Politics
Harris world blame game begins after crushing loss to Trump
President-elect Trump’s historic victory over Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday has surrogates of the Democratic candidate pointing fingers and laying blame for the defeat – even before Harris officially concedes.
Harris-Walz surrogate Lyndi Li spoke to Fox News Senior White House Correspondent Jacqui Heinrich at Howard University, Harris’ alma mater, in Washington, D.C., saying that the Harris team wasn’t “expecting a blowout at all.”
“The blame game has started,” said Li, a member of the DNC National Finance Committee and Pennsylvania commissioner.
Li said that Harris’ pick for vice president, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, may not have been the right choice to carry the “blue wall” states against the Trump-Vance ticket.
TRUMP CLAIMS VICTORY, HARRIS SKIPS PARTY: THE BIGGEST SURPRISES OF ELECTION NIGHT
“One of the things that are top of mind is the choice of Tim Walz as vice presidential candidate,” Li said. “A lot of people are saying tonight that it should have been Josh Shapiro. Frankly, people have been saying that for months.”
“I know a lot of people are probably wondering tonight what would have happened had Shapiro been on the ticket,” Li continued. “And not only in terms of Pennsylvania. He’s famously a moderate. So that would have signaled to the American people that she is not the San Francisco liberal that Trump said she was.”
Li added that she was “not sure how much Tim Walz contributed to the ticket” as the campaign was forced into “cleaning up” the governor’s “laundry list” of gaffes.
“In the eyes of the American people, he was the governor who oversaw the protests in Minnesota and probably let it go on longer than he should have. So that has been seared in the minds of American people,” she said.
“And also, ideally, you don’t say on national TV that you’re a knucklehead,” Li said, referring to a moment during the Vice Presidential Debate in which Walz was forced to correct a misstatement that he had been in Hong Kong during the deadly Tiananmen Square protests in the spring of 1989. “I just think that’s his very baseline stuff, like politics 101.”
Li noted that Harris’ attempt to present herself as “a unifier” may have “undermined her goal” of getting Biden supporters “who were maybe still understandably upset that their leader was unceremoniously, basically pushed aside.”
LIBERALS FUME ON SOCIAL MEDIA AS FOX NEWS PROJECTS TRUMP WINNING PRESIDENCY: ‘WHAT IS F—ING HAPPENING’
Harris appearance on ABC’s “The View” may also have been a missed opportunity to show how a Harris administration would not have just been a repeat of Biden’s four years, according to Li.
“She knows a mistake was to say on ‘The View’ that she couldn’t think of a single thing that she would do differently from the Biden administration,” Li said. “That was the opener for her to show Americans that she’s going to get tough on the border, that she’s going to take drastic measures to bring down inflation. That was her chance.”
Li also pointed to concerns about the leadership of Harris’ Pennsylvania team making poor staffing decisions that ultimately led to muddled campaign messaging.
“[Harris] heard us. We raised serious concerns about the Pennsylvania campaign’s leadership,” Li said. “She actually installed someone on her own people in the final weeks of the campaign, but I fear it was too late. …We should have people who deeply understand, intimately understand the contours of the state rather than out-of-state operatives who move from campaign to campaign.”
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Harris did not speak to supporters who gathered at her alma mater overnight. She is expected to speak later Wednesday.
Politics
Jon Stewart's election-night scream came with a promise: 'This isn't the end'
Jon Stewart’s “quick message” to election pollsters was an expletive-laden, scream-filled rant that coincided with the result of President Trump winning reelection on Tuesday.
“The Daily Show” guest host, who will continue to anchor the late-night talk show through 2025, initially directed his ire at pollsters who claimed that the presidential election would be close (among other predictions) and apparently underestimated Trump’s potential comeback. Then he unleashed an NSFW directive (that we will not repeat in this family newspaper).
“I don’t ever wanna f— hear from you again. Ever. I don’t ever wanna hear ‘We’ve corrected for the over-correction.’ You don’t know s— about s—. And I don’t care for you,” the agitated host said during the live election-night special as results came in.
“Here’s what we know: It’s that we don’t really know anything,” Stewart declared. “We’re going to come out of this election and we’re going to make all kinds of pronouncements about what this country is and what this world is. And the truth is, we’re not really gonna know s—. And we’re going to make it seem like this is the finality of our civilization. We’re all going to have to wake up tomorrow morning and work like hell to move the world to the place that we prefer it to be.”
Stewart reiterated that the lessons that pundits take away from these results and the pronouncements they make with certainty “will be wrong.”
The veteran “Daily Show” host, who returned to the Comedy Central desk as interim host in February, looked back at the “post-racial” proclamations ABC News pundit George Stephanopoulos made when Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008 and Bill O’Reilly’s remarks on Fox News about a GOP pivot on Hispanic voters when Obama was reelected in 2012. Stewart also presented additional proclamations from pundits ushering in a younger, new generation after Trump, then cut to a contradicting clip of then-78-year-old Joe Biden accepting the 2020 election nomination at the Democratic National Convention.
Stewart said that “winning message” ultimately led to the Jan. 6 insurrection, and the lesson from that — as the pundits framed it at the time — was Trump would be departing the White House as a “pariah” and never be allowed to step foot in the Capitol again. Also wrong.
“My point is this,” Stewart said, launching into a bleeped outcry. “But this isn’t the end. I promise you. This is not the end. And we have to regroup and we have to continue to fight and continue to work day in and day out to create the better society for our children, for this world, for this country that we know is possible. It’s possible.”
The 15-time Emmy Award winner wasn’t the only TV personality who was shocked on live television Tuesday night. CNN’s Jake Tapper went viral when he uttered “holy smokes” in reaction to an election map that was showing Trump’s opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, not “over-performing” Biden on John King’s digital map.
“Literally nothing?” the CNN anchor said in disbelief during the live broadcast when the Magic Wall showed a grayed out map. “Literally not one county?”
King, CNN’s national correspondent, had pressed the wrong button and clarified that the map was showing states. He then toggled to another map that showed a few counties where Harris outperformed Biden by 3% or more.
“There might be more out here in the West Coast,” King added. “It’s possible one or two more as they finish the count here. But in the states that matter … in one county in battleground Pennsylvania, she’s outperforming President Biden by 3% or more.”
Politics
Fox News projects Democrat AG Bob Ferguson to win Washington governor's race
The Fox News Decision Desk projects Democratic state Attorney General Bob Ferguson will win Washington state’s gubernatorial race, an open race with the retirement of Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee, who decided not to seek a fourth term.
The state’s top lawyer since 2013, Ferguson ran on a platform of continuity and reform, and has positioned himself as a defender of progressive values in a state known for its Democratic leanings. He is also known for taking on high-profile lawsuits against the Trump administration and corporations.
He won with 74% of the vote in the August primaries.
Ferguson’s campaign has been marked by his sharp criticism of his opponent, former U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert, on hot-button issues such as abortion. Ferguson has attacked Reichert for his previous support for a nationwide abortion ban as out of touch with Washington’s values.
FERGUSON WINS PRIMARY, ADVANCES TO GENERAL ELECTION IN WASHINGTON GUBERNATORIAL RACE
Ferguson’s endorsements include prominent state leaders like Inslee and U.S. Sen. Patty Murray.
Washington hasn’t elected a Republican governor in 40 years.
Reichert was a congressman from 2005 to 2019, and prior to that was King County sheriff for eight years. He gained national recognition for capturing the “Green River Killer” during his time as sheriff.
The 2024 race marks the first open gubernatorial election in Washington since 2012, during which time the state’s political landscape has grown more divided, with progressive policies shaping Seattle and surrounding cities, while rural and suburban regions lean more conservative.
The 2024 race marks the first open gubernatorial election in Washington since 2012. Since then, the state’s political landscape has grown more divided, with progressive policies shaping Seattle and surrounding cities, while rural and suburban regions lean more conservative.
FERGUSON WINS PRIMARY, ADVANCES TO GENERAL ELECTION IN WASHINGTON GUBERNATORIAL RACE
Ferguson racked up healthy margins in the state’s major population centers of Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia, while losing in the state’s more conservative eastern counties.
Ferguson was able to capitalize on the popularity of outgoing Gov. Inslee, while also pledging to combat the opioid epidemic and boost law enforcement presence in the state.
Politics
Levi's heir Daniel Lurie leads in early returns in heated San Francisco mayor's race
SAN FRANCISCO — Philanthropist and Levi’s heir Daniel Lurie took the lead in early returns Tuesday, holding an edge against incumbent Mayor London Breed and three other Democrats vying in the heated race for San Francisco mayor.
But with thousands of votes still uncounted, the final results were far from clear. San Francisco’s ranked-choice voting system, which allows voters to select multiple candidates by order of preference, complicates the process of quickly identifying a winner.
The city uses a multiround process to count the ranked-choice ballots, and it could take several rounds of tallying before a winner receives more than 50% of the vote. After each round, the candidate with fewest votes is eliminated and those votes are redistributed to the remaining contenders.
Breed, a moderate Democrat and the first Black woman to hold the city’s mayoral post, had 25% of first-choice votes in early results, compared with 29% for Lurie, a fellow centrist Democrat.
The early returns showed Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, the only candidate in the race running as an old-school progressive, with 21% of first-choice votes; venture capitalist Mark Farrell, a moderate, with 18% of first-choice votes; and Supervisor Ahsha Safaí trailing with 3% of first-choice votes.
Speaking to supporters Tuesday night at the bar Victory Hall in the South of Market district, Breed struck an upbeat tone and urged patience with early results. “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over,” Breed told the crowd. “I have been behind before. I have been counted out before.”
In a marked shift for San Francisco, the city’s wealthy tech sector played an influential role in this year’s mayoral race. Tech titans who have put down roots in the city — and who continue to see San Francisco as an international hub for high tech — poured millions of dollars into campaign contributions, pressing for an outcome that would infuse this famously liberal city with more centrist politics.
That money overwhelmingly benefited Lurie, Farrell and Breed.
Breed, a San Francisco native, was first elected in 2018, winning a special election after the unexpected death of then-Mayor Ed Lee. She has led the city through a challenging period that includes the unsettling early spread of COVID-19 and the subsequent exodus of scores of downtown tech workers who, amid pandemic-related shutdowns, found themselves able to work remotely — and more cheaply — from other cities.
Detractors painted the election as a referendum on Breed’s efforts to address sprawling homeless encampments, rampant property crime and a flagging post-pandemic economy that cut at voters’ sense of a safe, well-functioning city.
“People in San Francisco are frustrated. On crime, on homelessness, on conditions of the streets,” said Jim Ross, a veteran Bay Area Democratic strategist. “The other issue is, this is Year 6 for London Breed. Any politician, their sixth year in office is really a difficult year because people are really looking at you as ‘What have you done?’”
Breed has highlighted recent data showing improvements on some of those issues, notably a reduction in property crime and violent crime over the last year. She has touted her policies to bolster police staffing, increase drug-related arrests and clear homeless encampments. And she has promoted new initiatives to repopulate empty storefronts and enliven the night life with markets and music festivals.
Many of her supporters touted her quick action to shut down San Francisco in the early days of the COVID emergency, a decision credited with saving thousands of lives. And she earned influential endorsements from housing advocacy organizations based on her work to ease San Francisco’s affordable housing shortage.
“I am the change,” she often said on the campaign trail.
Her leading opponents dismissed that progress as too little, too late.
Both Lurie and Farrell promised a more concerted crackdown on crime and homelessness and to reinvigorate the downtown economy. They emerged as appealing alternatives among voters who appreciated Breed’s messaging but had lost confidence in her ability to guide San Francisco out of crisis.
Lurie distinguished himself as the political “outsider” running against four City Hall veterans. He pledged to root out government corruption, a concern among voters following a series of political scandals in city departments and nonprofits in recent years.
Lurie had the advantage of his family’s vast wealth from the Levi Strauss fortune to buoy his campaign and strengthen his name recognition. He showered his campaign with more than $8 million of his own money.
His mother, Miriam Haas, contributed more than $1 million to an independent committee backing his mayoral bid. She married her second husband, Lurie’s stepfather Peter Haas, when Lurie was a young boy. Peter Haas, now deceased, was the great-grandnephew of the Levi’s founder and a longtime executive at the company.
Breed frequently characterized Lurie as an inexperienced leader who relied on his family’s money to get ahead.
Lurie responded by touting his role as founder of Tipping Point, a San Francisco nonprofit that funds efforts to lift people out of poverty, to highlight his commitment to solving intractable problems. He said the organization has funneled $500 million to Bay Area organizations focused on early childhood education, school scholarships, housing and job training since its founding nearly two decades ago.
Farrell entered the race amid fanfare from supporters garnered during his seven years as a supervisor and six months as interim mayor before Breed was elected in 2018. He marketed himself as the candidate whose blend of political and business experience made him most qualified to get San Francisco back on track.
But his campaign was clouded by ethical concerns. This week, Farrell agreed to pay a fine of $108,000 following an investigation by city officials that determined he had illegally financed his mayoral campaign with money poured into a separate ballot measure committee he sponsored to reduce the number of government commissions in San Francisco.
Peskin, a longtime supervisor well-known in local politics, organized a robust grassroots campaign that openly embraced a liberal agenda. He frequently contrasted his working-class donors with the massive influx of tech money flowing to Lurie, Farrell and Breed. He focused his campaign on traditional San Francisco ideals, such as making the city affordable for nurses, teachers and the artists and bohemians who have long made the city a creative hub.
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