Mississippi state flag: Voters approve magnolia design in Ballot Measure 3
By Veronica Stracqualursi


Mississippi's new state flag will feature the magnolia flower after the state in a historic move this summer parted with its decades-old banner that included a Confederate battle emblem.

© Mississippi Department of Archives & History The new flag features a magnolia blossom surrounded by 20 stars, signifying Mississippi's status at the 20th state in the union, and a gold five-point star to reflect Mississippi's indigenous Native American tribes.

Voters on Tuesday approved the "In God We Trust" magnolia design as the new state flag, CNN projected.

The state Legislature will now have to enact into law the new design as Mississippi's official state flag during its next regular session in 2021.

The flag features a white magnolia blossom on a dark blue backdrop, with red bands and gold stripes -- fitting for the Southern state whose nickname is the Magnolia State, whose state flower is the magnolia and whose state tree is the magnolia tree.

The flower is surrounded by 20 stars, signifying Mississippi's status at the 20th state in the union, and a gold five-point star to reflect Mississippi's indigenous Native American tribes.

Mississippi was the last state in the country whose flag, which was adopted in 1894, included the Confederate emblem.

Advocates for changing the flag had argued the Confederate insignia was a reminder of America's war to uphold slavery and a painful symbol for Black Americans. They also argued the 1894 flag hampered the state's economic growth.

Those supportive of the old flag claimed its removal would lead to further erasure of history.

The sentiment toward the 1894 flag appeared to shift this summer amid racial reckoning over the death of George Floyd, a Black man killed in Minneapolis police custody. Floyd's death led to renewed calls nationwide for racial justice and a reexamination of America's Confederate monuments and symbols, including Mississippi's state flag.

Amid the protests, Mississippi state lawmakers passed a historic referendum to retire and replace the flag, a bill that Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves signed into law.

"This is not a political moment to me, but a solemn occasion to lead our Mississippi family to come together to be reconciled and to move on," Reeves, a Republican, said at the bill's signing in late June. The 1894 flag flew for the last time July 1, before it was officially retired and handed over to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

The bill, House Bill 1796, called for a new design that "shall honor the past while embracing the promise of the future." It required that the design exclude the Confederate battle emblem and include the phrase "In God We Trust."

The measure also established a nine-person commission selected by the state's top Republicans and tasked with picking a new design by September. Over the month of August, the commission waded through nearly 3,000 flag design submissions from the public, whittling them down to two options.

On September 2, the commission selected the magnolia flag as the new design voters would consider on the November ballot.

Democratic state Rep. Jeramey Anderson, an author of the House bill, celebrated the vote Wednesday, calling the new flag one that "unites rather than divides" and a step in the right direction for his state.

"This was a bold, bipartisan step that shows the world Mississippi is finally ready to step out from under the cloud of slavery and Jim Crow. But it isn't the final step," Anderson said in a statement provided to CNN. "Mississippi and the United States remains plagued by systemic racism that keeps people of color from being truly free and equal."

In 2001, Mississippians had voted overwhelmingly to keep the Confederate emblem on its state flag. Sixty-five percent of voters chose then to keep the 1894 flag with the Confederate symbol instead of adopting a new flag with 20 white stars on a blue background.

An election that lays bare America’s soul — and the rot goes well beyond Trump

Published on November 3, 2020
By Bob Hennelly, Salon- Commentary

Trump supporters (Shutterstock)

As we stand on the precipice of election night, with the shadows of yet another deadly wave of COVID looming over us, our sense of collective dread continues to build.

How did it come to be that our president is himself sowing the seeds of fear and division, turning red states against blue states as the virus’ death toll mounts across them all?

Should we be surprised? He told us, before we gave him the nuclear codes, that he was so adored that he could get away with shooting someone on Fifth Avenue. Perhaps we didn’t think big enough about just how big a body count he would rack up in order to cling to power.

He is protected around the clock by patriotic civil servants who are duty bound to offer their lives for his, even as he willfully puts their lives at risk with his traveling snake-oil sideshow disguised as a presidential campaign.

The Chicago Tribune reports that a “group of Stanford University economists, who created a statistical model, estimate that there have been at least 30,000 coronavirus infections and 700 deaths as a result of 18 campaign rallies President Donald Trump held from June to September.”

Elections have consequences, but perhaps none so tragic as 2016, which gave rise to a megalomaniacal authoritarian who can ignore the loss of 1,000 Americans a day in a pandemic that his vanity forces him to deny. So we hold the thought of our cast ballots like candles in the wind, anxious about just how much we should fear our neighbors and fellow Americans. Just how durable is this democracy to which so many of us paid scant attention for so long?

‘There is a great temptation to blame our deteriorated situation entirely on this one man. This strain of toxic self-regard, when held by leaders, has always been a scourge on humanity that can result in a Jonestown scenario, where one man’s whim results in a mass suicide, or in poverty and disease in a failed state.

In ancient Roman times, it was seen as something to be strenuously resisted and correctly perceived as a dangerous character flaw, particularly if it afflicted military generals into whose hands the fates of so many had been entrusted.

As a seventh-grader struggling through Latin class, I recall textbook pictures of slaves accompanying victorious Roman generals in their chariots and whispering, “Remember, thou are but a mortal,” to the conquering hero amidst the tumultuous adoration of a roaring crowd.

Embedded in that simple phrase was the implication of serving something greater than oneself — a psycho-social planetary alignment in which the celebrated general was not the sun.

Unfortunately for the Roman Empire, there were significant lapses in such humility with ruinous results, when a flesh-and-blood monarch demanded to be worshipped as a living god on earth. As the historian Suetonius tells us, the Emperor Caligula was fond of reminding his subjects often, “Remember that I have the right to do anything to anybody.”

But a bullying autocrat can’t rise to power or hold on to it without a cadre of supplicants and opportunists helping to make it so. Through their proximity to the tyrant, these mercenaries hope to improve their own circumstances by any means required, no matter how high the body count or how widespread the collateral damage.

In our own lifetimes, we have seen this with the 2013 Bridgegate scandal in my home state of New Jersey, where a still unknown number of government officials and law enforcement employees conspired to target a town of tens of thousands with lane closures that provoked crippling traffic jams on the George Washington Bridge during rush-hour. Why? Because that town, Fort Lee, had elected a Democratic mayor who refused to kiss Gov. Chris Christie’s ring.

When the former U.S. attorney for New Jersey, Paul Fishman, decided to prosecute the Bridgegate scandal, his “pursuit” of the case was a fig leaf of sorts that obscured the true extent of the rot at the heart of New Jersey’s political culture and, in the long run, actually reinforced it.

The manipulation of traffic on the GWB on the anniversary of 9/11 was the masterpiece of David Wildstein, who has gone on to prosper as editor-in-chief of the New Jersey Globe, which has been embraced by incumbents of both political parties.

Wildstein pled guilty as part as a deal with the Department of Justice to take a turn as the star witness in what ultimately turned out to be a very expensive and pointless show trial, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court tossing out the two convictions it did yield.

Incidentally, in June of this year, Wildstein’s conviction on two felony counts was overturned.

As it turns out, the only thing worse than no justice is feigned justice. Over time, those who evade accountability can become stronger, as they burnish their personal brands as can-do players who can take the heat and then can go on to dominate our kitchen.

Fishman’s multi-million-dollar failed prosecution of public corruption gave the appearance of holding the Christie junta accountable. Yet with the way it was resolved, that architecture was left largely intact, including sealing from public view the identities of the “unindicted co-conspirators” — who were on the taxpayer-funded payroll.

And the names we do know, who are closely associated with that Roger Stone-style trans-Hudson dirty trick — Christie and Bill Stepien, now President Trump’s campaign manager — are central figures in Trump’s quest for re-election. Of course it’s the Trump campaign that has sought to undermine Americans’ faith in the democratic process itself, by refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if former Vice President Joe Biden wins the election.

Some might hope that just by turning Trump out of office we can restore our national character. That is ahistorical and ignores our soft spot for the bullies and dirty tricksters who have been in our political soil since Watergate, helping to bring this presidency to fruition.

We can trace the rise of the Living Menace in the Oval Office to America’s failure decades ago to hold Richard Nixon accountable for his crimes, thanks to President Gerald Ford’s pardon, which must be re-evaluated in light of what historians have learned since then.

In addition to his Watergate cover-up, his use of the IRS to punish political opponents and his secret bombing campaign in Cambodia, Nixon had previously intervened as a presidential candidate to sabotage Lyndon Johnson’s Paris peace talks with North Vietnam, so he could win the 1968 election.

And while several high-profile Watergate convictions did stick — unlike in Bridgegate — confessed Watergate-era dirty trickster Roger Stone used his proximity to that 1970s betrayal of America to build his own brand and portfolio.

“Using a pseudonym, he made political contributions from the Young Socialist Alliance to the Republican challenging Mr. Nixon for the party’s nomination in 1972, Pete McCloskey,” reported the New York Times. “He then presented the campaign donation to a newspaper as proof that Mr. Nixon’s opponent was a puppet of the left. He also hired an operative to try to infiltrate the campaign of George McGovern, the Democratic nominee.”

After Nixon left office, Stone served as a kind of media concierge for the disgraced former president, who was still important enough to hold court from his comfortable exile in Saddle River, New Jersey, and wield influence.

Stone’s “can and will do anything to win” approach helped him to get campaign work on behalf of former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean and Republican Senate candidate Jeff Bell, who knocked off Sen. Clifford Case in a 1978 primary.

“It was Stone’s years in New Jersey where he tempered his craft and libertarian ideology that defined his career,” wrote Ian Shearn for NJ Spotlight this summer, after Stone’s sentence on federal criminal charges was commuted by President Trump. “It is no coincidence that his time in New Jersey — throughout the 1980s — overlapped the rise and fall of Donald Trump’s casino empire in Atlantic City. It was then that Stone formed a lasting though volatile codependent relationship with The Donald. This was the period when the rising GOP hit man transformed into The Prince of Darkness.”

Through Stone’s role in Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign, he was given access to Michael Deaver’s rolodex, which included Roy Cohn’s contact information. Cohn, the notoriously ruthless right-wing lawyer who was once chief counsel to Sen. Joseph McCarthy, had gone into private practice with a dark-side power client list that included Fred and Donald Trump, as well as several reputed mobsters.

“When Stone arrived at Cohn’s Manhattan apartment, the lawyer was sitting with one of his clients, Anthony ‘Fat Tony’ Salerno of the Genovese mob family,” the Washington Post reported, based on an interview with Stone. “Cohn suggested Stone go meet a friend: Donald Trump. The dashing young real estate developer, still in his early 30s and building his empire both in business and as a tabloid celebrity, was also busy conjuring the legend that he was a self-made success story, rather than the son of a wealthy man who set him up in business. In Stone, he encountered a bon vivant with a similar gift for grand illusion.”

Stone was also a partner in Black, Manafort & Stone, an infamous Washington lobbying firm that was the public face for dictatorships around the world who received U.S. taxpayer aid, despite well documented systemic human rights abuses.

In 1992, the nonprofit Center for Public Integrity published “The Torturers’ Lobby,” which chronicled the role of Black, Manafort & Stone in block-and-tackling for the governments of Kenya and Nigeria, with their “widely criticized human rights records.” The previous year, “Kenya [had] received $38 million in U.S. foreign aid, and spent over $1.4 million on Washington lobbyists to get it. Nigeria received $8.3 million and expended in excess of $2.5 million. Whom did both countries call upon to do their bidding before the U.S. government? The lobbying firm of Black. Manafort, Stone and Kelly Public Affairs Company, which received $660,000 from Kenya in 1992-1993 and $1 million from Nigeria in 1991.”

The white paper continued, “Former Reagan political operative, Paul Manafort, oversees foreign accounts; his partner, Charles R. Black, was a senior political strategist in the 1992 Bush-Quayle campaign. Their firm’s fees to represent Nigeria, Kenya, the Philippines and Angola’s UNITA rebel group in 1991, totaled more than $3 million. All four receive U.S. aid and abuse human rights.”

The white paper was prefaced with a quote from Elie Wiesel.

“The greatest evil is indifference,” wrote Wiesel. “To know and not to act is a way of consent to these injustices. The planet has become a very small place. What happens in other countries affects us.”

Now, thanks to the intercession of President Trump, Stone is a free man and back in the trenches, bayoneting for the president.

In a recent interview with Alex Jones’ Infowars, Stone suggested that Trump should actually declare “martial law” to seize power if he loses what, as the Huffington Post reported, “Stone characterized as an already corrupt election. The results will only be legitimate if the ‘real winner’ — Trump — takes office, regardless of what the votes say, Stone declared. A loss would apparently be justification for Trump to use force to take over the nation.”

While the outcome of our election may be blurred by the fog of a civil war that Trump, Stone and their allies are all too eager to foment, let’s never forget the names of the Republicans, in New Jersey and elsewhere, who had a choice of where to stand and stood with them.

And please, this time no pardons.

Over Three-quarters of U.S. Jews Voted for Biden in Election, Poll Finds

Democratic candidate secured 77 percent of the Jewish vote compared to Donald Trump’s 21 percent, according to survey, giving Joe Biden the widest points margin since 2008


A Jewish man walking past a boarded-up store in Los Angeles with the word "Vote" on it, November 2, 2020.Credit: Jae C. Hong/AP

Danielle Ziri New York
Published at 09:12

NEW YORK – A poll of American Jewish voters released by the J Street organization found that over three-quarters of them cast their ballot for Democratic nominee Joe Biden on Tuesday, handing Republicans their worst performance with the community since 2008.

American Jews traditionally lean Democrat in elections at about 70 percent, but these figures suggest Jewish voters backed Biden over President Donald Trump by 77 to 21 percent – a 56-percentage point margin that significantly surpassed Hillary Clinton’s +45 point advantage in 2016.

The Election Night poll was conducted by GBAO Strategies for J Street between October 30 and November 3, and included interviews with 800 self-identified Jewish voters who cast their ballots on Election Day or prior to the day itself.

According to the data, Jewish voters also supported Democratic candidates over GOP candidates in congressional races by 78 percent to 21 percent.

When asked their views on the overall direction the United States is headed, 85 percent of respondents said it was on the wrong track and only 15 percent believed the country is going in the right direction. Seventy-seven percent of respondents also said they disapproved of Trump’s handling of his job, while 23 percent approved.

More than half of the people surveyed – 54 percent – said the coronavirus pandemic was their top issue in this year’s presidential race; 26 percent mentioned climate change; and 25 percent cited health care as their priority. Other issues included the economy, the Supreme Court, police reform, and racial justice and national security.

Only 5 percent of Jewish voters participating in the survey mentioned Israel as the issue most important to them. One percent said Iran was their main concern. When asked whether they would like to see the United States reenter the Iran nuclear deal signed under then-President Barack Obama, the vast majority, 74 percent, said they would, while 26 percent said they’d oppose it.

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Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 91 percent of respondents said they’d support the United States playing an active role in helping the parties try to resolve it. In addition, 72 percent of Jewish voters still believed a two-state solution would be the best option.

The overwhelming majority of participants – 89 percent – opposed the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel.

“While Trump touted an ‘exodus’ of Jews from the Democratic Party, the only exodus we saw here was Republicans losing a significant chunk of their already small number of Jewish supporters,” J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami said.

“A strategy built on the myth that Jewish votes can be won with hawkish Israel policy is bound to fail when over and over again American Jews have demonstrated that they are among the most progressive voters in the American electorate, with views on Israel that are pro-diplomacy and pro-peace,” he added.

According to pollster Jim Gerstein, “The 2020 election reinforces long-standing dynamics in the Jewish community, and potentially locks in these dynamics in the aftermath of a president and Republican enablers who Jews found abhorrent.”

With Americans waking up Wednesday morning to find some battleground states still in play, voters in the Jewish community were on tenterhooks.

“After a mostly sleepless night, I am still cautiously optimistic about a Biden win,” Pittsburgh resident Meryl Ainsman, 66, told Haaretz by email. “As the early votes continue to be counted this morning, all of the states that are still in play are moving toward Biden,” she added. Her home state of Pennsylvania was among them. Ainsman noted that because the Republican-majority State Senate mandated that early votes could not be counted early in her state, the count of mail-in ballots has been very slow.

“Assuming a Biden win, hopefully, it is still very concerning how divided we are as a country,” Ainsman wrote. “We must come together as a people if we hope to move forward and flourish as a nation and a leader in the world. We need a uniter and not a divider to get us there.”

In Texas, where Trump prevailed after a relatively close race, Galveston resident and Democrat supporter Jayson Levy, 60, said he was “surprised by the results so far,” given the high turnout.

“In Texas and elsewhere, I believe supporters of President Trump saw ‘promises kept’ to include lower taxes and less regulation. Also, many religious voters saw abortion as a life and death issue for the unborn,” he said, adding: “There are still votes to be counted, and I remain hopeful.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Widow of teacher killed in Florida high school shooting wins election to school board

Celine Castronuovo 

The widow of a teacher killed in the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting was elected Tuesday to serve on a Florida county's school board.

© Getty Images Widow of teacher killed in Florida high school shooting wins election to school board

The Associated Press reported that Debra Hixon, widow of the high school's athletic director Chris Hixon, easily won election to the nine-member Broward County school board.

Hixon joins Lori Alhadeff, whose 14-year-old daughter Alyssa also died in the Feb. 14, 2018, shooting. Alhadeff was elected to the school board in November 2018.

According to the AP, Hixon runs a maritime technology and marine science program at a suburban Fort Lauderdale high school.

Hixon's husband was one of three staff members killed in the massacre that also left fourteen students dead. Chris Hixon died attempting to confront the shooter, a former Stoneman Douglas student.

Hixon's victory Tuesday comes after she and her son, Corey, appeared in a campaign ad supporting Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in September.

The video includes 2018 footage of Biden comforting Corey, who has a developmental disability. Biden tells Corey, "you'll be OK," before he kisses Corey on his forehead and continues to hug him.

"I don't have it in me a lot of times to give him that comfort, so it meant a lot for somebody else to give him, to take that time and to care enough about him," Hixon says in the ad. "My older son calls him Uncle Joe. He can be that person that can comfort our nation and bring us together."

The AP called the presidential race in Florida for President Trump at 12:35 a.m. EST Wednesday. With 96 percent of estimated votes reported, Trump led the Sunshine State with roughly 51 percent of the vote to Biden's 48 percent.

The president's 3-point lead in the state is a marked improvement from four years ago, when he beat then-Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton in Florida by 1 point, or just 113,000 votes.

In the lead-up to Election Day, public polling predicted a tight race in Florida, the third largest state in the country and home to some 14 million registered voters.

The state's 29 electoral votes helped Trump secure a significant boost in his path to reelection. As of Wednesday early afternoon, the AP had projected that Trump holds 213 electoral votes, with Biden at 238 out of 270 needed to win.

Portland votes to create community-run police oversight board

Sarah Polus 


Portland, Ore., voters have approved the creation of a police oversight board, aimed at increasing accountability and transparency, The Oregonian reported.

© Getty Images Portland votes to create community-run police oversight board

The citizen-driven board, presented as ballot measure 26-217, was approved by more than 80 percent of city voters Tuesday, according to the Oregon secretary of State's website.


The new oversight panel is intended to replace the existing Independent Police Review, a city agency.

It will be able to take stricter measures against police, including the ability to investigate complaints made against the Portland Police Bureau and officers' use of deadly force, among other things. To assist with its investigations, the board can subpoena documents and witnesses and access police records. In the event that wrongdoing by police is shown, the board can impose disciplinary actions, including the firing of officers.

Portland has become an epicenter for protests as part of the Black Lives Matter movement, with many demonstrators calling for increased accountability among police.

City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty told The Oregonian she's expecting a legal challenge from the Portland police union to the measure, which she supported.

"I expect them to file a lawsuit, so it won't be a surprise," Hardesty said. "But because the voters passed this by over 80 percent margin, I think the city attorneys will have much confidence that they can rigorously defend the people's will in court."

Portland's Democratic Mayor Ted Wheeler, who President Trump called a "fool" and accused of poorly handling the protests, was also reelected on Election Day.

LA County District Attorney Jackie Lacey Voted Out After 3 Years of BLM Protests (Report)

Lindsey Ellefson 

© TheWrap jackie lacey george gascon 
Photo credit: LA County Clerk

Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey has lost her re-election bid to George Gascón, according to NBC.

Lacey was voted out with about 46% of the votes as of Wednesday morning, after three years of weekly Black Lives Matter protests against her outside the L.A. County Hall of Justice. Activists said Lacey could have done much more to persecute cops involved in officer-related shootings.

In March, BLM took their protests to Lacey's home. Lacey's husband pulled a gun on the protestors and told them to leave. The incident drew widespread attention, with Lacey telling CNN protestors "crossed the line."

Gascón is a reformer and former LAPD assistant chief of police. He also once served as Mesa, Arizona's chief of police and San Francisco district attorney.

He had significant support from Black Lives Matter and celebrities like Olivia Wilde, who tweeted, "We need a DA who'll hold cops accountable and stand up for our communities. Change has been a long time coming. The time is now. #jackielaceymustgo."

The Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter tweeted in celebration Wednesday and listed the names of Black people killed by police in whose name they protested against Lacey for years. Instead of the hashtag Lacey's opposition had been using leading up to the election, #jackielaceymustgo, the chapter wrote, #jackielacieWILLgo.

Activist Shaun King celebrated, as well, tweeting, "I said to our staff and my family and friends that for me, this was single most important election of 2020 – even more than the White House – as far as justice goes."

One Twitter user added, "I hope @GeorgeGascon realizes that @BLMLA got him this win…and if he messes around, he'll have to go too! This is OUR city."

Lawrence Yee contributed to this report.

Record number of Native American women elected to Congress

The 117th Congress will have a record number of Native American women after voters elected three to the House of Representatives.

© Provided by The Guardian Photograph:Alastair Pike/AFP/Getty Images 

Sharice Davids (left) and Deb Haaland, pictured in September 2019.

Democrats Deb Haaland, a Laguna Pueblo member representing New Mexico, and Sharice Davids, a Ho-Chunk Nation member representing Kansas, were both retained their seats after becoming the first Native American women elected to Congress in 2018.

They are joined by Yvette Herrell, who is Cherokee. Herrell, a Republican, beat the Democratic incumbent Xochitl Torres Small for her New Mexico congressional seat.

The wins for Herrell and Haaland mean that New Mexico will be the first state to have two indigenous women as congressional delegates. The state also became the first to elect women of color as all three of its delegates in the US House of Representatives.

According to a Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) report, 18 indigenous women were running for congressional seats this year – a record in a single year. Native American women made up 2.6% of all women running for Congress this year, the highest percentage since CAWP started collecting data in 2004.

There have been four Native Americans in the US Senate and a handful of indigenous US representatives. All were men until Haaland and Davids were elected in 2018.

In Kansas, Stephanie Byers, who is Chickasaw and a retired teacher, became the state’s first transgender lawmaker when she won her race for a seat in its House of Representatives.

“We’ve made history here,” Byers said on Tuesday. “We’ve done something in Kansas most people thought would never happen, and we did it with really no push-back, by just focusing on the issues.”

Also in Kansas, Christina Haswood, a Navajo Nation member, became the youngest person in the state legislature at 26. A third member of the Kansas House , Ponka-We Victors, a Tohono O’odham and Ponca member, won her re-election campaign.

The US House of Representatives will have its highest number of indigenous representatives after Tuesday’s election, according to the independent Native American newspaper Indian Country Today.

Six candidates, including Haaland, Davids and Herrell, won their elections. Two Oklahoma representatives, Tom Cole, who is Chickasaw, and Markwayne Mullin, who is Cherokee, won their re-elections, and Kaiali’i “Kai” Kahele, who is Native Hawaiian, won an open seat for Hawaii. There were previously four indigenous members of Congress, all in the House of Representatives.

Cuban American Voters Bought Into GOP Socialism Propaganda, Al Sharpton Says After Poor Biden Showing

David Brennan

Civil rights activist Reverend Al Sharpton has blamed Republican propaganda for the lower than expected Democratic Latino vote in Florida's Miami Dade county, which was a major part of why former Vice President Joe Biden lost the pivotal state to President Donald Trump.

© EVA MARIE UZCATEGUI/AFP via Getty Images/Getty Supporters of President Donald Trump rally in front of Cuban restaurant Versailles in Miami, Florida on November 3, 2020.

The Quote

"We don't have the same dynamics that we have in Florida where you have like in Miami-Dade. I think it was George pointed out a large Cuban influence in terms of Cuban voters who look more to the propaganda that we're dealing with socialism and all. That offset a large black turnout."

Why it Matters

Democrats are looking for answers after Biden's underperformance with Latino voters, especially men, who turned out in larger-than-expected numbers for Trump. Observers and voices within the Democratic Party—including New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—had warned that Biden's was lacking appeal among Latinos.

In southern Florida in particular, the lower Democratic Latino turnout meant the president carried the state by a decent margin. Alarm bells were ringing early in the evening for the Democrats in Miami Dade, traditionally a big vote winner for the party, where Biden's lead over Trump was significantly smaller than Hillary Clinton managed in 2016.

The area is home to a large number of Latino voters, including Cuban, Venezuela, Colombian, Puerto Rican and Mexican communities, whether foreign born or descended from earlier immigrants.

Cuban and Venezuelan exile communities are influential in the state's politics. Both fled left-wing governments in their home countries, making them a fertile ground for GOP warnings about the Democrats' alleged socialist tendencies.

Sharpton made his remarks while discussing the outstanding vote in Georgia and North Carolina. Trump is leading slightly in both states, which could prove pivotal in the race for 270 electoral college votes.

Sharpton suggested that the outstanding votes would boost the Democrats once included, as the areas yet to report their full tallies include large Black communities that he said were less susceptible to GOP "propaganda" about socialism.
Counterpoint

It is not yet clear why Biden underperformed with Latino voters, nor how much concerns about socialism drove Trump's unexpected performance with this demographic.

But Biden struggled to attract the Latino vote during the Democratic presidential primaries—an early warning sign that Democrats might struggle with the demographic in the national race if Biden was the candidate.

The Trump campaign actively courted these groups that observers warned were being largely ignored by the Democrats. The tactic has paid off, and might yet be an important twist in the tale of the 2020 election.

Biden's lack of popularity among Latino voters was an existing problem, even outside of largely inaccurate socialism smears from the GOP on his platform.

Cuban Americans in particular were already trending towards Trump—Equis said ahead of the election that this group was breaking for the president by some 20 points. According to Mark Lopez—the director of Hispanic research at Pew Research Center—though, this is partially explained by Trump's anti-socialist rhetoric.

"Trump is clearly doing even better among Cuban Americans than some previous Republicans," Lopez told The Atlantic. "Biden's weakness in Florida has something to do with the president's anti-socialist rhetoric."

AOC criticized Democrats for not trying hard enough with Latino voters, hours after Biden lost Florida

© Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call 

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez attending a House Financial Services Committee hearing on Wednesday, July 17, 2019. 

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said on Tuesday night that she had been "sounding the alarm" about Democratic vulnerabilities with Latino voters. 

It came after Joe Biden lost Florida, and polling suggested that many Latino voters had given their support to President Donald Trump.

"The necessary effort simply hasn't been put in," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. 

President Donald Trump won the state in a tight race, with 51.21% of the vote, in a result declared late Tuesday.


Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that her party made too little effort to secure Latino votes, in a swift rebuke after Joe Biden lost in Florida on election night.

President Donald Trump's tight victory in the state, with 51.21% of the vote, was declared Tuesday evening.

A few hours later, Ocasio-Cortez tweeted a video clip of a commentator noting how the issue of Democratic outreach with Latino voters is "one of the big stories in Florida."

Speaking on a webcast of Yahoo Finance's election coverage prior to the Florida result, journalist Hunter Walker had said: "Progressive allies of Biden were raising alarms about this over the summer. The Biden campaign did do a little bit more Latino outreach, but he has really struggled on that front."

It is unclear whether he had been directly referring to warnings from Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive Democratic representative. But in her tweeted commentary alongside the video, she wrote that she had been "sounding the alarm" about the situation.

The New York representative wrote: "I won't comment much on tonight's results as they are evolving and ongoing, but I will say we've been sounding the alarm about Dem vulnerabilities w/ Latinos for a long, long time.

"There is a strategy and a path, but the necessary effort simply hasn't been put in."

Florida is a crucial state in the presidential election, with 29 electoral college votes and a recent history of tight races.

Barack Obama's 2012 narrow victory there was ensured by just 0.9% of the vote, while President Donald Trump won it in 2016 with a winning margin of 1.2%.

Such signals were a long time coming. Insider polling during the Democratic primaries in December 2019 noted that Biden's support among Latino voters fell markedly short of that with Black and white voters, as Eliza Relman and Walt Hickey reported.

As the presidential election campaign entered its final stages in September 2020, further polls showed that Biden was still underperforming with likely Latino voters statewide.

During the coronavirus pandemic, Joe Biden's campaign has scaled back in-person and door-to-door campaigning.

In a statement to ABC News on November 1, Jennifer Molina, Latino media director for the Biden campaign defended the party's efforts with Latino voters nationwide, saying they had been "aggressively" increasing visibility and voter contact.

"This includes tabeling in Latino supermarkets, like Cardenas, canvassing, phone banks, text banks, chiva buses, mobile billboards, taco trucks and banda performances near election day sites," she wrote. "We're confident our historic investments of tens of millions of dollars will mobilize the community."

Christian Ulver, a Florida-based Biden senior adviser, also told ABC that the party had hosted 45 Hispanic Get Out The Vote events across the state.

The Joe Biden campaign did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

 Read the original article on Business Insider

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

@AOC

US House candidate, NY-14

I won’t comment much on tonight’s results as they are evolving and ongoing, but I will say we’ve been sounding the alarm about Dem vulnerabilities w/ Latinos for a long, long time. There is a strategy and a path, but the necessary effort simply hasn’t been put in

Yahoo Finance

@YahooFinance

Highlight: "One of the big stories in Florida has been Joe Biden's underperformance with Latino voters," @YahooNews White House Correspondent @HunterW says. "Progressive allies of Biden were raising alarms about this over the summer... He has really struggled on that front."

9:29 PM · Nov 3, 2020

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