Category: Election

By Larry Turner

Cynthia and I, first and foremost, would like to thank every San Diegan who stepped forward to make our city a better place; everything we accomplished in this campaign was because of the amazing volunteers, contributors, and voters who joined in the fight.

We started out as a no-name, grassroots campaign surviving on $5 donations, taking on “the system,” and became a force to be reckoned with, knocking the high-profile incumbent to less than 50% in the Primary Election, and 55% in the General Election.

Even though we were outspent by special interests and developers who directly benefit from City actions, our election margin was still closer than any of the other high-profile campaigns in the region, including for City Attorney, City Council, or County Supervisor.

Nearly our entire campaign team was made up of unpaid volunteers, and what we accomplished through sheer grit and determination is amazing.

By Kate Callen

Amidst the 2024 election gloom, glimmers of hope have emerged. The brightest spot locally was the 79th Assembly District race, where educator LaShae Sharp-Collins beat attorney Colin Parent 53% to 47%. And both are Democrats.

It was an unexpected outcome in an unusual race. Parent, the CEO of Circulate San Diego and a La Mesa City Councilmember, won the March primary outright. Sharp-Collins edged out Lemon Grove Mayor Racquel Vasquez for second place. They both trailed Parent by 10 points.

Parent raised twice as much money as Sharp-Collins. Between January and June 1, he took in $687,600 to her $318,835. His donors included real estate developers. Hers included teachers and doctors.

By Marjorie Cohn / Truthout / November 12, 2024

[Please see original for important links]

Employing federal troops to suppress domestic protests and deport immigrants from U.S. soil en masse would be illegal, but Donald Trump has been pushing to do so since his first administration. The recent Supreme Court decision granting presidents nearly absolute immunity for official acts has created a situation with far fewer guardrails to prevent Trump from abusing his authority in his second presidential term.

Trump and his allies have reportedly drafted plans for him to deploy the military against civil demonstrators on his first day in office, according to a Washington Post report from November 2023. And Trump, who promised to carry out the largest deportation effort in U.S. history, has also indicated that he will use the military to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.

By Geoff Page

As I thought about the Presidential election result this week, one thought dominated over everything. For the first time in my 73 years, I am ashamed to call myself an American.

I’m not naïve, I am familiar with the dark side of America’s history. We have a lot in our past to be ashamed of. Our founding on slavery and slaughter of the indigenous people was the start. As if that were not shame enough, that the effects of both still linger hundreds of years later is equally as shameful.

Racism, religious zealotry, misogyny, we have it all. Meddling in foreign governments, meddling that consisted of assassinations and wars.

But even with all of that, I always felt that what this country has accomplished was a counterweight to the shameful. I came of age in the 1960s that began with huddling under a puny elementary school desk for protection against an atomic bomb.

I lived in Arlington , Virginia, across the Potomac River from the nation’s capital. We lived about five miles from downtown D.C. Everyone knew that D.C. was a likely target in the event of a nuclear war.

I was in the 7th grade when John Kennedy was killed.

I was in high school in 1968 when Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed. I saw the devastation the riots left behind in D.C. Blocks of burned out and boarded up buildings that were once stores. Burned out hulks of cars.

Two short months later, Bobby Kennedy was killed. It began to feel like the world was falling apart, and it was.

by Ernie McCray

Mass deportation
is uppermost
in a mad man’s plan
on his first day back
to being president again
and my eyes dampen
as vivid recollections
flood my mind,
memories of an earlier time
in my lifetime.

1944.|
I was six years old.

Editordude: This Op-Ed by NY Times columnist Michelle Goldberg reprinted in the LA Times helped me to understand that I was truly grieving — in grief — about the death of democracy — and it helped me get through the weekend. I wanted to share it.

By Michelle Goldberg / The Spokesman Review – New York Times /Sat., Nov. 9, 2024 

When Donald Trump won the first time, I spoke to a journalist friend in Turkey to commiserate. I told her about all the protests that were planned, and she gently tried to prepare me for disappointment. She and her friends had protested Recep Tayyip Erdogan when he was prime minister, she said. But in time, the protests subsided, and life within a country of diminishing freedoms ground on. This conversation stayed in my mind throughout the Trump presidency as a warning against letting down our guard. When Trump was finally ejected from the White House, I felt patriotic pride in the endurance of the anti-Trump resistance, which had never for a moment accepted his grotesquerie as our new normal.

It won’t be that way this time.

By Laura Meckler and Andrew Jeong / Washington Post / November 9, 2024

For most of the country, predictions that Election Day would morph into election week or election month did not come to pass.
Then there’s California, where millions of ballots remain uncounted.

The most populous state in the union has one of the longest vote-counting processes. That’s partly because California has so many ballots to count and partly because the state makes it easy for its citizens to vote, which means election officials have to work harder to certify that ballots are valid.

The result is — it may take a while for results. As of midday Saturday, 10 House races in California had yet to be called, with control of the House on the line. Also uncalled were a few closely fought ballot initiatives, including one that would gradually raise the minimum wage to $18 per hour.

As of Saturday, there were nearly 5 million uncounted ballots, including more than 950,000 in Los Angeles County alone. County officials have 30 days to count their ballots and report them to the secretary of state, which then certifies the results.

The Washington Post reports :

As of Saturday, there were nearly 5 million uncounted ballots in California, including more than 950,000 in Los Angeles County alone. County officials have 30 days to count their ballots and report them to the secretary of state, which then certifies the results.

Days after Republicans won the presidency and control of the Senate, the exact makeup of the 119th Congress remained unclear, with control of the House uncertain and one Senate seat left to be called.

Early Saturday, Sen. Jacky Rosen (D) was projected to win Nevada’s Senate race, according to the Associated Press, marking a victory for Democrats in one of the last Senate seats to be called.

On election night, Republicans secured enough seats to attain the Senate majority. Arizona’s Senate race remains the last one without a projected winner. There, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D) leads Republican Kari Lake. If Gallego wins, Republicans will have a 53-seat majority.

The current balance of power in the House is 212 Republicans and 203 Democrats, with 20 races remaining uncalled. Republicans need to win six of them to secure a majority; Democrats need to win 15.

What’s left to be called

By Brae Canlen

The recriminations were swift, against Biden, Harris, and the Democrats. He should have stepped down sooner. She ran a lousy campaign. They should have given us a better candidate.

True or false, these are not the reasons why Donald Trump will become the 47th president of the United States. As of late Thursday, more than 72 million people voted for him. I’m pretty sure that most of them knew – they knew – he was not a good man. And they didn’t care.

It would be easy to demonize these people, and let’s face it, some of them are wackos (Proud Boys, QAnon, Oath Keepers, etc.). But when I looked at all those red states on the election map Tuesday night, after the polls had closed, I tried to think of the average people who lived there. The parents who had 2.5 kids, pay a monthly $2,209 mortgage payment, and carry a credit card balance of $6,642.

Sen. Bernie Sanders is blaming the Democratic Party after Vice President Kamala Harris lost to now President-elect Donald Trump and Republicans gained control of the Senate.

In a statement shared on social media Wednesday — see below — the U.S. senator from Vermont said party leadership must have “serious political discussions” about Latino and Black workers voting for Republican candidates.

“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,” Sanders wrote. “While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right.”

Sanders, 83, highlighted several issues he believes the nation has failed to address under the Biden-Harris Administration, from wealth inequality and a worsening standard of living to high prescription drug prices and the lack of guaranteed medical leave.

By Rex Huppke

We are a country that just elected – that just willfully chose – one of the most cruel, unscrupulous and transparently self-serving political figures in modern history to be president. Again.

I never want to hear the words “America is better than this” again. I never want to be told about America’s better angels.

I want honesty. I want an admission of exactly who we are as a country, and let’s be damn clear about that definition: We are a country that just elected – that just willfully chose – one of the most cruel, unscrupulous and transparently self-serving political figures in modern history to be president. Again.