Election Roundup Part 1: Just the Facts, Ma’am

November 11th, 2016

Time, finally, for something vaguely resembling a comprehensive post-election roundup.

As this keeps threatening to turn into a very long and unwieldy post, I’m going to break it up into chunks, with this installment centered on vote totals, race outcomes, and statistical facts about the election. We’ll save analysis, implications, and the saltiest examples of liberal tears for another time.

  • Assuming the current results hold, Trump flipped six states Romney lost (Ohio, Florida, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan), plus Maine’s second congressional district, which gives Trump 306 electoral votes.
  • That’s the highest electoral vote totals for a Republican since Bush41 blew out Dukakis in 1988 (426).
  • Hillary might still edge Trump in the popular vote (right now she’s up by 3/10ths of 1%).
  • Clinton lost over 5 million votes from Obama’s 2012 totals. Trump was down less than a million from Romney’s totals.
  • Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson pulled in over 4 million votes, triple his 2012 showing. Green Party candidate Jill Stein pulled in over 1.2 million votes, which was almost triple her 2012 showing as well.
  • Evan McMullin (or, as Ace of Spades refers to him, “Egg McMuffin”) pulled in less than half a million votes, about a third of which came from his native Utah, where he beat Johnson and Stein. He did not win any counties in Utah, though he did beat Clinton in a few.
  • 1996 was the last time West Virginia (formerly a reliable Democratic state) went for the Democratic presidential candidate. This year they went for Trump by nearly 69%, including every county in the state. Despite that, WV Democratic Senator Joe Manchin says he’s not switching to the Republican Party. Machin, 69, is up for reelection in 2018.
  • Republicans lost two seats (in Illinois and New Hampshire) but maintain control of the Senate. Louisiana will have it’s top two runoff December 9, where Republican John Kennedy will be heavily favored, likely giving Republicans a 53-47 edge.
  • Senators Pat Toomey (Pennsylvania) and Ron Johnson (Wisconsin) both won reelection is historically blue states.
  • Republicans only lost six House seats, easily maintaining control. Three Dem pickups were in Florida (where Republicans flipped two sets themselves), two in Nevada, one in New Hampshire, one in Virginia, and one in New Jersey. Republicans also picked up one House seat in Nebraska. Republicans are guaranteed to retain control of Louisiana’s third congressional district (two Republicans in the runoff) and likely to retain control of the 4th as well.
  • Not a single U.S. House seat in Texas flipped parties, which means that incumbent Republican Will Hurd retained the 23rd Congressional District over Democrat Pete Gallego. CD23 is the only true swing U.S. House district in Texas these days, and Gallego had been the incumbent when Hurd ousted him in 2014.
  • Senator Tim Scott was reelected to a full term. Scott still remains the first black Senator from the South since reconstruction.
  • Republicans control the House, Senate and White House for the first time since 1928.
  • Republicans also picked up three governorships, in Missouri, Vermont and New Hampshire, giving them 33 to the Democrats 15.
  • The North Carolina Governor’s race may not be decided until November 18. If Democrat Roy Cooper’s razor thin lead over Republican incumbent Pat McCrory holds, that will be the Democrats’ only gubernatorial pickup this year.
  • “Eastern Kentucky voters rejected [Democrat] House Speaker Greg Stumbo on Tuesday as Republicans appeared poised to take control of the Kentucky House of Representatives for the first time since 1921.”
  • Democrats pick up four seats in the Texas House.
  • Texas county-by-county Presidential race results. Clinton taking Fort Bend county is a surprise to me; Romney won that by six points in 2012, and Clinton beat Trump by about that much this year.
  • Libertarians maintained automatic ballot access in Texas because their railroad commission candidate pulled in 5.3% of the vote, over the 5% threshold. The Green Party, however, did not, and will have to submit 50,000 petition signatures to make the ballot in 2018.
  • National Review (ad blocker blocker warning) notes that the “Trump won because of racism” talking point is demonstrably wrong:

    Mitt Romney won a greater percentage of the white vote than Donald Trump. Mitt took 59 percent while Trump won 58 percent. Would you believe that Trump improved the GOP’s position with black and Hispanic voters? Obama won 93 percent of the black vote. Hillary won 88 percent. Obama won 71 percent of the Latino vote. Hillary won 65 percent. Critically, millions of minority voters apparently stayed home. Trump’s total vote is likely to land somewhere between John McCain’s and Romney’s (and well short of George W. Bush’s 2004 total), while the Democrats have lost almost 10 million voters since 2008.

    And all this happened even as Democrats doubled-down on their own identity politics.

    But all this is based on exit polls. How do we know they’re any more accurate at capturing the electorate than those other faulty polls?

  • More exit poll analysis from Oren Cass. The thrust is that Trump did better among nonwhites than Romney. But when he gets down to differences of less than 2%, he’s counting angels on the heads of pins.

    • Remember all that MSM talk about Trump turning Texas into a swing state? Instead he turned Michigan and Wisconsin into swing states.

    Here’s a Tweet that encapsulates a New York Times interactive map indicating which areas of the country voted notably more Republican or more Democratic in the Presidential race than in 2012. Note the strong surge of Trump voters in the rust belt.

    As far as the senate, things don’t get any easier for Democrats in 2018:

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »

    CBS’ Will Rahn on The Unbearable Smugness of the Press

    November 10th, 2016

    This piece by Will Rahn of CBS News on the unbearable smugness of the press is so good it needs a post of its own:

    The mood in the Washington press corps is bleak, and deservedly so.

    It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that, with a few exceptions, we were all tacitly or explicitly #WithHer, which has led to a certain anguish in the face of Donald Trump’s victory. More than that and more importantly, we also missed the story, after having spent months mocking the people who had a better sense of what was going on.

    This is all symptomatic of modern journalism’s great moral and intellectual failing: its unbearable smugness. Had Hillary Clinton won, there’s be a winking “we did it” feeling in the press, a sense that we were brave and called Trump a liar and saved the republic.

    So much for that. The audience for our glib analysis and contempt for much of the electorate, it turned out, was rather limited. This was particularly true when it came to voters, the ones who turned out by the millions to deliver not only a rebuke to the political system but also the people who cover it. Trump knew what he was doing when he invited his crowds to jeer and hiss the reporters covering him. They hate us, and have for some time.

    And can you blame them? Journalists love mocking Trump supporters. We insult their appearances. We dismiss them as racists and sexists. We emote on Twitter about how this or that comment or policy makes us feel one way or the other, and yet we reject their feelings as invalid.

    It’s a profound failure of empathy in the service of endless posturing. There’s been some sympathy from the press, sure: the dispatches from “heroin country” that read like reports from colonial administrators checking in on the natives. But much of that starts from the assumption that Trump voters are backward, and that it’s our duty to catalogue and ultimately reverse that backwardness. What can we do to get these people to stop worshiping their false god and accept our gospel?

    We diagnose them as racists in the way Dark Age clerics confused medical problems with demonic possession. Journalists, at our worst, see ourselves as a priestly caste. We believe we not only have access to the indisputable facts, but also a greater truth, a system of beliefs divined from an advanced understanding of justice.

    Snip.

    That’s the fantasy, the idea that if we mock them enough, call them racist enough, they’ll eventually shut up and get in line. It’s similar to how media Twitter works, a system where people who dissent from the proper framing of a story are attacked by mobs of smugly incredulous pundits. Journalists exist primarily in a world where people can get shouted down and disappear, which informs our attitudes toward all disagreement.

    Journalists increasingly don’t even believe in the possibility of reasoned disagreement, and as such ascribe cynical motives to those who think about things a different way. We see this in the ongoing veneration of “facts,” the ones peddled by explainer websites and data journalists who believe themselves to be curiously post-ideological.

    That the explainers and data journalists so frequently get things hilariously wrong never invites the soul-searching you’d think it would. Instead, it all just somehow leads us to more smugness, more meanness, more certainty from the reporters and pundits. Faced with defeat, we retreat further into our bubble, assumptions left unchecked. No, it’s the voters who are wrong.

    Read the whole thing, then check out the comments, which are running 99% in support of Rahn

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections | 2 Comments »

    Trump Victory Reaction: SJW Literal Shaking Meltdown

    November 9th, 2016

    Still haven’t had a chance to do a coherent election roundup, but in the meantime, this video (no idea who ShoeOnHead is, but she seems to be a moderate lefty channeling Boxxy) tells it like it is about the corrupt DNC and the ridiculous SJW meltdown:

    “Hillary was fucking nothing.”

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Social Justice Warriors, video | 1 Comment »

    Insert Insightful Analysis of Trump’s Victory Here

    November 9th, 2016

    Look, I was up past 3 AM watching election results come in. Things are going to be slow and out-of-step today.

    Maybe I’ll have some links and insightful commentary later today and tomorrow.

    Watch this space.

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    Sorta Liveblogging the 2016 Election

    November 8th, 2016

    First results: Trump takes Indiana and Kentucky, Clinton takes Vermont.

    Trump leading the national vote.

    Trump wins West Virginia.

    Trump leads in Virginia.

    Fox calls Portman for Ohio Senate.

    Trump running ahead of Romney’s totals in KY, IN.

    Trump ahead by 10+ points in Virginia. 11% in.

    Trump ahead in Florida.

    Tim Scott wins SC senate.

    Trump up 10 points in NC.

    Fox calls SC for Trump, even though actual totals have Clinton slightly ahead. (Insert shrug emoji.)

    Kentucky Dem Speaker Stumbo going down. Last Dem Speaker in South (if you don’t count Straus).

    Trump now up by 11 in VA.

    Trump still leading national vote total.

    Oklahoma called for Jill Stein.

    Ha, just kidding. Trump.

    Clinton takes lead in FL. Still too close to call. Clinton also now ahead in NH. Not good.

    Trump still up in VA.

    Mississippi called for Trump.

    Missouri called for Trump

    Tennessee called for Trump.

    Pizza break.

    HOLY FUCK! 28 votes separate Trump and Clinton in Florida.

    Trump edges ahead in FL. Now up 8,000 votes.

    GOP takes KY house.

    Fox callas Alabama for Trump. Try to contain your shock.

    Todd Young kicks Evan Bayh’s ass in IN Sen.

    Rand Paul and Marco Rubio win their Sen races.

    NBC calls Republican maintaining control of House.

    Trump lead in Florida keeps widening. 91% of votes in.

    Trump up a full point in Florida.

    Hurd winning in TX CD23.

    Nate Silver says Senate shifts right. Interesting.

    Trump winning Texas by less than I expected.

    Trump behind in Ohio. 1/3rd of votes in.

    Could never imagine Trump winning Florida but losing Ohio, but that’s how it’s trending right now.

    Crist picks up FL House seat, alas.

    Trump still winning Florida and the popular vote.

    Fox: “Ohio. A difference of do the math.”

    Trump still leading Virginia.

    Blake Farenthold (R) crushes it.

    Trump takes lead in Ohio,

    Texas called for Trump. Much narrower than I expected.

    Trump still up in Florida.

    Trump widens lead in Ohio, takes lead in NC.

    McCain wins in AZ Sen, promises more pancakes, Matlock.

    FL: 93% in, trump lead widens.

    Debbie Whatshername Schultz on Fox now. Mute. God it was good for the GOP to have her running the DNC.

    Trump still up in Virginia with 72% of the vote in. Maybe all the felons voted for Trump!

    Trump still leads VA.

    Trump WAY up over Clinton in WI, but only 3% of the vote in.

    GOP guy on Fox: “Trump will win Ohio.”

    Local returns. Restroom break.

    Zimmerman losing ATCC? A Hillary vote surge causality?

    Trump still up in FL with 94% in.

    Trump up in VA and NC.

    Trump winning MN, but only 2% in.

    Hillary under 80% in Philadelphia?

    Trump way up in Ohio.

    NM called for Clinton.

    Tappert: “This may put the polling industry out of business.”

    NYT’s COHN: “Trump favored to win for first time.”

    Trump super narrow lead in VA.

    Slight Clinton lead in VA.

    Stupid Austin passes stupid transportation bond.

    Foxes projects Clinton to win VA.

    Women on PBS definitely gazing into an abyss.

    PBS sounds like a wake. “No one from the Clinton campaign wants to talk to us.”

    Trump up BIG in Michigan. Michael Moore may turn out to be a prophet.

    Trump still up in NH.

    RCP says Trump won Ohio.

    Seeing projections Clinton wins VA.

    Hearing Manchin (D-WV) may flip to Republican next year. His state already has.

    If Trump wins electoral vote and Clinton wins popular vote, liberal heads will never stop exploding.

    Trump up in both MI and WI.

    NYT chances of Trump winning up to 91%.

    Fox: Trump doubles Romney’s black vote total. Me: Not hard.

    Sadly, Daryl Glenn loses in Colorado.

    Fox calls NC for Trump.

    PBS calls FL for Trump.

    “Clinton staffers leaving her victory party.” Well, there’s all that shredding to do…

    NYT’s: Trump’s chances of winning < 95%

    Utah called for Trump. Take that, Egg McMuffin!

    Clinton’s campaign has gone dark. There are all those servers to destroy.

    TRUMP WINS WISCONSIN! The fat lady has started warming up…

    TRUMP WINS IOWA.

    Trump has won the Presidency.

    Trump on verge of winning NH. That’s the last nail in the coffin.

    Trump only 7,000 votes behind in Penn.

    Too busy jaw-dropping and celebrating to blog.

    “Clinton campaign staff in tears.”

    “It’s time to start talking about Trump Democrats.” After tonight, I don’t think they’re Democrats any more.

    Now both hookers and weed are legal in NV.

    Toomey pulls it out in PA Sen.

    AP called PA for Trump. Still waiting for Fox.

    NYT calls Pennsylvania for Trump. Finally, Brunhilda can give her aria.

    AP calls race for Trump.

    Shep Smith is trying to cast a sleep spell upon us.

    FINALLY! Fox calls Pennsylvania (and the Presidency) for Trump.

    Clinton called to concede the race.

    Trump making a very gracious victory speech, calling for the country to come together.

    Thanked Reince Prebius, as well he should. RNC did a fantastic job.

    Congratulations to Donald Trump for being elected the 45th President of the United States of America.

    Goodnight folks.

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    Vote Today!

    November 8th, 2016

    This is it! If you haven’t already early voted, get out there and do so!

    Some quick and dirty voting day links:

  • All my Hillary Clinton corruption and scandal posts.
  • Williamson County polling locations.
  • Travis County polling locations.
  • Zero Hedge on what to look for in early voting patterns.

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    Clinton Corruption/Election Update for November 7, 2016

    November 7th, 2016

    The election is tomorrow, so let’s just combine the Clinton Corruption update with the election news update:

  • FBI punts again.
  • Qatar gave the Clinton Foundation $1 million for Bill Clinton’s birthday while Hillary was head of the State Department, in violation of Department policy and Clinton’s own “ethics agreement,” and without Hillary informing the State Department. “While Qatar was obvious engaged in pay to play, what makes this instance even worse, is that Hillary and Bill were confident enough they could simply get away with it by never telling the State Department of the new influence money.”
  • Impending calamity for the Clintons:

    When the Clintons left the White House in 2001, pilfering over $190,000 worth of china, flatware, rugs, and furniture as they cleared out, they claimed they were flat broke. Their net worth today is now in excess of $150 million, accumulated not by traditional means of work and investment, but rather by pay-for-play influence peddling through speeches and Clinton Foundation fundraising — with the tacit understanding that the Clintons would be in a position to return favors to donors after Hillary won the 2016 presidential election.

    The Clintons symbolize the institutionalization of corruption in Washington, which now permeates almost all the government agencies. Even the so-called independent Federal Reserve has been corrupted by politicians whose profligate deficit spending puts pressure on the Fed to maintain a zero-interest policy that artificially masks the real cost and risk of a growing unsustainable level of debt.

    For the better part of eight years of the Obama administration, polls have consistently shown that nearly 70% of Americans believe that the United States is headed in the wrong direction. Separately, a recent MSNBC poll shows “liar” is the most common word that comes to mind when voters think of Hillary Clinton. Another recent NBC poll shows that only 11% think of Hillary as honest and trustworthy. Even if one doubts the accuracy of these polls, how is it possible for a majority to think the country can get on a better track by electing as the next U.S. President a liar who embodies the corrupt status quo?

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Normal people don’t see Islamic State military oilfield gains as an “opportunity”. But Clinton cronies aren’t normal people.
  • Chelsea Clinton used the Clinton Foundation as her own personal piggy bank to pay for her wedding. “If true people (then) worth well into 8 figures used 501c3 $ to pay for a wedding.”
  • The mystery of the Clinton Foundation’s missing $20 million in Haiti relief funds. Money that came from Frank Giustra and Carlos Slim. Also involved: Jean Marc Villain, who oversaw the fund while going through his own bankruptcy, and who “violated state laws in 2001 when he did not file donation reports for the Haitian-American Political Caucus.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • “Hey Hillary? Think you could stop mentioning classified war information in emails from your illegal private server? KThxBye – John Podesta”
  • Clinton News Network gonna Clinton News Network.
  • Scott Adams shows you how to unhypnotize a Clinton supporter.
  • “Market Indicator Gives Trump An 86% Chance Of Winning The Election.”
  • Chris Wallace: “I think the media could not do a worse job than this year….It’s like watching a badly refereed basketball game where we’re seeing make-up calls and we’re seeing particularly print going – and I’m not a Trump defender at all – but going after Trump in ways that I think violate every canon of ethics for news reporting.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Bill Clinton tells donors borders are going to be porous “for a very long time.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Clinton advisor Jennifer Palmieri admits that some Clinton Foundation donors wanted pro quo for their quid. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Hillary’s coughing fit returns.
  • Sunday Trump held rallies in Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Notice how neatly those stops align with Michael Moore’s contention that Trump will sweep the rust belt. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • The fact that the Clinton campaign is panicing over Michigan, deploying both Bill Clinton and Obama there, also lend credence to the theory. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • False story alert: That story about a “murder suicide” of an FBI agent who leaked Clinton scandal info from the non-existent “Denver Guardian” is a hoax.
  • Noted without comment: “Farrakhan compares Hillary Clinton to Hitler.”

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    Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch | No Comments »

    Donald Trump’s Closing Message

    November 5th, 2016

    Don’t agree with all of it, but I think it’s very effective at targeting potential Trump voters:

    Scott Adams calls it “a masterpiece. It’s a full-body experience. Best I’ve ever seen. Deeply persuasive. He made you wait. Magnificent bastard.”

    Thoughts?

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    Posted in Border Control, Elections, Republicans, video | No Comments »

    LA Times Poll Has Trump Up By 5.4 Points

    November 5th, 2016

    The latest Los Angeles Times poll has Donald Trump up over Hillary Clinton by 5.4 points. That’s the largest lead Trump had since the “Clinton collapse” story broke.

    Polls are screwy this year, and Trump has a way of defying all conventional wisdom, but given the in-the-tank media loudly proclaiming “No, Hillary’s polls are just fine, I tell you! Just fine!” in the wake of the FBI and Wikileaks revelations, the LA Times poll seems significant.

    (Hat tip: Zero Hedge.)

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Media Watch, Republicans | No Comments »

    Clinton Corruption Update for November 4, 2016

    November 4th, 2016

    So the big Wikileak topic today, the Friday before the election, is a John Podesta email which mentions “spirit cooking,” which involves “blood, sperm and breastmilk.”

    (Blink. Blink.)

    Cue Scott Adams:

    Caveat: This is one of those stories where this tiny little email is being spun out into “sex cult” and “Satanist” headlines. I find it hard to believe that Clinton’s inner circle are dabbling in Neo-Satanism, because that would mean worshiping something other than money and power. But maybe Podesta might want to break his silence on this one email because what the hell, dude?

    Now for some slightly less icky Clinton Corruption news:

  • “The FBI has found emails related to Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state on the laptop belonging to the estranged husband of Huma Abedin, Anthony Weiner, according to a U.S. official. These emails, CBS News’ Andres Triay reports, are not duplicates of emails found on Secretary Clinton’s private server.” So CBS is stopping just short of saying “Clinton perjured herself.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • It’s not Hillary’s corruption, it’s her stupidity:

    There are a lot of angles to these Clinton scandals, but the thing that transcends all of it is the rank stupidity of the people involved. There were safer and more secure ways to establish clandestine communications. Even with their setup, a modest amount of discipline would have prevented most of this from happening. All they had to do was limit mail going out of the system. When the time came to burn it down, they only had to destroy the server entirely and no one would be able to prove anything.

    The argument from Team Trump in the closing days of the election is that Hillary Clinton is too corrupt to rule. He’s painting her as the face of the larger problem, which is the metastasizing corruption of the ruling class. It’s a good closing argument and it resonates, but the reason Hillary should not rule is she is dangerously incompetent and she surrounds herself with outlandishly stupid people. A society can survive crooked rulers, but it cannot survive stupid ones. Hillary Clinton is too stupid to rule.

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • The IRS is examining the Clinton Foundation as well.
  • How to spot a paid Hillary troll. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • The Clinton Campaign did a poll of vulnerabilities for various Clinton scandals.
  • Missed this from early October, but does John Podesta still own 75,000 shares in a Putin-connected energy company?
  • Huma Abedin’s felony. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Vanity Fair writer: The Washington Post is every bit as fair and balanced as Breitbart. (Hat tip: Instapundit.) “For the first time in my memory, some of the major media organizations in this country have now abandoned all semblance of objectivity in furtherance of electing Hillary Clinton, or perhaps more accurately, in furtherance of the defeat of Donald Trump.” False. They’ve merely stopped pretending to that objectivity.
  • “But no one has ever been elected president who has been so hobbled by such festering wounds as Hillary Clinton would be if she is elected on Nov. 8.”
  • LA Times fires reporter who wanted Trump dead. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • Jill Stein: Hillary Clinton is the queen of corruption. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Chelsea Clinton shared her complaints about Doug Band with “a Bush-43 kid“? That’s like Fredo Corleone complaining to the FBI that Moe Green isn’t getting a big enough cut.
  • The Democrats are in bad shape even if Hillary wins. (Hat tip: Jonah Goldberg’s G-File email.)

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