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Kellyanne Conway becomes first woman to successfully run a presidential campaign
November 9, 2016 -
CNN's Abby Phillip reacts to potential Biden victory: 'Black women did that'
10:31 a.m. -
Trump allies reportedly discussing who will have to break the news of his potential loss
10:18 a.m. -
The Trump campaign insists 'the election is not over' as Biden looks to lock in Pennsylvania
9:56 a.m. -
Trump doesn't have to concede. But it could affect Biden's Secret Service protection.
9:35 a.m. -
Wisconsin Republicans caught apparently encouraging voter fraud in Pennsylvania
9:12 a.m. -
Biden takes the lead in Pennsylvania, putting him in position to win the presidency
9:05 a.m. -
Pennsylvania's Republican senator shoots down Trump's claims of voter fraud
8:59 a.m.
Hillary Clinton may not have been elected president, but other glass ceilings were shattered on Election Day nonetheless. One such historic moment came from Trump's own camp, where Kellyanne Conway became the first woman to successfully run a presidential campaign:
Take a bow, @KellyannePolls. First woman to run a successful presidential campaign in U.S. history.
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) November 9, 2016
Conway was Trump campaign's third campaign manager, having been appointed in August. Jeva Lange
On Friday morning, Biden pulled ahead in Pennsylvania, putting him in position to win the presidency if he holds his lead. On CNN, White House correspondent Abby Phillip took a moment to process what it would mean for the Trump era to end in such a way. "Can I just say," she began, "that for Black women, this has been really a proving moment for their political strength, in carrying Joe Biden to the Democratic nomination through the primary. Black women did that."
But the moment is about more than just Biden, Phillip stressed. It's also about Black women having potentially put a Black woman in the White House, too, with would-be Vice President Kamala Harris. "That is the historical poetry that I think we will live with for a long time," Phillip said. "Donald Trump's political career began with the racist birther lie. It may very well end with a Black woman in the White House." Watch below. Jeva Lange
Abby Phillip: "Donald Trump's political career began with the racist birther lie. It may very well end with a Black woman in the White House." pic.twitter.com/FlCCZyqnVl
— Lis Power (@LisPower1) November 6, 2020
As former Vice President Joe Biden appears on the cusp of potentially winning the presidency, President Trump's allies are reportedly discussing how to tell him that he may have lost his re-election bid.
No winner in the presidential race has been projected yet, but as Biden pulls ahead in Pennsylvania, CNN reports that those around Trump are discussing who might have a tough discussion with the president, who has baselessly claimed he is being cheated out of a victory.
"People around Trump are working to identify who might be able to communicate to him the stark reality," CNN reports. "There has been talk of potentially Jared Kushner or Ivanka Trump, though their willingness to lead a difficult intervention wasn't clear."
One way of doing so that has been discussed, CNN writes, is "framing potential conversations with Trump around the idea of preserving his brand for life after being president," and The New York Times also reports that Republicans are discussing how to bring up with Trump "what leaving quietly could mean for his family, his business and his own ability to remain in politics."
But according to CNN, Trump has "given virtually no thought" to the idea that he might not win a second term, and that idea was "not discussed widely among his team." He also reportedly does not have a concession speech prepared.
Trump has reportedly told people he does not intend to concede the race, and Axios' Jonathan Swan writes that "nobody I have spoken to on the campaign or in the White House believes that Trump would ever publicly acknowledge a loss, even long after the election is certified." The Times similarly reports that while some believe Trump could ultimately concede if a loss becomes clear, "he will most likely never publicly accept the result" of the election. Brendan Morrow
Former Vice President Joe Biden pulled ahead of President Trump in Pennsylvania on Friday morning, with FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver writing that the incumbent president "has no path back in Pennsylvania. The outcome is not in doubt." But while winning Pennsylvania would hand a victory to Biden with its 20 Electoral College votes, the Trump campaign has revolted against what to many seems like the writing on the wall. "The election is not over," the Trump campaign general counsel, Matt Morgan, wrote in a statement released Friday. "The false projection of Joe Biden is based on results in four states that are far from final."
It's true that none of the four remaining decisive states — Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia, and Arizona — have officially been called by a majority of networks; only Fox News and The Associated Press have Arizona in the "Biden" column so far, with the rest remaining too close to call. But bipartisan election experts say the path to victory for Trump, based on the remaining ballots which are expected to lean Democrat, is increasingly slim.
Meanwhile, Trump and his allies have continued to spread unfounded conspiracies claiming they've been robbed of the election. Jeva Lange
Does anyone really believe that Joe Biden shattered Obama’s historic 2008 numbers?
Does anyone really believe that he did that mostly in big cities?
C’mon man!!!
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) November 6, 2020
This year's drawn-out presidential vote count is also delaying Democratic nominee Joe Biden's Secret Service protection.
While Biden is receiving Secret Service protection as a major-party candidate, he'll get a higher level of protection if he's projected to have won the 2020 presidential election. But agency protocol dictates the current president concede the race before the Secret Service acknowledges a transfer of power, possibly delaying Biden's ramped-up protection for another month, The Washington Post reports.
Usually the Secret Service assigns a slate of agents to protect the president-elect after a late-night concession from the losing candidate and a victory speech from the winner, the Post reports. But this year's lengthy vote counting has delayed that process, and President Trump also isn't expected to concede anytime soon if he loses. So while additional security for Biden is expected to start Friday if he's projected the winner, Trump's lack of concession means Biden likely wouldn't get "a full protective detail that accompanies a president-elect," the Post writes.
Instead, the Secret Service could wait until the Electoral College meets in December to confirm the vote before increasing Biden's protection. That's what happened in 2000, when the Secret Service maintained Al Gore's protection as the vice president while protecting George W. Bush as a major party candidate. Still, a former agent tells the Post that the agency would "probably feel duty-bound to ramp up protection" for Biden before the Electoral College meets.
The Secret Service declined to comment to the Post, as did a Biden campaign aide. Kathryn Krawczyk
President Trump raged on Wednesday that he wants "all voting to stop." But emails obtained by The Daily Beast and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel revealed Friday that it was Republican Party officials in Wisconsin who have allegedly been urging their volunteers to call Pennsylvanians and implore them to send in late — and therefore illegal — votes. "That would be exactly what the president and his campaign are accusing Democrats of doing," one legal expert observed to The Daily Beast.
The email was sent by a group called Kenosha For Trump around 5 p.m. on Thursday. "Trump Victory urgently needs volunteers to make phone calls to Pennsylvania Trump supporters to return their absentee ballots," the email read. The scheme seemed aimed to take advantage of a ruling in the state that said absentee ballots received by 5 p.m. on Friday must be counted — so long as they were properly postmarked by Election Day.
"[B]allots received by that point without postmarks, or with illegible postmarks, will be considered to have been mailed in time 'unless a preponderance of the evidence demonstrates that it was mailed after Election Day,'" the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports, adding that "in Pennsylvania, postage is prepaid on some ballot envelopes. These prepaid envelopes are not automatically postmarked." The idea appeared to be to slip votes through by the Friday deadline in order to swing margins in the state back in Trump's favor, although Ben Geffen, an attorney at the Public Interest Law Center in Philadelphia, mused to The Daily Beast, "I wonder if they’re doing this in hopes of slipping one through and then waving it around as an example of the flawed process."
Either way, experts agreed the plan was exceedingly dumb. "This seems deeply stupid as it seems to be a solicitation to commit voter fraud," Richard Hasen, an elections law specialist, told the Journal Sentinel. "It's hard to believe this is real." Jeva Lange
Former Vice President Joe Biden pulled ahead of President Trump in Pennsylvania on Thursday morning. If Biden maintains his lead, he will win the state's 20 Electoral College votes, which would put him over the 270 needed to win the election.
Around 130,000 votes remain to be counted in Pennsylvania, with Biden holding a margin of around 5,500 as of 9 a.m. ET. The outstanding ballots in the state are expected to come from its Democratic strongholds. "Pennsylvania may not be particularly close in the end," observed FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver. "There are still quite a few very blue mail-in ballots left to count, and most counties haven't counted provisional ballots, which are liable to be very blue. I might expect Biden to win by something like 3 points there in the end, perhaps pretty close to what polls showed." Jeva Lange
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) is pushing back against President Trump's baseless allegations of widespread voter fraud in the election, calling his recent White House address "hard to watch."
Toomey spoke with Today on Friday morning about Trump's Thursday night speech from the White House, in which the president claimed without evidence that he is being cheated out of a re-election victory and baselessly alleged widespread voter fraud had occurred. Toomey's state of Pennsylvania is among the key battlegrounds where votes continue to be counted.
"I saw the president's speech last night, and it was very hard to watch," Toomey said. "The president's allegations of large-scale fraud and theft of the election are just not substantiated. I'm not aware of any significant wrongdoing here."
Toomey explained there's nothing unusual about it taking time to complete the vote count in Pennsylvania, considering there was a "massive" number of mail-in ballots that officials weren't allowed to begin counting until Election Day. He added that while there are always "small" irregularities in elections, "Is there any evidence that I'm aware of that there is significant, large-scale fraud or maleficence anywhere in Pennsylvania? Absolutely not." Brendan Morrow
Watch @SavannahGuthrie’s full interview with @SenToomey, who says he sees no evidence of fraud in the election and that President Trump still has a very narrow path to victory in Pennsylvania. pic.twitter.com/YVJ5Bq7tyC
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) November 6, 2020