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Kamala Harris lost the 2024 Presidential election that I was certain she would win. As Donald Trump becomes President-Elect, and JD Vance Vice President-Elect, I am disappointed, scared, angry, confused, and unable to reconcile the fact that a majority of this country chose a fascistic tendency-having, racist, mysoginist, sexual abuser, and felon who ran a campaign of hate, fear, and stripping rights from women. Emotions and Initial Reaction The other option was an experienced, intelligent woman who ran a campaign of joy, hope, moving forward, compassion, helping the working class, and restoring women’s rights. What the hell happened? Women have died because of Abortion bans that are a direct result of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade. Donald Trump will now put younger far-right extremist justices on the court that will be there for the rest of my generation’s lives. Women’s, civil, and LGBTQ+ rights are now under threat. If the reason turns out to be the fact that people aren’t ready for a woman to be President in 2024, are you telling me that you feel that strongly that you choose someone like Trump just to avoid having a woman as leader?! Analysis The following is simply my opinions and thoughts on the result of the 2024 election. I’m not a scholar or political science major. Ballz to the Walz Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz visits the field of Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, Mich., on Sept. 28, 2024. Walz attended the University of Michigan vs University of Minnesota football game. (Photo by Andrew Roth/Michigan Advance) When Kamala Harris first became the Democratic nominee, there was hope, excitement, and joy. Voters in this country hadn’t felt any of that when it comes to politics in over a decade. Bryan Cranston talked about it during the Oprah event. People were enthusiastic about voting for Kamala Harris. Hundreds of thousands of people lined up at campaign offices to volunteer. Zoom calls for different cohorts were taking place and raising record amounts for Harris. When Harris chose Tim Walz as her VP pick, her numbers skyrocketed. The public loved Coach Walz! He started calling Trump and Vance “weird.” He was all over the news giving amazing speeches and responses. So what does the Harris campaign decide to do? Put Tim Walz in the basement. He wasn’t doing any media appearances. He held rallies that got zero media coverage. The enthusiasm and hope we felt about Harris/Walz began to dissipate. Instead of talking about popular economic policies the way she had in the beginning, there was a notable shift. Mark Cuban Nothing against Mark, but he represents the corporate class. People were excited about Harris because she was all about helping the average American worker. Then Mark Cuban comes out and starts appearing on every news outlet talking about how great Kamala Harris is for business. ‘She’s on the side of businesses. Harris is great for businesses.’

Parastou Hassouri, a California voter living in Egypt, has often voted in years past via absentee ballot. She’s one of nearly 3 million Americans eligible to vote from overseas — with some 300,000 citizens living in the Middle East and North Africa, according to federal estimates.  But this election, she won’t be casting a vote. Since October 7, 2023, Hassouri has contacted her elected representatives and participated in protests on a visit to the U.S. But none of that seems to matter, she said. She called her decision not to vote a “last-ditch effort” to express her opinion. Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians and prompted accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice. The war has now spread to Lebanon, where more than 2,900 people have been killed. For Americans living in the region, both the devastation and the U.S. support for Israel were close to home and top of mind as the general election approached.  “I can’t bring myself to cast a vote for the Democratic Party,” Hassouri said. “It’s a decision completely informed by the situation in Gaza and now Lebanon.” She had little faith that a Trump administration would prove any better. Continue reading on The Intercept

Today is Election Day, and we’re all tired.  As journalists who work for a magazine that seeks solutions to racial inequity, we get it: bigotry is exhausting.  Donald Trump’s third run for the Presidency has been enough to make anyone want to crawl under the covers until it’s over. Once again, his campaign rhetoric and policy proposals have been rife with racism, sexism, antisemitism, and apologia for autocrats and plutocrats alike. It’s all the more exhausting when one considers that conservative justices he appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court promised him impunity should he return to the White House.  Even if we manage to elect Vice President Kamala Harris to the presidency, the first woman to occupy this office, and one born with Jamaican and Tamil Indian heritage, the foul forces that have made this such a close race will be no less powerful. There is precious little rest to be had in the ongoing fight for equity. We’ve seen a biracial Black candidate soar above racist voting predilections to win the White House, prompting premature declarations of a “post-racial America.” Folks were eager to embrace the “audacity of hope,” but the nation didn’t want to do the work. Four years later, we also saw an alleged “racial reckoning,” prompted by the spectacle of Black death from police violence and a disease that disproportionately ravaged communities of color. In the wake of this moment, The Emancipator launched to fill in the gap in mainstream coverage by connecting the same type of advocacy journalism that powered the anti-slavery movement to the antiracist struggles of today. Fast forward to now and the police violence that drove tens of thousands to march in the streets barely makes the evening news. For every book bought by someone new to their racial consciousness, another has been banned.  This collective amnesia at scale is nothing new, though communities of color have long memories. Remember, after 12 years of Reconstruction came the “Redeemers” and generations of Jim Crow discrimination and violence.  In a nation with Indigenous and Black blood at its very root, what we saw after 2020 wasn’t “blowback,” per se. Some may claim that injustices such as voter suppression, the Chinese Exclusion Act, the annexation of Hawaii, and redlining are America working “as intended.” We see it now as people consciously working against what America can still become.  Whether or not we are able to help Harris make history only marks the continuance of unfinished work.  We must collectively shatter the societal ills and patriarchal norms that bar women – not just from the Oval Office, but from securing equal pay, affordable childcare and control of their bodies. Hell, the lowest bar is ensuring that our laws no longer kill women, as we’ve seen even more apparently since Trump and the conservative Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade two summers ago.Click to Tweet We

Editor: Women are breaking voting records so far in the 2024 election, and as I read the headlines and listen to the pundits on TV talk about it as if it’s a shocking revelation, all I can say is, DUH. Republicans took away one of our rights and think they control our bodies. ProPublica broke the story about Amber Thurman and Kandi Miller dying in Georgia because of the laws put in place by Republicans. ProPublica did it again the other day. They broke the news of a 28-year-old mother and an 18-year old teenager who died in Texas as they both screamed and begged doctors for help. The teen’s mom was yelling at them to do something as her daughter was suffering a miscarriage at 17-weeks. They did nothing. She lay there in horrible pain, having a miscarriage with a dilated cervix open to bacteria. Soon, infection set in, and then she became septic. Her organs began to shut down, but the fetus still had a heartbeat, so a teenager had to die. Did I mention she had to go to 3 emergency rooms before she got help? So, yeah. Women are PISSED at Republicans for killing us. We will not allow a Republican to step one foot into the White House. The GOP officially f&$@ed around… … and now they’re finding out. I apologize. The SNL part of this story is fun and I ruined it by going to a dark place. I haven’t slept. I’ve been angry about the women in Texas and my nerves are shot over this election. Here’s to a win by Vice President Kamala Harris! 🍾 Jennifer Shutt and Jacob Fischler were co-authors of this article  At a campaign rally at an airplane tarmac in Lititz, Pennsylvania, Trump again perpetuated the falsehood that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him and claimed that this year’s election would also be stolen because election results could take a while to be counted. “These elections have to be decided by 9 o’clock, 10 o’clock, 11 o’clock on Tuesday night,” he said. “Bunch of crooked people.” Election officials have warned that results could take days to finalize. The comments came as new polls showed good news for Harris. A highly regarded pollster in Iowa showed a shocking lead for Harris there and New York Times-Siena College polls of the seven major battleground states showed slight leads for Harris in some Sun Belt swing states, while Trump made gains in the Rust Belt. As the campaign dwindles to its final hours, here are seven key developments from this weekend: Trump says he ‘shouldn’t have left’ White House Trump spent much of his Lititz rally complaining about the election process and media coverage, seeming to repeat his false claim that he was the rightful winner of the 2020 election. “I shouldn’t have left, I mean, honestly,” Trump said. “We did so well, we had such a great — so now, every polling booth has hundreds of lawyers standing there.” He also joked about shooters targeting reporters covering his event,

Election Day is a whirlwind. Votes are cast, ballots are counted, and every minute adds new urgency as we wait for the results that will shape the future of our communities. At The Tributary, we’re committed to making sure you have a clear, accurate picture of what’s happening in real time. That’s why we built two tools to scrape live voter turnout data throughout Election Day—tools that will let us know how many ballots remain as votes begin to be counted in each county and each Congressional, Senate and House district. Our turnout scraper works by continuously pulling live data from all 67 county election supervisors across Florida. Every five to 10 minutes, we gather information on ballots cast at polling places, absentee ballots received, and early votes logged. By the end of Election Day, we have a comprehensive dataset that shows us how many ballots have been cast in each precinct—a crucial insight before the official results even start rolling in. One tool that we first launched in August gives live updates for turnout for every county in the state. Our newest tool breaks the turnout down to the district level. Florida 2024 Election Turnout by District An interactive map showing voter turnout by district across Florida. The tool provides insights into turnout by Congressional, Senate, and House districts, updating live throughout Election Day to track participation levels and help inform election results. [The Tributary] Why does this matter? In Florida, early and mail ballots make up the vast majority of votes cast. Already, as of Monday morning, nearly 60% of registered voters have cast a ballot, and Election Day hasn’t even begun. Those early ballots are also the first votes reported by election officials. How soon will we be able to call races? Since early and mail ballots are counted quickly in Florida, we often call many district races within the first hour of results posting. Most of Florida is on Eastern Time, with nine counties on Central Time. The counties on Eastern Time will start posting results soon after polls close at 7 p.m. Eastern, while Central Time counties will follow an hour later. What do voters need to know about how results are reported? The first ballots to be counted—typically in-person early votes and mail votes—have trended more Democratic in recent years, reflecting voting preferences that often vary by party. Meanwhile, Election Day ballots have tended to favor Republicans. In some states, like Pennsylvania, Election Day ballots are usually counted first, and unlike in Florida, Pennsylvania and some other states are prohibited by state law from pre-processing ballots. That pre-processing is what makes Florida so fast at reporting results, and the lack of it is what makes some states so slow. As a result, initial results may favor one party heavily, only to change as different types of ballots are processed. It’s not unusual or suspicious if

Polls were coming in hot and heavy over the weekend! In fact, 164 surveys were entered into the 538 database since Friday. In this Election Day eve episode of the 538 Politics podcast, Galen Druke speaks with senior researcher Mary Radcliffe and New York Times polling editor Ruth Igielnik about what we are seeing in those final polls. They discuss the famed Iowa Poll from Ann Selzer, which showed a rosy picture for Harris, and the battleground polling from the New York Times, which showed results that frustrate some of the trends we’ve come to expect this cycle. They also share some final thoughts on the election in the run up to the big day.

When most people think of their experience of voting in person, they may remember other voters at the polls, or the hardworking election officials checking people in and helping people submit their ballots. But in many elections, a third group is often present: poll watchers. Geoffrey D. Sheagley was co-author of this article. Poll watchers are ordinary citizens who volunteer to observe elections on behalf of an organization. Many of them do so on behalf of a specific political party. Other volunteers are nonpartisan poll watchers; they observe the action at polling places on behalf of nonpartisan organizations, including domestic groups and international election watchdogs such as the Carter Center or the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. The United States has not historically relied extensively on international election monitors, and they are prohibited in some states, such as Tennessee. Most often, when journalists and academics like us refer to poll watchers in the U.S., we mean partisan election observers. If all goes well on Election Day, poll watchers’ jobs will be tedious. They will simply watch voters performing the key acts of democracy: filing into the precinct, engaging with poll workers and casting ballots. Partisan poll watchers will also likely observe the tabulation of ballots and receive an official copy of the results in case they choose to conduct a simultaneous tally. What do poll watchers do? Poll watchers protect their organization’s interests at polling places. By observing as ballots are cast and counted, poll watchers can help ensure that only eligible voters participate and that blatant election rigging – like stuffing the ballot box with unauthorized ballots – does not occur. As observers independent of the government officials they are monitoring, poll watchers can add an extra layer of transparency and accountability to election proceedings and help to ensure that elections are free and fair. However, poll watchers can also undermine the integrity of elections. For example, poll watchers may overzealously – and illegally – challenge a citizen’s eligibility to cast a ballot without cause. Or their presence may intimidate or pressure voters. In the 1980s, for example, the Republican Party in New Jersey recruited uniformed, off-duty police officers to watch the polls and posted signs offering a reward for information about people violating election laws. A lawsuit over that activity led to a nationwide court order barring the Republican National Committee from using poll watchers without clearance from a federal judge. The order was lifted in 2018. Historical records show that, since the early 1800s, poll watchers from both parties frequently challenged the eligibility of African Americans and likely immigrants, often leading to their removal from the voter rolls. In cases like these, poll watchers can undermine the core democratic principle of

A group of 111 OB-GYNs in Texas released a letter to elected state leaders Sunday urging them to change abortion laws they say have prevented them from providing lifesaving care to pregnant women. The doctors pointed to recent reporting by ProPublica on two Texas pregnant women who died after medical staff delayed emergency care. Josseli Barnica, 28, died of an infection in 2021 three days after she began to miscarry. More than a dozen medical experts said Barnica’s death was preventable. However, the state’s abortion laws kept doctors from intervening until they couldn’t detect a fetal heartbeat, which didn’t happen until about 40 hours after the miscarriage started. Nevaeh Crain, 18, died last year after developing a dangerous complication of sepsis that doctors refused to treat while her six-month-old fetus still had a heartbeat. Two emergency rooms didn’t treat her and a third delayed care, moving Crain to the intensive care unit only after she was experiencing organ failure. Medical experts said if the hospital staff had treated her early, they either could have helped Crain with an early delivery or saved her life by ending the pregnancy if the infection had gone too far. “Josseli Barnica and Nevaeh Crain should be alive today,” the doctors wrote in their letter. “As OB-GYNs in Texas, we know firsthand how much these laws restrict our ability to provide our patients with quality, evidence-based care.” Letter from Texas doctors urging lawmakers to change abortion laws. Source: PBS In 2021, Texas lawmakers passed a law prohibiting doctors from performing an abortion after six weeks. The law allows members of the public to sue doctors or anyone who helps perform an abortion for $10,000. After the Dobbs v. Jackson ruling overturned Roe v. Wade, Texas banned almost all abortions — including in cases of rape and incest. The law does create an exception for a doctor to perform an abortion when they believe it is necessary to save the life of the pregnant patient. Doctors who violate the state’s abortion law risk losing their medical license and potentially spending life in prison. Doctors have said that confusion about what constitutes a life-threatening condition has changed the way they treat pregnant patients with complications. The Texas Medical Board has offered guidance on how to interpret the law’s medical exception, and the Texas Supreme Court has ruled that doctors don’t need to wait until there’s an imminent risk to the patient to intervene. But some physicians say the guidance is vague and that hospitals are navigating each situation on a case-by-case basis. ProPublica’s reporting about Crain and Barnica comes as U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and U.S. Rep. Colin Allred of Dallas face off in a heated bid for one of Texas’ two seats in the U.S. Senate. Their divergent views on abortion have been a central issue in the race, and both candidates have weighed in on Crain and