
Mary Cruz and Patricia Hansen wait for election results in Wilmington. (Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post)
Lydia Massey waits at Joe Biden’s Election Night event in Wilmington. (Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post)
Mary Cruz and Patricia Hansen wait for election results in Wilmington. (Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post)
President Donald J. Trump speaks in the East Room at the White House. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Vice President Mike Pence and Second Lady Karen Pence watch on. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
President Trump claimed he won the election despite votes still being counted in several states. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Vice President Mike Pence and Second Lady Karen Pence watch on. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
President Trump claimed he won the election despite votes still being counted in several states. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Scattered protests as returns come in
Although law enforcement officials were bracing for the possibility of widespread unrest on Tuesday night, the evening saw few major incidents of violence. Peaceful demonstrations began in New York, and Trump supporters in Miami celebrated the president’s unexpectedly strong showing there. In Graham, N.C., a crowd marching to the polls faced off with a small group defending Trump and a local Confederate monument. Police had arrested and pepper-sprayed participants in a separate march there on Saturday.
Protesters peacefully march near Union Square in Manhattan on election night. (Holly Pickett/FTWP)Trump supporters line Calle Ocho in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood to celebrate his apparent victory in the battleground state. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)
Marchers in the Push to the Polls March, led by the Rev. Greg Drumwright, hold a rally at the Alamance County Historic Courthouse in Graham, N.C. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
A man waves a Confederate flag as marchers in the Push to the Polls March attend a rally in Graham, N.C. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
Marchers in the Push to the Polls March, led by the Rev. Greg Drumwright, hold a rally at the Alamance County Historic Courthouse in Graham, N.C. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
A man waves a Confederate flag as marchers in the Push to the Polls March attend a rally in Graham, N.C. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
Texas reopened earlier than many states and saw daily cases and fatalities start to rise in June and peak in mid- to late July before declining for a period. Cases spiked at the end of September and are currently rising. Hospitalizations have dropped since the July peak, but have been increasing in the fall. Deaths have continued to decline since their late July peak. When cases rose in July, Texas Governor Greg Abbott instituted a statewide mask requirement when indoors or when social distancing outside isn’t possible. Local jurisdictions have issued their own rules on masks. Restaurants were offering indoor dining, but since September 23, bars can only offer takeout services. Forty-seven percent of likely voters say Biden would do a better job handling the pandemic, while 43% said Trump would do a better job in the September CBS News Battleground Tracker poll.
The Economy
It’s the top issue for likely Texas voters in the September CBS News Battleground Tracker poll. Half of likely voters say Trump would handle the economy better, while 42% say Biden would handle it better. Texas’ 6.8% unemployment in August was ranked 21st among the 50 states, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Health care
Behind the economy, health care was the second most important issue for likely Texas voters in September CBS News polling, with 73% saying it was a major factor in their vote for president. More (48%) thought Biden would help people get affordable health care than Mr. Trump (36%). According to the Texas Medical Association, “Texas is the uninsured capital” of the U.S. It notes that over 4.3 million Texans lack health insurance and uninsurance rates are 1.75 times the national average.
Texas is the largest of a dozen states that did not expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act and its attorney general is leading the charge to repeal the law. The Kaiser Family Foundation notes that pre-COVID, over 1.5 million people would have been eligible if Texas expanded Medicaid.
Immigration
Over 4.8 million immigrants comprise 17% of the state’s population. Most are from Latin America (67.5%), including 52.2% from Mexico, and Asia (22%). The Migration Policy Institute says about 1.6 million unauthorized immigrants live in Texas. Most — 71% — are from Mexico. Texas has the largest border with Mexico of any state. The vast majority of family unit apprehensions and unaccompanied minor apprehension by CBP in FY2019 happened along the Texas border.
Should President Trump win, his administration is likely to continue cracking down on unauthorized immigrants, limiting legal immigration and curtailing humanitarian protections for foreigners.
Biden reminded voters during the last debate that he would have a plan for immigration reform within his first 100 days in office if elected, one that would provide a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers.
CBS News polling from September found that 65% of Texas likely voters said immigration would be a factor in their vote.
Energy
The energy industry supported more than 428,000 direct jobs and paid more than $16 billion in state & local taxes and state royalties in fiscal 2019, according to the Texas Oil and Gas Association. A Houston Chronicle column cited data from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Energy Institute that a fracking ban could cost Texas 3 million jobs by 2025 and $1.5 trillion in state GDP.
Mr. Trump claims that Biden would ban fracking, but Biden says that would only ban new fracking on federal land.
President Trump may have support from senior citizens and Cuban-American voters to thank for his projected win in Florida and for its 29 Electoral College votes, according to polling from the Fox News Voter Analysis.
The survey is conducted for Fox News by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago, an independent, nonpartisan research center.
Seniors in the Sunshine State went for Trump by a 9% margin over Democratic nominee Joe Biden – despite concerns that the president would do poorly in that demographic due to his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
And Cuban-American voters favored the president’s reelection, even though 59% of Hispanic voters in general supported Biden, according to the survey, compared to Trump’s 40%.
A large majority of Florida respondents said it’s important to them that the next president “shake up the political system” – 80% of them. Half of those said such a shakeup would be very important.
Seven in 10 Sunshine State voters said they believed President Trump stands up for what he believes in, and they broke for the president by an almost two-to-one margin.
The president also had an advantage among Christian voters: Among Protestants and Christians of other denominations, 62% said they supported Trump’s reelection compared to 38% who were in support of Biden.
Just 47% of Roman Catholic voters said they supported Biden, who is Catholic himself. President Trump, a longtime Presbyterian who late last month said he now considers himself a nondenominational Christian, garnered 53% of support among Catholic voters, according to the survey.
On the other hand, most Florida voters want the next president to look out for people like them … and those voters favored Biden over Trump.
And self-described “angry” voters, who played a key role in President Trump’s win in 2016, swung heavily for Biden this time around – by a 55-point margin.
WASHINGTON – The bitter and increasingly tight contest between President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden turned on a handful of battlegrounds such as Pennsylvania and Michigan, dashing hopes for a decisive victory for either candidate.
Trump was projected to win the critical states of Florida and Texas while the Democratic former vice president was forecast to flipArizona – the first state on the board for Biden that Trump had won in 2016.
Biden also picked up an Electoral College vote in a Nebraska congressional district that voted for Trump four years ago. The president hadn’t converted any new territory by early Wednesday morning.
But many states remained up for grabs early Wednesday as ballots were being counted, and some state officials began to signal the tallying would continue well into the day.
Democrats’ hope that Biden could bring the race to an early close by capturing Florida evaporated early Wednesday. Republicans breathed another sigh of relief when must-win Ohio was added to Trump’s column. Biden made an unplanned visit to the Buckeye State on Monday, hoping the state might be within his reach on Election Day.
Trump touted his wins in Florida and Texas during early morning remarks at the White House on Wednesday and claimed – falsely – that he had already won. Neither candidate had reached the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency, and millions of votes were still being counted in several key battleground states.
“Frankly, we did this win election,” Trump told supporters. “As far as I’m concerned, we have already have won.”
Trump pointed to his early lead in Pennsylvania and suggested it would be “almost impossible” for Democrats to catch up there and several other states. In fact, there were enough outstanding votes in those states to swing the totals back to Biden’s favor. Trump described the counting of the mail ballots as a “fraud on the American public.”
Trump said he would be “going to the US Supreme Court” and that “we want all voting to stop.” The remarks were similar to those he raised before the election casting doubt on the validity of ballots that had been cast by mail because of the pandemic. Polling has shown that those ballots, which were legitimately cast, may favor Biden.
While Trump racked up a number of early wins, the overall race remained too close to call, with officials in several key battlegrounds indicating that they had a large share of outstanding absentee ballots. Polling indicated those votes are more likely than not to tilt in Biden’s favor, but whether those votes would be enough for the Democrat was unclear.
Biden thanked his supporters an early Wednesday rally, saying he was confident of victory against Trump based on support in Arizona and the so-called “blue wall” of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
“Keep the faith, guys,” Biden told a cheering crowd honking their car horns outside Chase Center on the Riverfront. “We’re going to win this.”
Biden told the crowd their patience was commendable. But he said it was well known before voting ended Tuesday that it would take a while to count record early voting by mail. “We’re going to have to be patient,” he said. “It ain’t over until every vote is counted, ballot is counted.”
Millions turned out for an election that will decide how the nationresponds to a pandemic that has killed a quarter of a million Americans, bolsters an economy that has taken a beating from the virus and heals deep divisions over racial injustice.
Trump and Biden each claimed early and predictable state calls, with Trump projected to win Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and North and South Dakota.Biden locked downa slew of blue states in the Northeast, including his home state of Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York.
As the night progressed, Biden kept Colorado, New Mexico, Oregon, California and Washington state in Democrats’ column. Trump retained Kansas, Idaho and Utah.
Biden was projected to win both Minnesota and New Hampshire, two of the few states Trump lost in 2016 that the campaign hoped to flip. Trump had campaigned in both states in the final weeks.
As Americans settled down to watch the earlier returns, campaign aides and political prognosticators began pouring over Election Day survey data to try to glean some clues about the electorate’s mood. The pandemic was foremost on voters’ minds, according to a survey of votersthe electorate, conducted by the Associated Press.
Forty-two percent said it’s the most important issue facing the country, by far the highest response to the question. Twenty-seven percent picked the economy, which is related.
Nearly all – 95% – said the federal government’s response to the pandemic was a factor in deciding how to vote. The same share said the economic downturn was also factor. That’s a slightly higher share than said the same of protests over police violence (92%) or Supreme Court nominations (90%).
And more voters disapproved of Trump’s handling of the pandemic than approved: 58% to 42%.
By the end of an emotionally draining and bitter contest, the two candidates had spent more money than any campaign in history and were expected to generate record turnout, with more than 100 million Americans casting ballots before any polling location opened on Election Day. Long lines formed at schools and government buildings, underscoring the significance of the choice for many voters.
“Winning is easy. Losing is never easy – not for me, it’s not,” Trump said during at his campaign headquarters Tuesday, adding he had not readied a victory or a concession speech. “Everybody should come together and I think success brings us together.”
Fundamental questions about the direction of the country and its democracy were at stake. Throughout the campaign, Trump cast the election as America’s last chance to avoid careening left. Biden ran a race that focused heavily on his character and the promise of avoiding another four years of chaos, division and Trump-style drama.
Biden started the day at church with his wife, Jill, and two granddaughters. He flew to his birthplace of Scranton, Pa., where he signed the living room wall in his childhood home.
“From this house to the White House with the grace of God,” he wrote.
Highest stakes
Biden walked into Election Day with a wider path to the presidency. Polls indicated he held a steady lead nationally and in two of the battlegrounds – Michigan and Wisconsin – that thrust Trump to victory against Hillary Clinton in 2016. Polls have shown a narrower lead for him in Pennsylvania. If Biden captures all three states, the election would represent a rebuilding of the “blue wall” that has benefited Democrats as far back as Bill Clinton.
Trump and Biden offered stark contrasts on policy as well as style, with the president vowing to continue his efforts to curb legal and illegal immigration, cut taxes, push federal courts to the right and pursue an “America first” foreign policy that has threatened to upend the global order that emerged after World War II.
Biden hopes to shore up the 2010 Affordable Care Act he helped shepherd through Congress with his former boss, President Barack Obama, reduce the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels and reset relationships between the U.S. and its allies.
“This election is one that historians and political scientists are going to be talking about for a long time,” said William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, “because of the massive outpouring of Americans who are determined to vote and determined that their vote will count.”
Eric Cantor, a former Republican congressman from Virginia, described the decision in weighty terms.
“What’s at stake in this election is the American position in the world in terms of its economic competitiveness, as well as its military dominance,” he said.
COVID redraws the map
No issue featured as prominently, or threw the differences between the two candidates into such stark relief, as COVID. Trump’s administration encouraged rapid progress on a vaccine, but the president handed much of the response to the virus to state leaders as he sidelined his own top scientists and dismissed their recommendations.
A watershed event that could have brought people together instead split them further apart as other nations got a better handle arresting the spread of infections and death.
That contrast was on display throughout a surreal campaign in which Trump himself was hospitalized with the virus, recovered and used the episode to argue the virus wasn’t all that bad – even as he was forced to repeatedly acknowledge that the treatment he received was out of reach for most Americans.
Campaign methods differed as much as the candidates during the pandemic. After briefly suspending his massive rallies, Trump resumed the boisterous events – packing mostly maskless supporters shoulder to shoulder on airport tarmacs across the country.
“This is a poll,” Trump of the supporters who came out for his final, post-midnight, rally in Grand Rapids, Mich. “This is not the crowd of somebody who’s going to lose this state.”
He repeatedly mocked Biden for “hiding” in his basement and wearing a mask, arguing that a president had to project an image of confidence rather than setting an example for others to follow.
Biden did campaign mainly from home for months, holding virtual fundraisers and inviting Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., to be his running mate on a video call. As the weeks went by, he began holding more small events, with participants donning masks and maintaining social distance, sometimes from their cars at drive-in rallies.
Biden chose western Pennsylvania for his first and last major campaign event, telling supporters in Pittsburgh Monday night that they “represent the backbone of this nation.”
The death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25 sparked nationwide protests for racial justice. The incident rekindled attention on the shooting death of Breonna Taylor during a police raid on March 13 in Louisville, Kentucky. And outrage erupted Kenosha, Wisconsin, after a police officer shot and paralyzed Jacob Blake on Aug. 23.
Trump campaigned as the law-and-order president, supporting police as protests occasionally turned violent with arson, burglaries and shootings. He accused state and local officials such as the mayor of Portland and governor of Oregon of timidity in quieting the protests. Federal authorities cleared a path June 1 with batons and tear gas for Trump to walk from the White House to a nearby church to hold a Bible aloft.
Biden walked a line between supporting peaceful protests while denouncing violence. He urged greater training for police to calm tense confrontations, while dismissing proposals from more progressive supporters to defund police. And Biden, who had lost his wife, a daughter and a son to an accident and illness, met relatives of the victims.
“He talked about how nothing was going to defeat him, how whether he walked again or not, he wasn’t going to give up,” Biden said of Jacob Blake.
A nation holds its breath
Both men ratcheted up their rhetoric during the campaign, describing their opponent as dangerous and wildly out of step with mainstream American values. As both parties launched a series of last-minute legal battles over voting laws, Trump repeatedly sought to undermine confidence in election systems, arguing any votes counted after the polls closed on election night should be considered suspect.
The argument and claims of widespread fraud were demonstrably false: Millions voted on paper ballots effortlessly because of the pandemic. There was little indication of major problems at the polls on Tuesday.
The tensions that have plagued the country since before Trump took office remained at an elevated state heading into the election, with law enforcement agencies preparing for violence regardless of who wins. Authorities erected a new fence around the White House late Monday night, with memories of the Black Lives Matter protests from the summer still fresh.
The FBI is reviewing a Texas highway incident last week in which a caravan of vehicles waving Trump flags swarmed a Biden campaign bus. Similar incidents have occurred in other states since then.
Trump, a real-estate magnate and former reality TV star, won the White House in 2016, despite polls heading into Election Day that showed Hillary.
For Biden’s part, the campaign marked his third attempt at the presidency, after serving eight years as vice president and 36 representing Delaware in the Senate.
Whoever wins will be the oldest president sworn in – older than Ronald Reagan when he was sworn in for a second term in 1985. Trump is 74 and Biden turns 78 on Nov. 20.
A music video featuring President Trump dancing to the iconic song “YMCA” has reached over 20 million views on Twitter.
The video, which was created by pro-Trump meme creator Something Wicked, was shared on social media Monday morning. It features the president dancing to the 1978 smash hit from The Village People at the end of this campaign rallies leading up to Election Day.
The president himself shared the video on Twitter early on Tuesday morning following his last campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Mich.
President Trump didn’t always put on his boogie shoes at his campaign rallies. His dancing to “YMCA” appeared to have begun after he recovered from his bout with the coronavirus.
In the final three days on the campaign trail, Trump held a whopping 14 rallies in key battleground states, hoping to prevent Joe Biden from flipping any of them back to blue.
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