Politics
Trump’s shadow looms as Ukraine allies mark 1,000 days of the war
As tensions escalate and uncertainty looms over the future of the conflict, U.S. and Ukrainian officials face the delicate task of balancing their advocacy for Ukraine with attempts to curry favor with President-elect Donald Trump.
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Protesters call for ending U.S. aid to Israel at postponed House Homeland Security Committee meeting
Protesters mimicked voting on resolutions to end all U.S. aid to the Israeli military, and called for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.
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Republican Leaders Dodge Questions on Rep. Nancy Mace’s Transgender Bathroom Ban
Mace has posted about the subject on X dozens of times, questioning Rep.-elect Sarah McBride’s gender identity and calling to ban her from women’s restrooms in the Capitol.
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The Congressional Hispanic Caucus welcomes new members; addresses Latino voter concerns
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus introduced its newest members for the 119th Congress and outlined key issues facing Latino voters during a press conference Friday morning.
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Jeffries calls for bipartisanship, vows to defend key priorities as Republicans retain House majority
In his first weekly press conference since the election, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries stressed the need for bipartisan solutions while pledging to push back “whenever necessary against far-right extremism.”
read moreVeterans and lawmakers react to Trump’s pick for Defense Secretary, who opposes women in combat roles
WASHINGTON — Concern, questions and condemnation from veterans and members of Congress have grown since President-elect Trump announced Pete Hegseth, a Fox News contributor and retired Army National Guardsman, as his selection for Secretary of Defense.
Hegseth, who served in the Army National Guard from 2002 to 2021, including combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been outspoken in his opposition to women in combat-oriented service.
“I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles,” he said on a podcast just days before Trump announced his selection as Defense Secretary on Tuesday.
Women have been able to serve in full-combat roles in the United States military since 2016 but have been a part of the armed forces in partial roles since the American Revolutionary War. Today, nearly a fifth of Americans in active duty service are women, and both the Navy and Coast Guard have women in senior leadership positions.
Retired Lieutenant Colonel Marilla Cushman, who initially served in the Women’s Army Corps until Congress fully integrated the service in 1978, said she believed excluding women would be a detrimental decision by the armed services.
“It does deeply concern me,” Cushman said. “As someone who served 25 years in the Army, I experienced those pieces of legislation that restricted me. I don’t want to see that again.”
When Cushman first joined the Army in 1972, women were excluded from all combat operations and had only been allowed to receive high-level promotions since 1967.
Republicans, even some who disagree with Hegseth’s position, have appeared keen to avoid addressing the issue, redirecting the conversation to Hegseth’s vast combat experience.
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), who serves in the majority on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, lauded Hegseth’s military service record but disagreed with Hegseth’s statement.
“I support women in the military in all phases,” Fleischmann said, rebuking Trump’s nominee. Fleischmann told the Medill News Service that he was unaware of Hegseth’s comments on The Shawn Ryan Show.
He continued, however, and said, “[Hegseth] is very talented and a very unique pick. It shows great flexibility on the part of the President to pick somebody who just may not have…come out of a set groomed mold.”
Democratic dissent has been swift. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said restrictions on women’s service would be illegal and challenged in the courts.
“The courts have clearly said that women have the same rights,” Nadler said. “Even this Supreme Court is not totally sublime. I’d be surprised if they went that way.”
Hegseth’s position partially aligns with Project 2025, a policy agenda for a second Trump administration written and published by conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation. Their proposal appeared to take a middle ground between Hegseth and current Defense Department policy. It would allow women in the armed services so long as they meet identical fitness requirements, regardless of age or sex. Physical fitness tests are currently adjusted for gender and age across all six services, although specialized roles do not change requirements.
President-elect Trump has echoed this sentiment since his first presidential campaign. In a 2015 interview with CBS’s Face the Nation, then-candidate Trump said that there are “major problems” with women in military service. The Trump-Pence Transition Team did not respond to a request for comment.
Despite the concern, Cushman said she hopes the policies will not change.
“It’s all about a need,” Cushman said. “Things change, but throughout history men looked at women differently when the nation needed them. Our military always needs more people.”
House Republicans gather to elect conference leadership, Gaetz resigns
WASHINGTON – House Republicans gathered Wednesday afternoon at a hotel just blocks from the Capitol to elect their leadership team for the 119th Congress after projections showed that they would retain control of the lower chamber.
“We have a very well-designed playbook,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said during a press conference following the vote. “And we will begin to execute those plays with precision on day one.”
While Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) all ran unopposed for their positions, the conference chair role was the most closely watched contested race. The position is currently held by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), but is set to become vacant when the Senate confirms her appointment as U.N. ambassador for the incoming Trump administration.
Members elected Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) to fill the role over Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), making McClain the fourth-ranked Republican and the highest-ranking woman in Congress.
Ahead of the vote, President-elect Donald Trump met with House Republicans in a closed-door session Wednesday morning, endorsing Johnson as Speaker and delivering a unifying message that Johnson later described as “a bit of a pep rally.” Johnson was nominated by the conference without opposition and now awaits his formal election after the new Congress is sworn in on Jan. 3.
“When President Trump talked about the things he would do to make America great again, it’s not just a tagline on a hat,” Scalise said.
Before introducing the newly elected conference leaders, Speaker Johnson was joined at the podium by the leaders of two major factions within the House Republican conference: Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), chair of the Main Street Caucus and Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), chair of the Freedom Caucus.
Together, the pair discussed changes to conference rules governing House Republicans’ internal affairs. Most notably, they announced an agreement to raise the threshold required to force a vote to remove a Speaker from one member to nine, a move aimed at preventing the kind of chaos that erupted when Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) filed a motion that eventually ousted then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy in October 2023.
“We’ve been able to work across the conference to eliminate the controversial issues that could have divided us and move forward together to deliver on the President’s agenda,” Harris said.
In addition to the four top leadership roles, House Republicans re-elected Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) as chair of the Republican National Congressional Committee, the party’s campaign arm. Hudson ran unopposed for the position after a highly successful election cycle for the GOP.
The conference selected Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) as Policy Chair, Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah) as Vice Chair and Rep. Erin Houchin (R-Ind.) for conference secretary.
While the leadership vote was underway, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he had selected Gaetz as his nominee for Attorney General. Gaetz became the third sitting House Republican to be tapped for a senior role in Trump’s administration, joining Stefanik and Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.). In an unexpected move, Gaetz resigned from Congress immediately following the announcement, Speaker Johnson confirmed after the vote.
“Out of deference to us, he issued his resignation letter effective immediately from Congress. That caught us by surprise a little bit,” Johnson said.
The House Ethics Committee was reportedly set to release a critical report on its investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use involving Rep. Matt Gaetz Friday. However, the release is now expected to be shelved following Gaetz’s resignation.
Johnson said the reason Gaetz resigned immediately was to speed up the process of filling his seat, given the slim majority by which Republicans are expected to control the House
In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis will need to schedule both a primary and a general election to fill Gaetz’s vacant spot. Johnson explained that, under Florida law, the process of electing a replacement would take about eight weeks. Although Johnson said he had already called DeSantis after Gaetz’s resignation, the two will not discuss the details of a special election until Thursday at the earliest, as DeSantis is currently in Italy.
Filling Gaetz’s seat is just the first of several Republican vacancies expected to arise in both the House and the Senate.
In addition to Gaetz, DeSantis will be responsible for scheduling a special election to fill Rep. Michael Waltz’s seat. However, unless Waltz follows the same path as Gaetz—something Johnson noted they would discuss—the special election for Waltz’s seat won’t take place until January.
In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul will have to call for a general election within 10 days of Stefanik’s seat becoming vacant. Local party officials will select candidates to run in the general election in lieu of a primary.
“People have asked me all day long, ‘Is President Trump poaching all of your talent?’” Johnson said. He jokingly responded with a “yes,” but added that he told Trump, “Enough already.”
Republicans elect John Thune Senate Majority Leader, snubbing Trump allies’ pick
WASHINGTON – Republican Senators elected South Dakota’s John Thune to be their new Majority Leader on Wednesday morning, marking an end to Mitch McConnell’s 17-year stint atop the Senate Republican Conference.
Thune defeated Senator John Cornyn’s (R-Texas) and Senator Rick Scott’s (R-Fla.) bids for the post. After Scott was eliminated on the first ballot, Thune narrowly defeated Cornyn 29-24 on the second ballot.
Scott had gained momentum among President-elect Donald Trump’s most loyal supporters in recent days, as X owner Elon Musk, political commentator Tucker Carlson and former presidential candidates Vivek Ramaswamy and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. all publicly backed his candidacy. Yet, with Senators casting their ballots in secret, a majority ultimately chose to entrust the more experienced Thune, currently the second-ranking Senate Republican behind McConnell.
“It’s a new day in the United States Senate. It’s a new day in America,” Thune said at a press conference following the vote. “The American people have loudly rejected the failed policies of the Biden-Harris-Schumer agenda.”
Thune pledged stronger border security, streamlining government bureaucracy and restoring American energy dominance as his top agenda items. “We have a mandate from the American people,” he said. “A mandate not only to clean up the mess left by the Biden-Harris-Schumer agenda but also to deliver on President Trump’s priorities.”
Thune confirmed that he did not intend to change the legislative filibuster in the Senate, which requires a bill to receive 60 votes in order to pass.
Republicans also chose a new slate of Senate leaders under Thune, electing John Barrasso (R-WY) to the number two spot as the party whip in the chamber. Other incoming party leaders include Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who was elected Republican Conference Chair, and Tim Scott (R-SC), who was elected National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) chair.
Tim Scott, whose role places him in charge of raising money for Republican Senate candidates, said his eyes were already on 2026. “My passion is making sure that we defend our current seats, expand the map and expand our majority so that President Trump does not have two years with a Republican majority in the Senate — he has four years,” Scott said.
The reaction to Thune’s election from Democratic Senators was largely positive, with many praising the South Dakota Senator’s personal character while expressing disappointment over having lost the majority.
Current Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) congratulated Thune on his victory at a later press conference, urging the incoming Republican Senate to collaborate on bipartisan legislation. “Senator Thune and I have done lots of things together in a bipartisan way here in the Senate,” Schumer said. “I strongly believe that bipartisanship is the best and often the only way to get things done around here.”
Schumer said his focus before losing the majority was on ensuring the government was funded by the December deadline, passing a National Defense Authorization Act, securing disaster aid funding and confirming new judicial appointments.
Senator Joe Manchin, the outgoing West Virginia Independent known for frequently bucking the Democrats who he caucused with, told Medill News Service the outcome of the Majority Leader vote was “excellent” and called Thune a “beautiful person.”
Colorado Democratic Senator John Hickenlooper, meanwhile, said Thune is a “skilled leader” and expressed optimism that the new Congress would be able to reach bipartisan agreement on issues such as regulation of artificial intelligence.
Republicans are expected to hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, which includes an Associated Press race call that Republican David McCormick defeated Democratic Senator Bob Casey in Pennsylvania. McCormick, a former hedge fund manager, currently holds a roughly 30,000-vote edge and has claimed victory, but Casey has yet to concede. McCormick attended the leadership vote today.
Vice President-elect JD Vance also made an appearance at the leadership vote, greeting reporters with a “good morning” as he walked toward the old Senate chamber. Vance declined to publicly endorse a candidate, despite several significant figures in the Trump administration backing Rick Scott.
Schumer will hand over the gavel to Thune on January 3, 2025, when the 119th Congress is sworn in.
UAP hearing witnesses claim U.S. government has hidden information from the public for decades
WASHINGTON – Multiple witnesses criticized the U.S. government for its lack of transparency regarding Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) information and called for greater accountability from the Executive Branch on Wednesday during a House Oversight and Accountability Committee Hearing.
Michael Shellenberger, a journalist and one of the witnesses, released a 12-page report to Congress on Wednesday written by a current or former U.S. government official.
“The Executive Branch has been managing UAP/NHI issues without Congressional knowledge, oversight or authorization for some time, quite possibly decades,” the report reads.
UAPs, previously referred to as Unidentified Flying Objects, are objects that cannot be identified as aircraft or known natural phenomena.
Shellenberger’s government source also detailed an active Department of Defense Unacknowledged Special Access Program called Immaculate Constellation, which includes classified photos and videos of UAPs. Shellenberger’s whistleblower detailed interactions between UAPs and U.S. aircraft, including a 2023 incident during which an F-22 was forced out of its patrol area by an orb.
Shellenberger said another source recently came forward to tell him about a 13-minute video discovered on DOD’s secure network that shows “a white orb UAP coming out of the ocean approximately 20 miles off the coast of Kuwait.”
Then, the source said, “the orb is joined by another orb that briefly comes into the frame from the left before rapidly moving again out of the frame.”
The hearing, attended almost exclusively by Republicans, was held jointly by the subcommittees on Cybersecurity, Information Technology and Government Innovation and National Security, the Border and Foreign Affairs.
Michael Gallaudet, a retired rear admiral for the U.S. Navy, began his testimony by describing a 2015 email he received from the operations officer of the U.S. Fleet Forces Command. The email included a now-declassified video of a UAP, and the officer expressed concern over near-collisions with U.S. aircraft. But the email disappeared from Gallaudet’s account the next day, and the Commander of Fleet Forces and his operations officer never discussed the incident.
“It was evident that no one at the Flag Officer level was addressing the safety risks posed by UAPs,” Gallaudet said. “Instead, pilots were left to mitigate these threats on their own, without guidance or support.”
Another UAP committee hearing was held in July 2023, with testimonies claiming the United States government took part in a concerted effort to hide information about encounters with UAPs and to discredit those coming forward as UAP whistleblowers.
In 2023, Congress passed the UAP Disclosure Act, which directed the National Archives to collect government documents about UAPs, including technologies of nonhuman intelligence. But major provisions were deleted before the bill passed, and the witnesses at Wednesday’s hearing called for Congress to strengthen the bill by establishing an independent UAP Records Review Board.
Luis Elizondo, an author and former Department of Defense official, testified that advanced technologies not made by any government are currently monitoring military installations around the world. “We are not alone in the cosmos” he said, later defining a UAP as “an enigma, and a frustration.”
Elizondo also said he believes the U.S. government and its adversaries possess UAP technologies. After questioning from Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), who co-chaired the hearing, Elizondo testified that the government has conducted secret UAP crash retrieval programs designed to identify alien craft.
“I believe we are in the midst of a multi-decade, secretive arms race— one funded by misallocated taxpayer dollars and hidden from our elected representatives and oversight bodies,” he said.
Advocates for public access to UAP research expressed optimism about President-Elect Donald Trump’s commitment to transparency on behalf of the Executive Branch.
“President-elect Trump ran on and was elected with a mandate to make government more transparent and release long-held secrets,” Shellenberger said.
Why voters chose to protect abortion and vote for Donald Trump, according to experts
WASHINGTON– Experts say the successful protection of abortion rights in seven states Tuesday shows reproductive rights are popular among voters. However, an interesting scenario in four states is raising questions about the issue.
Voters in Nevada, Arizona, Montana and Missouri voted for both state amendments to protect reproductive rights and former President Donald Trump, helping him win the 2024 presidential election.
The former President has taken credit for the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022, removing federal protections for abortion rights. Trump nominated three justices to the Supreme Court, all of whom voted to overturn the 1973 decision in the case Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
The two outcomes represented a stark “dissonance” among voters, according to Melissa Goodman, Executive Director of the UCLA Center on Reproductive Health, Law and Policy. She said that voters simultaneously voted to protect and harm those rights.
“We have these overwhelming wins in ballot measures to protect abortion rights around the nation and a majority of voters obviously elected Donald Trump, which will unquestionably have extremely devastating consequences for reproductive health care access and gender equality in our country for the next four years,” Goodman said.
Exit polling shows abortion was not the most important thing on voters minds in the voting booth. According to a Washington Post report, 66% of voters felt the economy and “the state of democracy” were the most important issues. On abortion, polling found just 14% of voters had reproductive rights as their top issue.
Goodman contends that a big reason for the lesser concern and disconnected results was that Donald Trump effectively “obfuscated” his own views and policies on the issue. She points to the former president’s repeated commitment to leave things to the states and at times murky view on signing a national abortion ban.
“In these states where they had the ability to kind of express their views about abortion in the way of a state ballot measure, that was the way they expressed their feelings on that subject, and then possibly felt free to express their opinion on other topics in their candidate votes,” Goodman says.
Long-time Democratic party pollster Celinda Lake agrees. She said the state amendments “almost gave [voters] permission” to vote on their other concerns by making it “impossible for [politicians] to act further on the abortion issue.”
Lake said that Vice President Kamala Harris did a “brilliant job on the abortion issue,” and that her loss was not a failure in her messaging on reproductive rights. She said the results of the election and abortion amendments shows Harris fell short in her messaging about the economy, something Lake says is a long-time issue in Democratic platforms. But the issue in Lake’s eyes isn’t the quality of the policy, but trouble with getting the word out about them.
According to Lake, she found through focus groups that 60% of people don’t really know what Democrats stand for economically, and that lack of clarity may have impacted voters when deciding who to give the economic reins to for the next four years.
“We don’t have an economic brand, and we start out every campaign 20 points behind on the economy,” Lake says. “We have to step back and have an economic brand that works for working people.”
Goodman and Lake both said that pollsters, strategists and academics will have to work to find out what happened this election, and understand how abortion was outshone by other concerns.
But they agree the takeaway here should not be that abortion does not matter to voters.
“There remains extremely strong support for abortion rights throughout this country, despite the actual presidential election result,” Goodman said.
A Dance Party at the Edge of Disaster
WASHINGTON – As a big screen at Vice President Kamala Harris’ election-night gathering at Howard University showed Jake Tapper announcing CNN’s call of North Carolina for former President Donald Trump, a smattering of boos rang out.
Seconds later, Tapper and his CNN colleagues were muted, replaced on the loudspeakers with Tupac Shakur’s “California Love.”
It was a moment emblematic of the night’s off-kilter atmosphere. As Trump’s resounding victory became increasingly clear, supporters energetically danced to song after song and expressed hope that Harris might still pull off a comeback, seemingly caught between defiance and denial.
I arrived at Howard at 11:15 p.m. after spending the first portion of the evening watching cable news and relentlessly updating my X feed. By that point, the New York Times needle leaned toward Trump with a 90% chance of winning the presidency. Harris’ lone path to victory through the “blue wall” of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin was rapidly closing, and Democrats were racing to register their post-mortems.
Biden should’ve dropped out earlier! She should’ve picked Shapiro! Why did she campaign with Liz Cheney?! This must spell the end of wokeness! They ignored pro-Palestine protesters! Why didn’t she go on Rogan?! Don’t blame the campaign, blame the voters!
Walking through the typically vibrant neighborhood of Adams Morgan, one could hear a pin drop. Those still out on the streets appeared largely oblivious to the anxiety that had gripped the surrounding MSNBC-watching households. As I drew closer to the event, I was met with a trickle — and then a herd — of somber Harris supporters making their way home.
A man gesticulated to his wife about the state of the country. A college-aged woman looked down at her phone and said, “we’re so f***ed” — her friends nodded in agreement. A lone supporter chanted “we won’t go back” through a bullhorn. An exasperated woman exclaimed, “Sherrod Brown!” in a tone that unambiguously communicated the Ohio Democratic Senator’s perilous position in his battle for re-election.
On the grass of Howard’s upper quad, the mood was distinctly different. Following the DJ’s decision to drown out CNN with an assortment of pop and hip-hop songs, much of the remaining crowd kept up a high level of energy.
Delivery driver Ryan Young, 45, was enthusiastically grooving out to “Cool It Now” by 1980s R&B group New Edition when I approached him. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Young said on attending Harris’ election night watch party. “She brought it back to the HBCUs.”
Yet, on the subject of a potential Trump presidency, Young was calm. “Everybody gotta suck it up,” he said. “He was in office before, so we know pretty much how he’s gonna do. It’s gonna be a lot of drama. A lot of people might get fired in the cabinet again. With him, you just gotta hold tight, expect the worst and hope for the best.”
Harris supporters cheer and wave American flags after CNN calls Virginia for the Vice President. (Eli Kronenberg/MNS)
When the silent CNN screen displayed calls for Democratic Senate candidates Andy Kim (N.J.) and Tim Kaine (Va.), a massive cheer went up. American flags waved by the dozen. A similar scene played out when Virginia was added to Harris’ column at 12:03 a.m., long after online Democrats began firing off X posts such as, “the first Republican popular vote victory in two decades. jesus,” as YIMBYs for Harris co-founder Armand Domalewski did.
When the television pundits’ attention turned to the Senate races in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin in which the Democratic candidates were trailing at the time, the crowd went briefly silent, before the festive environment hastily returned. Even I found myself instinctively dancing to House of Pain’s “Jump Around” and mouthing the lyrics to Kendrick Lamar’s “Be Humble.”
I had seen the videos of stunned Hillary Clinton supporters reacting to her defeat in 2016 at the Javits Center in New York City. I vividly recalled the tears flowing down cheeks, the looks of utter shock and dismay. In that election, Clinton was a significantly heavier favorite than Harris, and America had yet to truly come to terms with the strength and depth of Trump’s support. Still, given the stakes Democrats had placed on this election for the future of democracy, reproductive rights and the geopolitical world order, I was surprised at how little the scene around me resembled my memory of 2016.
Richard Lange, 27, a German postdoctoral fellow at Heidelberg University currently researching history and foreign relations at the Library of Congress, told me he showed up at Howard both to take in the election results and to observe “how people think and behave.”
Lange said he thought people were struggling to let go of the optimism that had defined the Harris campaign in the week leading up to the election. “Maybe these are the last hours where Donald Trump is not president for sure,” Lange said. “So the music and the very young, very dancing, joyful atmosphere was maybe a coping mechanism.” That theory was echoed by Young, who said, “sometimes you just gotta laugh to keep from crying.”
Dancing wasn’t the only crutch on display Tuesday evening. Even after North Carolina was called and Harris clearly trailed in all seven battleground states, some held out hope that the remaining votes would overwhelmingly come down in her favor.
“I’m getting increasingly worried,” Leila Hamilton, a graduate student at Johns Hopkins studying economics, said. “But I wanna still hold a little bit of hope for the results that still have to come out.”
Meanwhile, Emilomo Unuigbe, a sophomore at Howard studying mechanical engineering, said, “I’m a little nervous, but I have faith that things are going to turn around at the end.” When asked what her biggest issues were in this election, she said she feared Harris not following through on her campaign promises if elected.
Young, for his part, said, “It’s not looking too good, but once California hits, that should be like 50 so it’ll be a little closer.” (California has 54 electoral votes).
Amidst the anxiously hopeful mood, one man stood stoic, alone, holding tight to an American flag. Eric Yang was not born in America, nor does he reside here. An Australian native who currently lives in Taiwan, Yang arrived in the country two weeks ago on a mission.
“I am a Christian, and I have been praying in Australia for about five months,” Yang said. “And then, at the end of it, God wants me to come to America during the elections to pray for America.”
Yang did not explicitly say he was supporting Harris, instead insisting that he was praying for both parties. “I just want to pray that there’s more righteousness and unity of the country, that there’s less split, and America will become a beacon for the rest of the world to enjoy the real freedom and the truth that America was built on,” Yang said.
When asked if he feared the impacts of a Trump presidency on American-Taiwanese relations, Yang said he wasn’t concerned because “God is in control.”
In many ways, Yang stuck out like a sore thumb among the crowd. He was not a Harris supporter, let alone a voter. He was not actively engaging with the results coming in, nor the music blasting all around him. He truly believed America could prosper under either candidate, so long as God led her in the right direction.
Water bottles are left behind at Howard University after Harris-Walz campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond announced that the Vice President would not be appearing that night. (Eli Kronenberg/MNS)
Yet, as the night drew to a close, it dawned on me that Yang did have one thing in common with the rest of the group. While both understood that the events of the night were out of their control, they were each unshakable in their insistence on hope as the night unraveled. There was no other way forward but to be together, to sing and dance — and to pray. They had been through this before eight years ago. They would ride out the storm again.
At roughly 12:40 a.m., Harris-Walz campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond appeared on stage. Expecting the Vice President, supporters uniformly craned their necks and took out their phones to capture the moment. When Richmond announced that Harris would not be appearing that night, thousands groaned at once, and a mass exodus ensued.
All that remained were a few supporters who stayed behind to take selfies, journalists speaking to straggling attendees, and water bottles — hundreds of plastic water bottles — strewn across the ground, crushed and empty. The party was over.
Biden calls for unity, peaceful transition in post-election speech
President Joe Biden promised a peaceful transfer of power in a brief speech from the Rose Garden on Thursday, after an election that saw Vice President Kamala Harris decisively defeated by former President Donald Trump.
“For over 200 years, America has carried on the greatest experiment in self government in the history of the world,” Biden said. ”Where the people vote and choose their own leaders and they do it peacefully, and we’re in a democracy. The will of the people always prevails. Yesterday, I spoke with President-elect Trump to congratulate him on his victory.”
Biden touted the results as evidence of the legitimacy of American elections, as Trump has still refused to acknowledge his 2020 defeat and most Republicans continue to believe that Biden was elected illegitimately.
Biden addressed his supporters, calling on them to remain involved under the impending administration.
The speech comes as Democrats point fingers following a loss that saw them lose the presidential popular vote for the first time since 2004, and control of the U.S. Senate for the first time since 2018.
His speech came the day after Harris made her concession speech at Howard University.
“Campaigns are contests of competing visions. The country chooses one or the other, and we accept the choice the country’s made,” Biden said. “I’ve said many times, you can’t love your country only when you win. You can’t love your neighbor only when you agree.”
After a poor performance in the June debate between him and Trump, intraparty pressure led to Biden’s historic withdrawal from the race, making him the first time sitting president to withdraw from the nomination after winning the primaries.
Biden, who defeated Trump four years ago and faced an aggressive effort by the then-president and his allies to prevent the realization of his victory, announced on July 21 that he would not seek reelection, amidst concerns about his unpopularity and age.
“Much of the work we’ve done is already being felt by the American people, but the vast majority of it will be felt over the next 10 years,” Biden said.
“We have legislation we passed that’s only now kicking in. We’re going to see over a trillion dollars in infrastructure work done, changing people’s lives in rural communities and communities that are in real difficulty, because it takes time to get it done,” he added
Biden’s term most notably included the passage of three large legislative packages: the American Rescue Plan in 2021, and the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act in 2022.
However, consumer discontent dragged down Biden’s approval ratings, and may have helped to prevent a Harris victory. Although unemployment is at historic lows and the US ’GDP has grown substantially, voters have looked poorly upon the administration for its handling of inflation.
“We’re leaving behind the strongest economy in the world. I know people are still hurting, but things are changing rapidly,” Biden said.
The administration will have two months to facilitate a transfer of power and pass its agenda before Republicans take control of the executive branch and the Senate.
“Now we have 74 days to finish our term. Let’s make every day count. That’s the responsibility we have to the American people. Look folks, you all know in your lives, setbacks are unavoidable. But giving up is unforgivable,” Biden said.
“The American experiment endures. We’re going to be ok, but we need to stay engaged, we need to keep going, and above all, we need to keep the faith.”
Is “moving to Canada” the solution? Harris supporters weigh in
WASHINGTON — Unhappy with the current state of American politics? Have you considered moving to Canada?
You’re not alone — there’s been pervasive online discourse around fleeing to Canada among Americans despairing over a second Trump presidential term.
The non-existent recent history of a mass Canadian exodus
“good morning i’m making plans to move to canada,” one X user wrote at 8:21 a.m. Wednesday morning, around three hours after the Associated Press declared Trump the new president-elect at 5:34 a.m.
Indeed, online searches for “moving to Canada” spiked in the evening hours of Nov. 5 and into the morning of Nov. 6, peaking at 3:32 a.m. and 6:19 a.m. Wednesday morning, according to Google Trends data. These search spikes came shortly after AP called Pennsylvania and then Wisconsin for Trump. However, the popularity of the search term fell through Wednesday afternoon and evening.
Google Trends data over the time range of Nov. 5 at 6 a.m. to Nov. 6 at 11 p.m. shows that the popularity of “moving to Canada” as a search term peaked at 3:32 a.m. and 6:19 a.m. on Nov. 6.
Vermont, Maine, Oregon and New Hampshire were the top four states where the search term skyrocketed in popularity, and other top related searches included “moving to ireland” and “new zealand.”
The all-time popularity for “moving to Canada” peaked in November 2016, shortly after Trump won the election for his first presidential term. A crash of Canada’s official government immigration website due to high visitor traffic ensued, a problem that did not occur Wednesday morning. This year, the term was searched only around half as much at its peak relative to November 2016’s popularity.
The data also shows a spike in the search term in November 2004, when Republican president incumbent George W. Bush was elected to a second term. Bush is the last Republican president before Trump. In comparison to this year’s search spike, November 2004’s spike was considerably more popular, with a five percentage point difference in relative search interest.
“Moving to Canada” did not spike in popularity in Nov. 2008 and Nov. 2020 — when Democratic presidents Obama and Biden were elected into office — to the same magnitude as when Republican candidates won their elections.
Google Trends data over the time period of “2004 – present” show three major spikes for “moving to Canada” as a search term: One in Nov. 2004, another in Nov. 2016, and the most recent one in Nov. 2024.
Statistics from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, recovered by CTV News, show that there was an uptick of Americans applying to permanent residency in Canada during Trump’s first year as president, from 7715 applications in 2016 to 9018 applications in 2017. The number of applications hovered around 9000 for the years of 2018 and 2019.
Despite the spike, the number of applications is minimal compared to Americans currently registered as Democrats and Independents, a trend that will likely persist. At the time this article was written, over 68 million Americans voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
However, one deterrent to those hoping to settle North may be the fact that Canada reduced permanent resident targets in 2025 from 500,000 to 395,000 in October.
The Liberal Party currently rules and forms the Canadian government, with the Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau as its leader. But recent polls show that nearly two-thirds of Canadians disapprove of Trudeau’s prime ministership and that Canada’s Conservative Party could win nearly four times as many seats as Liberals in the upcoming 2025 Canadian elections.
Thus, Canada will likely remain an unlikely choice for those seeking an escape from American politics.
O Canada
Medill News Service talked to multiple Harris supporters at Howard University Wednesday night on their opinions about a potential leftist exodus to Canada.
Jeanne Richardson, 54, said that despite being “disappointed” with the new president-elect, she wouldn’t consider leaving America for Canada.
“I don’t think it’s going to help because American politics affects the world,” Richardson said.
Jose Jaquez, 20, agreed with this sentiment. He believes leaving the country is not the solution to fix electoral politics.
“If we see more people move to Canada who tend to be Democrats, then that means they’re going to have a lot less Democrats here, and so it’s going to be a lot harder to make progress in this country,” Jaquez said. “So I hope they stay.”
Kailey Breland, 18, said she had “looked into [Canadian] citizenship.”
“I’m scared for the future of America,” Breland said. “I might have to go to Toronto.”
Outside of Canada, Breland said she’s thought about moving to the Netherlands, Korea, Japan, Singapore and countries in Africa.
“Some countries just have a lot more rights than we do,” she said.
Morgan Walker, 18, said she would consider moving to Canada, but also was interested in moving to London to escape American politics.
“Anything is better than Trump,” Walker said.
Harris delivers hopeful message for young supporters in concession speech
WASHINGTON – In her presidential concession speech at Howard University Wednesday, Vice President Kamala Harris addressed young people about the future—and many were eager to listen.
For Alice Still, a 20-year-old political science student at American University, attending felt like paying her respects to a campaign she had passionately backed, offering a kind of political wake as she said her goodbyes.
“The least I can do is show up for a candidate who fought so hard and be here to support her one last time,” Still said.
Originally from Pennsylvania, Still described how she stayed up late watching election results unfold, only to be shocked and disheartened as her home state swung in favor of former President Donald Trump.
“I was optimistic that my home state, which I love and want to continue loving so badly, would do the right thing in this election,” Still said.
Still volunteered for the Harris-Walz campaign in her hometown of Gettysburg, where she canvassed door-to-door and participated in phone banking efforts. Although Adams County, where she lives, has traditionally voted Republican, she felt the Harris campaign was gaining momentum and outpacing Trump’s efforts in the state.
“I could burst into tears just thinking about it,” Still said.
She pointed to the possibility of a national abortion ban, a complete withdrawal from Ukraine and unyielding support for Israel as her biggest concerns under a second Trump presidency.
Ahead of Harris’s concession speech, Still said that she expected a hopeful message, admitting that she felt like she was attending to help ease her own fears about the election results.
“I’m feeling very hopeless right now, and if there’s one thing that Kamala Harris can do, it’s speak to young people and give them drive and give them hope,” Still said.
Harris began her speech by thanking her family, President Joe Biden, her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, and all those who supported her campaign. She stressed the importance of respecting the outcome of elections and said that she had called Trump to congratulate him and wish him well earlier in the day. While many in the crowd booed over her concession, they erupted in applause when she promised a peaceful transfer of power.
Speaking to her supporters, Harris acknowledged the intense emotions of the moment while emphasizing that the fight to protect opportunities for all Americans to pursue their dreams and safeguard bodily autonomy does not end with her campaign.
Then, she turned her attention directly to the young people in the audience, telling them that while it is okay to be disappointed, she believes that it’s going to be okay.
“On the campaign, I would often say when we fight, we win,” Harris said. “But here’s the thing, sometimes the fight takes a while. That doesn’t mean we won’t win.”
Unlike Hillary Clinton’s concession speech in 2016, Harris did not directly address the historic nature of her candidacy, which would have made her the first female president and woman of color. While Clinton famously spoke to “all the little girls who are watching this,” Harris kept her message to young people gender-neutral, only briefly alluding to the groundbreaking aspects of her campaign.
“Don’t you ever listen when anyone tells you something is impossible because it has never been done before,” Harris said.
For Praise Alexis, a 19-year-old student at Howard, Harris’s decision to spend election night at her alma mater reflected her gratitude not only for the education and experiences she gained there, but also for the current students and the role young people played in her campaign.
“She could be anywhere today, but she chose to come back here, to the place where she graduated. So, I think that’s a huge thing,” Alexis said.
Many Howard students attended both the election watch party Tuesday and Harris’s speech Wednesday, sporting school merchandise and chanting the university’s rallying cry, “HU! You Know!” as she left the stage. Members of Harris’s sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, wore the organization’s pink and green sweatshirts in a show of solidarity with their sorority sister.
But, Harris’s support among college student attendees extended beyond her own alma mater.
Kim Cimino, a 24-year-old pre-law student at Liberty University, was the first in line to hear Harris speak. Though doors for the event opened at 1 p.m. and Harris took the stage at 4 p.m., Cimino had already staked out a spot on a nearby sidewalk long before security set up metal barricades in the street for the queue.
“I wanted to be the first person and get a good spot so I could see her in person,” Cimino said. “I want to be around my people.”
A Q&A with Democratic West Virginia senate candidate Glenn Elliott
WASHINGTON — Millions of voters are heading to the polls on Tuesday, and party control of the U.S. Senate remains up for grabs.
Republicans see multiple paths toward winning a majority of seats in the chamber that they have not won since 2018, aided by one race which Republicans are widely expected to win in a landslide. The catch: a Republican hasn’t won the seat in nearly 70 years.
West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats and was formerly a member of the party himself, is retiring. He won his current term in 2018, narrowly amidst a national blue wave, in a state that had voted for Donald Trump in 2016 by more than 40 points, Trump’s strongest showing in the nation.
Formerly a Democratic stronghold, represented by the likes of Senator Robert Byrd, West Virginia has seen a rapid and dramatic swing toward Republicans at every level of government. Manchin is a lone wolf as a Democratic-affiliated statewide office holder – a remnant of a past era.
Glenn Elliott, the former mayor of Wheeling, West Virginia and the Democratic nominee in this race, detailed his decision to run and his policy goals.
Answers have been edited for length and clarity.
What inspired you to take the plunge for national office?
When Senator Manchin announced that he was not seeking reelection, I did give it a lot of thought. I had begun my career 30-plus years ago working for Senator Robert Byrd in the U.S. Senate. So I then spent five years there and really developed an appreciation for the institution for the value that a small State like West Virginia can get out of a Senator. At the time, this was in the 1990s, the Senate was in some respects a source or a place where bipartisanship could occur. It was starting to fracture then into what we see today, but there were still examples of bipartisanship. And so I’ve always held the Senate in high regard. And so, after eight years as Mayor of Wheeling, when Senator Manchin announced he was not seeking reelection, I gave it serious consideration and jumped into the race.
What are your top priorities?
Well, West Virginia is a state with no shortage of needs. We have a predominantly senior population, so programs like Medicare and Social Security hold an extra importance here.
Second issue, though, of course, is restoring women’s reproductive rights. I’ve seen firsthand here in West Virginia, where my opponent actually signed into law a very regressive ban on women’s reproductive rights that can have a very bad impact on women. It’s causing young women to leave the state. It’s putting those with unwanted pregnancies in harm’s way and forcing them to leave the state.
Do you think that reproductive rights are possible with your voters, given that West Virginia is considered a socially conservative state?
In 2018, abortion was on the ballot in West Virginia. It was in a constitutional amendment that said two things: there is no constitutional right to abortion in West Virginia, and that there should be no taxpayer funding of abortion. That constitutional amendment only passed by, I believe 52%, and that was in a pre-Dobbs scenario. There was a balance there. What we have right now is anything but a balance, and I think if it were put on the ballot — Republicans in the state will not put it on the ballot, but if it were — I think overturning the ban would have a good chance of passing.
You’re running at a time when the Democratic Party is in a historically-weak position in West Virginia. How would you say you differ from the national party, and how would you want to move the party if you were elected?
I have a pretty good feel for the wants and needs and concerns of rural America here in West Virginia. I think the perception of the Democratic Party is that it only cares about urban America and has forgotten rural America. I think it’d be great to see national Democrats coming to West Virginia and reminding people that Democrats are the party that created Social Security and created Medicare. They gave unions the right to collectively bargain. Clean water is a big issue in many parts of the State right now, and Democrats have been the party that supports clean water. You talk to a lot of coal miners and they’ve been convinced that Democrats are out to get coal when in reality Democrats have been pushing for a coal silica dust rule to cut in half the amount of silica dust that is legal in mines, something that actually will be saving miners lives, and the Republicans are actively going at it in Congress.
Do you see a necessary transition to renewable energy, and how should we combat climate change?
Anyone who denies where the future is headed in terms of renewables is just putting their head in the sand. I recognize that the world is going to be changing, and you know, whether or not West Virginia continues to make coal and natural gas a priority. But oh, it’s not a stretch to suggest that in 10 or 15 years, Fortune 500 companies are going to have written into the bylaws that they can only consume energy produced by clean and renewable sources. So I think that the world is going to move forward. The question is: what is West Virginia’s role in that process going to be? We do have a large number of jobs still dependent on the fossil fuel industry. I’m not running for the U.S. Senate to end those jobs, but I think, as the world transitions, it’s very important that West Virginia have a seat at the table. No state has paid a bigger price to power the rest of the nation than we have over the last century. Fossil fuel extraction has led to a lot of negative outcomes here in terms of miners actually killed in the mines, of miners who develop black lung, of damage to our clean water system and our ecosystems.\
We need to be diversifying our impact, and there are parts of the state where we have invested in solar and wind energy. But I’m also very interested in exploiting some hydropower opportunities that we have. We have a lot of waterways running through the state.
What would you say to Trump voters you’re trying to win over who are concerned about Senate control?
We just actually sent out an open letter to West Virginia Republicans. It basically makes the case that it is a fact that if you elect me to the U.S. Senate, there are going to be a handful of votes where I may not vote in the way that you want. But at the end of the day, I think we need to recognize that being a Senator is more than a few controversial votes on culture war issues that come up every year. Being a senator is showing up. My opponent, Jim Justice, has made a habit of being a part-time governor during his eight years in office and has told his aides privately that he has no intention of being a full-time senator.
Are you supporting Vice President Harris?
Yes, I’m supporting the Democratic ticket. I wish I could have a sit down with Vice President Harris, and talk about West Virginia and some of the specific concerns West Virginians have about the Democratic Party. I think that adding Governor Tim Walz to the ticket was an acknowledgement that Democrats need to do better in rural America, and I applaud that because I think he was the right type of candidate to add some balance to the ticket. But I do think at the end of the day, Democratic policies are by and large, better for West Virginians.
Anything else you want to say?
I guess the one thing I would say is that West Virginia is a state that has not had the best national reputation for some time, and I think some of that is just inevitable. We’ve always been a poor state. We’re an older state in terms of our population. I think as a result, a lot of national pundits have oversimplified the West Virginia voter, and I think that is a mistake. I think if you talk to people here, we’re not as monolithic as the national media may sometimes suggest and when they paint us as ruby red, I think the only thing that has served to do is to discourage qualified Democratic candidates from seeking office in West Virginia when they read that we’re hopelessly red.
Is there anything that you’ve done in your tenure as mayor that you would want to model your Senate work after?
I’m very proud of the way that we achieved a lot of our successes in a bipartisan way. The other thing is, I felt it was important that Wheeling be a leader in West Virginia on the front of civil rights. Our state is one of the several out there that does not provide employment and housing protections for members of the LGBTQ community. People may think Wheeling is pretty culturally conservative, but we were able to pass an LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination ordinance in wheeling by a vote of 7-to-0 back in 2016, when no one said it could be done. I’m very proud of that.
Polls close in West Virginia at 7:30 p.m.
Live updates on Election Day 2024
Medill News Service reporters provide live updates from polling places across Maryland and Washington on Election Day.
These reports are published in conjunction with the Washington Post.
6:07 p.m. – Few voters feel strongly towards Alsobrooks
By Ananya Chag
Democratic voters in Montgomery County said they’ve struggled with voting against former Republican Governor Larry Hogan for the senate seat.
“God I really love that guy, I’d vote for him for President,” Roberta “Bobby” Hammer, 49, said, just after voting at Poolesville Elementary School. “But we can’t lose the house,” Hammer said, referring to the Democratic party’s potential to win majority control of the Senate.
Hammer said that the “majority of the reason” she voted was for her three kids, two of them grown. While the family is Christian, she said that “female rights” were important when it came to abortion, and ultimately “opportunities” that her children “can and should have in life should never be anyone else’s decision.
”Hammer added that after talking with some other people about “struggling” with her vote, she was “convinced” to vote against Hogan, but “sad.
”Hammer also told the Post that even though she voted for Democrat Angela Alsobrooks, she didn’t know whether the senate candidate would best represent her interests.“It’s a gamble,” she said.
5:49 p.m. – Blue-collar workers vote for Trump and Hogan
By Sonya Dymova and Erica Schmitt
Plastered with Trump and Hogan signs, Dundalk, Md., stands out as a Republican stronghold in Baltimore County, which has been trending more Democratic in recent years.
At Logan Elementary School, most voters appeared to overwhelmingly vote for former President Donald Trump and former Governor Larry Hogan, citing concerns about immigration and economic policies impacting local blue-collar workers.
“My job is starting to get put on the wayside for cheaper labor,” said Justin Weber, a 36-year-old Dundalk resident who has worked in construction for 15 years. “To be honest, it’s costing me to try and find another job.”
Other voters echoed their support for Trump and Hogan, citing the impact of hyperinflation over the past four years on the blue-collar businesses where they work.
“I voted for Trump because my dollar went a lot further when he was in power and I had no problems with what he was doing,” said Brennan Howell, a 40-year-old industrial mechanic who voted Republican for both major races.
5:03 p.m. – FREDERICK COUNTY VOTERS ARRIVING TO THE POLLS INFORMED
By Caroline Killilea
As of 4:00 p.m., 1,365 Frederick County residents have voted at Orchard Grove Elementary School, according to the polling location’s chief judges.
This morning, 55 voters lined up early to cast their ballots, and the chief judges expect a post-work rush this evening.
Geoffrey Grammer, who ran against April McClain Delaney in the Democratic primary for Maryland’s 6th Congressional District, is outside Orchard Grove campaigning for Delaney. After dropping out of the race, Grammer endorsed Delaney and expressed confidence in her candidacy. “What I can tell you is she’s running for moral reasons because she wants to make the sixth district better,” he said.
Graham also noted that voters seem well-informed on the issues. “A lot of people are coming in informed. They know who they want to vote for, and they’ve done their homework. And that’s been really good to see. So it’s a very engaged electorate this election.”
4:31 p.m. – Marylanders Back Trump, Hogan Despite Divergent Views on Reproductive Rights
By Sonya Dymova and Erica Schmitt
Deborah Carr, 43, persuaded her partner, Joseph Giffin, 44, to vote in the election out of a sense of civic duty, though he claims it was Elon Musk who ultimately influenced him.
The warehouse workers cast their ballots for former President Trump and former Governor Larry Hogan at Logan Elementary School in Dundalk, Md., each motivated by different reasons.
“Immigration is big to me: When we have kids and, and elderly that are going hungry, it really can’t bring too much more of a drain on the economy,” Carr said. “It needs to be done in a more checks and balances environment.”
“I just like my freedom, so I’ll never vote Democrat,” Giffin added.
Despite voting for Republican candidates on the ballot, the couple is in favor of Question 1, a constitutional amendment that seeks to codify reproductive freedom and access to abortion in the state, as well as protect patients and providers from criminal charges stemming from abortion bans in other states.
“My significant other, he believes that he shouldn’t have any right to tell our daughter or any other woman what they should or shouldn’t do, and that’s exactly where I fall,” Carr said as Giffin nodded.
Giffin voted “No” by mistake.“Is that what it was?” he asked, appearing surprised. “It’s very complicated. Just say yes or no.”
Carr agreed and said it was too complicated for some constituents to understand.
”We don’t have a higher education — we have GEDs and we have high school graduates,” she said. “And some of the ways that those things are worded are very, very confusing.”
4:30 p.m. – PRINCE GEORGE COUNTY VOTERS CLASH ON DEMOCRATS’ COMMITMENT TO CLASS ISSUES
By Marisa Guerra Echeverria
When Rebecca Lasky, 42, voted at the Huntington Community Center mid-afternoon, she refused to vote for a Senate candidate.
Lasky, a dog groomer living in Bowie, Md., said her decision stemmed from her distrust in Angela Alsobrooks.
While she knew she did not want to vote for former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, she said she was “pissed off” that Alsobrooks improperly claimed tax exemptions for her properties while she had a comfortable salary compared to her constituents.
“We’re all struggling out here just trying to put groceries and gas in our car and we can barely get tax breaks when we’re poor, middle class,” Lasky said.
At the same time, another Bowie resident, William Rodriguez-Lott, 56, believes Democratic candidates up and down the ballot better represent middle and working-class interests.
Rodriguez-Lott, who takes turns as a nurse, truck driver and volunteer firefighter, said he believes Democrats have put actions behind their appeals to the working classes.
“I’m all for equal rights and giving middle and lower-class people a chance to show we could do better if given the opportunity,” Rodriguez-Lott said.
4:28 p.m. – PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY TRUMP-HOGAN VOTER BACKS PRO-CHOICE BALLOT MEASURE
By Hannah Webster
At Huntington Community Center, lifelong Prince George’s County resident Dean Brown, 44, cast his ballot for Republicans Donald Trump for President and former Governor Larry Hogan for Senator.
Brown cited economic concerns as his top priority, adding that his rent had reached $1865 due to inflation. He also said he was concerned about restrictions on gun ownership since people had broken into his house in the past.
Still, Brown voted yes on Question 1, which supports the constitutional right to an abortion in Maryland. He said he respects people’s rights to make those decisions for themself since he and his partner considered an abortion when he was younger.
“I decided not to, but I don’t discourage anybody from it,” he said. “If that’s what you want to do, go for it.“
3:57 p.m. – Military family in Baltimore County, MD votes for Trump, criticizes Biden’s Afghanistan withdraw
By Audrey Pachuta
For Kevin Prem and Ashley Taylor, voting for former President Trump was about returning to a time they felt was better.
Prem, a combat veteran who served in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Bahrain, criticized policies under the Biden-Harris administration, especially those affecting military personnel and their families. He pointed to President Biden’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, which resulted in the deaths of 13 American service members, as his primary motive to visit the polls.
“I’ll be damned if I don’t say something,” Prem said after casting his vote at Logan Elementary School in Dundalk.
Taylor, a 37-year-old store manager and Prem’s wife, agreed. She said she felt that Trump prioritized American citizens over foreign interests in a way his opponents did not.“
Life was better, life was peaceful, life was easier when Trump was in office,” Taylor said.
She cited rising costs as a major concern and echoed her husband’s view that re-electing Trump was the answer to their financial worries.
“When you’re on a plane and it’s going down, you have to put your own mask on first, and that’s what we have to do here in America,” Taylor said.
3:15 p.m. – Harris voter votes to bring things ‘back to normal’
By Raj Ghanekar
The 2016 election between former President Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton is front of mind for Cynthia Pendergraph, a Montgomery County resident.
The 55-year-old said that she “still [has] a lot of PTSD” from Trump’s win eight years ago, but after she cast her ballot for Kamala Harris at Poolesville Elementary School, she told the Washington Post she’s hopeful the vice president’s victory would allow the country to get “back to normal.”
Pendergraph said Trump’s rhetoric is too divisive, while Harris’s messaging speaks more to the unity she wants and gives her hope for deeper bipartisan cooperation.
“I feel like she’ll bring some Republicans into her actual cabinet, which will help us see the other side, and so we can actually have a conversation again,” Pendergraph said.
Pendergraph said she voted for Democrats down the ticket.
Reproductive rights was a big motivation for her choice in the Senate race, picking Prince George’s County executive Angela Alsobrooks over former Republican governor of Maryland Larry Hogan.
“I don’t really trust that the Republicans will keep their word, because they haven’t kept their word. Why should they start now?” Pendergraph said.
2:44 p.m. – Early Voters in Catonsville Mobilize in Different Ways on Election Day
By Erica Schmitt
Some early voters in Catonsville, Maryland are mobilizing in other ways on Election Day.
Mark Weaver, the president of the Southwest Baltimore county Democratic club, said he cast his ballot earlier in the week to focus on putting up posters in favor of Democratic candidate Angela Alsobrooks for senate and Question 1, which asks if the state should protect abortion rights in the constitution, across local polling stations like Catonsville High School.
“My task today is to make sure that all our local polling sites have signs. I’ve been [to] around 10 of them,” Weaver said.
Weaver also added that several members of the Democratic club traveled to Pennsylvania in the morning to help mobilize Democratic voters.
Meanwhile, Nancy Curry, a 75-year-old retiree, cast her ballot last week and spent the day canvassing in support of former President Donald Trump at Hillcrest Elementary School in Catonsville.
“I just feel like I needed to do my part today,” Curry said. “I think it’s really good versus evil, with the extreme policies on the other side, I’m concerned for my children and my grandchildren.”
Polling locations are expected to stay open the remainder of today, with a majority open until 7 p.m. in Catonsville.
2:30 p.m. – Voters ‘sad’ to go against Hogan
By Ananya Chag
Democratic voters in Montgomery County said they’ve struggled with voting against former Republican Governor Larry Hogan for the senate seat.
“God I really love that guy, I’d vote for him for President,” Roberta “Bobby” Hammer, 49, said, just after voting at Poolesville Elementary School. “But we can’t lose the house,” Hammer said, referring to the Democratic party’s potential to win majority control of the Senate.
Hammer said that the “majority of the reason” she voted was for her three kids, two of them grown. While the family is Christian, she said that “female rights” were important when it came to abortion, and ultimately “opportunities” that her children “can and should have in life should never be anyone else’s decision.”
Hammer added that after talking with some other people about “struggling” with her vote, she was “convinced” to vote against Hogan, but “sad.”
Hammer also told the Post that even though she voted for Democrat Angela Alsobrooks, she didn’t know whether the senate candidate would best represent her interests.“It’s a gamble,” she said.
2:07 p.m. – Marylander votes libertarian in Senate race over COVID lockdown resentment
By Sonya Dymova
John Dingle, a 56-year-old small business owner, voted for Mike Scott, the Senate Libertarian candidate, despite admitting he had no idea who the candidate was.
Walking out of Hillcrest Elementary in Catonsville, Md., he said what mattered most to him was voting against former governor and Republican nominee Larry Hogan.
“I voted against everybody that took my rights away during COVID,” Dingle said. “Governor Hogan did not allow us to assemble. He kept casinos, liquor stores open to close churches.”
Regarding the presidential race, Dingle was more deliberate in his choice. “I voted for Trump because he ran the government great for three and a half years until COVID came,” Dingle said. “I believe he gave too much power to Fauci.”
1:37 p.m. – Voters in Baltimore County vote Hogan based on experience, Alsobrooks for retaining blue majority
By Sonya Dymova, Audrey Pachuta and Erica Schmitt
At Hillcrest Elementary in Catonsville, Maryland voters in Baltimore County expressed support for Republican Larry Hogan for Senate, citing his previous experience as governor. Meanwhile, several Angela Alsobrooks supporters said they were voting for the Democrat to maintain the party’s control of the Senate.
“I went with the [former] governor,” Dan Noble, a 58-year-old federal government employee said. “For eight years, I feel like he did a really good job, and I know more about him than I do Alsobrooks.”
Some voters were willing to vote across party lines to extend their support for Hogan. Maria Czajkowski, a 66-year-old retiree voted for Vice President Harris in the presidential election but chose the Republican nominee for Senate.
“I know the argument for not voting for him, but I think he’s his own person and I respect what he’s done in the past,” she said.
For other voters, the choice came down to maintaining a Democratic majority in the Senate rather than Alsobrooks’ individual policies.
“Usually I vote for someone I feel strongly about, but in this case, I just feel strong about the fact that we can’t lose the Senate,” Regina Barkdull, a 60-year-old architect and registered Democrat said.
1:08 p.m. – Republican voters in Frederick County cast ballots in favor of enshrining abortion rights
By Eli Kronenberg and Caroline Killilea
Bruce Ricci, donning his MAGA hat to the polls, voted for Donald Trump. “I just think he’s a great guy,” Ricci said, adding he keeps the country “in hold.”
At the same time, Ricci strongly believes in a woman’s right to have an abortion and voted to enshrine abortion rights in Maryland’s constitution. “It’s just a very simple thing. You know, it shouldn’t be something that the government has a right to decide.”
Richard Howe, a 65-year-old CEO, said he voted straight-ticket Republican for the abortion amendment. “A woman’s fundamental right to choose is something I believe in,” Howe said.
Howe said he had no concerns that Trump, Hogan or Parrott would undermine abortion rights. “None of the candidates on the ticket have pledged to do anything,” he said. “It’s already been adjudicated by the Supreme Court. The worst [Trump] could do is add another Supreme Court justice.”
1:00 p.m. – Voters swap Harris votes in swing states for third-party votes in blue states
By Emma Richman
Some voters across the country are participating in the Swap Your Vote campaign to protest the Biden administration’s policy on Israel’s war on Gaza while also preventing a second Trump presidency.
Sumner Crenshaw, a 39-year-old Frederick, MD resident, said she swapped her vote for president with a swing state voter in Pennsylvania. Crenshaw voted third party for Socialist candidate Claudia de la Cruz, while her counterpart in Philadelphia voted for Vice President Kamala Harris.
“That way you get the harm reduction in that you are voting for the candidate most likely to do good, which is Harris-Walz,” Crenshaw said. “But you’re also still getting to get your voice heard that we are very frustrated with the current administration.”
A registered Democrat, Crenshaw said she voted blue for the other races on the ballot.
In addition to sending the Democratic Party a message that they should listen to progressive voters, Crenshaw said she hoped the effort would help get third-party candidates a larger share of the vote to secure more public funding in the future.
So far nearly 12,000 voters have swapped their vote, according to The Swap Your Vote campaign.
12:20 p.m. – Trump pushes a potential Republican away from party
By Emma Richman
There’s a steady stream of voters coming in and out of Lincoln Elementary School in Frederick, MD.
Peter Parker, a 74-year-old Navy veteran and retired restaurant worker said he thought about switching to the Republican Party in 2016, but Trump stopped him.
Parker said he is totally against former President Trump and he voted for Vice President Kamala Harris. He cited his religion and the Trump family’s racism as the main reason why.
“I’m a Christian and that’s not the way God wants things,” Parker told The Post. “Anyone that’s got a problem with race is against God.”
12:15 p.m. – Childcare costs from of mind for Germantown voter
By Jonas Kalderon Blum
Three generations of one family came to the polls at Germantown Elementary with one word in mind: affordability.
Grandmother Yulon Wimbush, 54, with her 11-month-old grandson in hand said, “childcare is too expensive. The Maryland voucher is no where near enough.”
Her daughter-in-law, Skylyn Wright, 26, added, “his daycare is more than my rent.”
Both said they voted for Kamala Harris, Angela Alsobrooks, and April McClain-Delaney.
She also said the right to abortion is paramount for her. “The future is counting on us…we need to protect the same rights my mom had,” Wright said.
Wimbush agreed and said, “Our rights are on the line. I certainly don’t want anything stripped away from me.”
She said she hopes men will also choose to support women’s freedom. “A lot of men don’t like women to overpower them, but that’s not it. It’s not overpower, it’s a balance. where I fall short you pick me up, where you fall short I pick you up.”
11:48 a.m. – HARRIS-HOGAN VOTERS ON WOMENS HEALTH
By Marisa Guerra Echeverria and Hannah Webster
At Arrowhead Elementary School in Upper Marlboro, Md., some split-ticket voters cited women’s health care as a top issue.
First-time voter Chanae Fowler Hewitt, 45, said she voted for Vice President Kamala Harris and former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan due to her past experiences with women’s health.
The mother of three referenced her own pregnancy complications and said her son was born through IVF and surrogacy.
“He said to me this morning that if certain laws were passed 17 years ago, he wouldn’t be here. So that really drove me to come out today to make sure I voted for that,” Fowler Hewitt said.
Despite statewide concerns of Hogan caucusing with Republicans on abortion restriction, Fowler Hewitt said she could not vote for Alsobrooks because she was unhappy with how Alsobrooks’ office handled her daughter’s sexual assault in 2019.
“After that, Hogan got my vote,” Fowler Hewitt said.
Showing up to vote in a pink blazer and a pin from Delta Sigma Theta — a historically African American sorority — Mia Jordan also split her ticket to vote for Harris and Hogan.
Jordan, who is in her forties, said reproductive freedom was a top issue, with both herself and her ten-year-old daughter in mind. While she said that the Republican Party does not consult the right experts regarding women’s health, she trusted Hogan because of his work as Governor.
“We need a very focused and upright individual to be represented in that party,” Jordan said. “I don’t think that he’s a party line guy.”
11:40 a.m. – FREDERICK COUNTY VOTERS ON DELANEY V. PARROTT RACE
By Caroline Killilea
Democratic voters in Frederick County, Maryland say they don’t trust Republican Neil Parrott as the Sixth Congressional District’s Representative in the House.
“I think he’s representing certain groups and not protecting everybody,” said Tav Laskauskas, 40.
“That’s a problem for me.”Jennifer Gamertsfelder, 37, says she cast her ballot for Delaney both to vote with her party and because she felt strongly that Parrott shouldn’t have the House seat. “I did an anti-vote. I was anti-Parrott, mostly, to be honest.”
11:38 a.m. – Montgomery County Voter Splits with Family at the Polls
By Jonas Kalderon Blum
28-year-old Kat Schaufele brought her young daughter with her to Roberto W. Clemente Middle School to vote for all the Democrats on her Montgomery County ballot, even though she felt torn on the Senate race.“I struggled with the Senate because I definitely want to keep the Senate blue, but I liked Larry Hogan as governor,” Schaufele said.
Originally from Anne Arundel county, Schaufele said her vote definitely opposed many people in her extended family. “They’re all red all the way.”While she’s registered as a Democrat, she said she sees herself as down the middle, “red and blue just like Maryland.” She is hopeful “the world is a little less chaotic before [her daughter] turns 18.”
11:35 a.m. – Elderly voters on Trump
By Ananya Chag
Elderly voters in Montgomery County are expressing sentiments about wanting to “keep Trump out of office.”
Hand in hand with her husband, Pamela Loomis, 67, told the Post after voting at Roberte Clemente Middle School that she didn’t “think Trump was mentally competent.” She said that she and her husband both proudly voted for Harris.
“It’d be a disaster to get Trump back in,” Phyllis Palmer, 77, said, adding that she was a “Democrat all the way.” She said she’s staying positive and hopes to get the “right people in there.” She added that she didn’t plan on watching the polls and she liked to just “hear what happens.”
11:33 a.m. – New mom prefers Harris, cites the economy as reason why
By Raj Ghanekar
New mom Deborah Aning went to vote at Roberto W. Clemente Middle School in Montgomery County around lunchtime, giving the 30-year-old a chance to beat the afternoon rush.
Aning, who voted for Kamala Harris, says the economy has put pressure on her as a prospective homeowner and with a young son at home. She worries whether she’ll be able to consistently afford baby formula or buy a home someday. But Harris’s policies give her hope.
“I think what she’s bringing will help me as a new mom and as a new parent, and I think that it’ll give Americans a chance to feel that they can also achieve their financial goals and dreams,” Aning said.
But her young family wasn’t the only thing on her mind. The decision was also based on what’s best for her elderly parents.
“When you see a retiree, they have contributed their years into working in American society,” Aning said. “They deserve to have some sort of income so they can survive.”
10:50 a.m. – Voting blue in Upper Marlboro
By Coby Potischman
Kayleen Irizarry, 53, brought her grandson Damian to the polls with her “to hold my hand as we voted for the first Madam President” and said that she is voting straight-ticket Democratic.
She had considered voting for former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, but felt that the stakes of Senate control were too high.
Irizarry, who was born in Puerto Rico and lived there until the age of five, donned a red “Puerto Rico” hat and said that she is “making a statement” about the controversial “garbage” remarks made about the territory at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally.
In a follow-up text message, she said “we Puerto Ricans, no matter the percentage of PR blood, whether born in PR or anywhere, hold a special bond to the island and the PR flag. It’s sacred. When poked, we come together and take action.”
10:50 a.m. – Voters still torn on Maryland Senate
By Eli Kronenberg
In Maryland’s hotly contested Senate race between Democratic Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks and Republican former Governor Larry Hogan, some voters are still undecided, even moments before entering their polling place.
Malcom Albright, a 33-year-old grocery store night crew worker voting at Lincoln Elementary School in Frederick County, told The Post he still hadn’t made up his mind in the Senate race and would make a “snap decision” in the ballot box. “I really kinda like Hogan and what he was doing beforehand — the way he’s more bipartisan and tries to make common ground between both parties,” Albright said.
But ultimately, Albright said he would probably vote for Alsobrooks “to give Democrats more seat power.” Albright is voting for Kamala Harris, who he said is “better aligned toward where we should be going as a society.”
10:04. a.m. – Upper Marlboro Judge on Harris-Stein ballot errors
By Marisa Guerra Echeverria, Coby Potischman and Hannah Webster
Darlene Rowe, a Chief Judge at Arrowhead Elementary School in Upper Marlboro, Md. said a woman complained that her vote was switched from Kamala Harris to Jill Stein between 8 and 8:15 a.m. this morning.
Since then, 12 others have complained of the same issue, Rowe said. Of those 13, two ballots were spoiled and the rest caught the mistake when reviewing their selection before submitting their ballot.
8:36 a.m. – Ward 8 voters say they will still support Trayon White despite indictment
By Heather Zhu and Sarah Lin
Rodney Brown, 49, said that he will continue to support Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White amid his indictment on federal bribery changes because of White’s support of a law to allow a “second chance” for people who are incarcerated from crimes they committed as children.
“I know he’s innocent until proven guilty. But Trayon does a lot for the community,” Brown said at Ferebee-Hope Recreation Center, a polling site in southeast DC.
Brown, who is formerly incarcerated, said that he is “in the process of seeking justice” for a murder charge which he said he was wrongfully convicted for. Brown praised White for his support of a DC law which “gives people a second chance” if they were incarcerated when they were young, have served more than a certain period of time in prison and maintained a good record while incarcerated.
DC Council passed the Second Look Amendment Act in 2021, an expansion of the Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act which allows a person who committed a crime before the age of 25 and who has served at least 15 years in prison to petition to have their sentence reviewed.
“This law makes us eligible for a second chance,” Brown said.
Kayla Dunbar, 26, said she will also continue to vote for White based off his previous community work as a Councilmember.
“We love him. I voted for him. And you know why? Because every other politician in the world has gone through something,” she said at Ferebee-Hope Recreation Center. “Everybody’s going to do something. As long as you’re doing your job in the community, I have nothing.”
7:51 a.m. – Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White claims charges don’t affect his re-election run
By Heather Zhu and Sarah Lin
Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White said his federal bribery indictment charges will not affect his capacity to serve as an elected official, declining to comment further.
White stood outside Ferebee-Hope Recreation Center in Southeast DC, wearing a red beanie and a navy blue suit. He talked to and shook hands with constituents and voters who arrived at the voting site. He also took a selfie with an election worker, who was promptly asked to leave afterward.“I’m still here working, doing God’s work. I continue to do it as long as God gives me the ability to do it. Just want to tell people I’m still out here, still working,” White said.
He said he voted for himself, but declined to comment on his vote for the presidential election. He also said he did not support Initiative 83, calling it “too complicated.”
Could voter ID laws backfire on Republicans?
In the four years since former President Donald Trump’s unsuccessful attempt to overturn the 2020 election through false claims of voter fraud, Republicans across the country have intensified efforts to enact new restrictions on voting they argue will strengthen election security.
Georgia’s Election Integrity Act of 2021 drew special attention for its provisions that some viewed as suppressive, including sections substantially narrowing the window for voters to request a mail-in ballot and requiring additional identification for absentee voters. President Joe Biden led a chorus of Democratic officials sounding the alarm on the Georgia law, calling it “Jim Crow in the 21st century.”
North Carolina and Wisconsin, two other swing states, also have strict voter ID laws on the books from Republican-backed legislative initiatives. While Wisconsin’s dates back to 2011, North Carolina only began implementing its legislation in 2023, when the state Supreme Court overturned its own decision that had struck down the 2018 measure for racial discrimination.
According to Marjorie Hershey, a professor emeritus of political science at Indiana University, Republicans theorized that “less educated people and low-income people are more likely to vote Democratic, and because they are the least likely to vote overall, the tougher you make voting the more likely you are to exclude them from the final results.”
Yet, in the build-up to the 2024 presidential election, polling has consistently shown Trump leading among infrequent voters and those without a college degree.
A recent NBC News poll found that Vice President Kamala Harris has a 14-point advantage over Trump among white college graduates, while Trump led by 32 points among white voters without a college degree — margins that mirror Biden’s estimated splits against Trump in 2020.
New York Times/Siena College polling from before Biden dropped out of the race showed Trump leading by 10 points among voters who had never previously voted in a primary or midterm, while Biden had a 4-point edge with all other voters.
Given that low-propensity and non-college-educated voters have shifted toward the Republican Party, some have suggested that voter ID laws may now benefit Democrats. Journalist Matthew Yglesias recently made that case in a post on X (formerly Twitter). “Liberals have been slow to wake up to the fact that the low-propensity voters are now Republicans and there’s no reason to take an unpopular stand against voter ID laws,” Yglesias wrote.
Could voter ID laws in fact shut out votes from an increasingly important demographic within Trump’s base?
“Republicans have spent so long trying to make it difficult for people to vote, and yet now it’s almost turned around to the point where irregular voters lean more Republican,” Lakshya Jain, co-founder of the election forecasting website Split Ticket, said. “It’s definitely one of the stranger things I’ve seen.”
However, Jain said it was hard to conclude what the practical impact of the laws would be. “It really depends on how targeted these [laws] are in terms of effects by race,” Jain said. “If these disproportionately impact Black people, you’re going to get a pro-Republican effect.”
The question of whether voter ID laws impact overall voter turnout has been studied by political scientists for years, but little conclusive evidence has emerged.
“It’s been a very controversial topic in political science,” Marc Meredith, a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania and senior analyst on the NBC News Decision Desk, said. “While there may be important effects of voter ID laws on certain individuals’ ability to vote, there is not much evidence that the typical voter ID law has much of an effect on aggregate turnout.”
Meredith said examples of voters who might struggle to vote under new restrictions include students in states where student IDs are not considered valid voter IDs (such as Arizona, Ohio and Texas) and individuals who recently moved to a state but haven’t yet obtained a driver’s license. “Many of these variables are not that clearly tied to party in the first place,” he said.
Meanwhile, Hershey mentioned the existence of studies that found turnout increasing among groups who perceived they were being suppressed because, she said, “those folks get pissed off.”
To the extent that voter ID laws do suppress the vote, Hershey said, pollsters are not cleanly capturing the political sentiments of those who would be most affected because the “non-college” category still encompasses a wide range of educational experiences and income levels.
“Those folks at the very bottom of the educational scale and the income scale tend to still vote Democratic,” Hershey said. “It’s just they don’t vote very much.”
Both parties remain desperate to turn out voters who lean in their direction ideologically but rarely engage in politics. While the extra hurdles introduced by recent election laws may present a risk for Republicans, their ultimate impact remains unclear.
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Medill Today | November 21, 2024