Biden Campaign/CNP/Zuma

In a late-night address to Americans Friday, former Vice President Joe Biden declared his confidence that the remaining votes to be tallied would confirm his victory over President Trump. He vowed to address the coronavirus pandemic and the related economic downturn as soon as he took office, telling Americans that he was already meeting with public health officials so he could hit the ground running.

While neither candidate has won the 270 electoral votes needed to secure the presidency, votes tallied throughout the day have given Biden an edge in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada. Still, no network has called the race. Without a winner declared, it was unclear if Biden would speak, but at 11 p.m., he took the stage in Wilmington, Delaware.

“What’s becoming clear each hour is that a record number of Americans of all races, faiths, religions chose change over more of the same,” Biden said, appearing triumphant. “They’ve given us a mandate for action on COVID, the economy, climate change, systemic racism. They made it clear they want the country to come together, not continue to pull apart.”

Biden: “I know watching these vote tallies on TV moves very slowly, and as slow as it goes, it can be numbing. But, never forget, the tallies are not just numbers. They represent votes and voters … a record number of Americans of all races, faiths, and religions chose change.” pic.twitter.com/1TglRIuJ1J

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 7, 2020

Biden promised to make addressing the pandemic his first order of business, and noted that he and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, had already met with public health experts and economists to discuss a path forward. “We want everyone to know, on day one, we’re going to put our plan to control this virus into action,” he said. “We can’t save any of the lives that have been lost, but we can save a lot of lives in the months ahead.” (Moments after he finished speaking, Bloomberg reported that Trump’s Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, had been infected with COVID-19.)

And, like the president under whom he served until Trump took office, Biden urged unity and compassion among Americans of all political parties. “We may be opponents,” he said, “but we are not enemies.”

Former gubernatorial candidate and former state Rep. Stacey Abrams waves to the crowd as she crosses the Edmund Pettus Bridge, Sunday, March 1, 2020, in Selma, Ala. Butch Dill/AP

Progress toward a more just and equal society is not something that will just come and smack you in the face, at least not in the South. It takes time. It’s slow. It’s incremental. Yet, whenever the rest of the country catches onto a campaign down South, there’s inevitably just so much damn handwringing when the results don’t go progressives’ way. Soaring headlines that predict the year of “the new South,” or that the “new Southern strategy” will gain momentum, or that “the (new) South’s gonna rise,” or…insert misguided cliché here, quickly turn sour, (over)selling the disappointment by the same magnitude, Oh, look at that, the South is still pretty damn red. But what so many of these pieces lack is crucial context, specifically the myriad ways in which progressive policy has been stymied for more than a century in the South, especially where it concerns Black voters.

So this time, before you start shouting about those dumb rednecks (hello, I guess), educate yourselves. 

Raquel Willis, a Black transgender activist from Georgia, said it best on Twitter: “Y’all better speak precisely when talking about southern states. The most powerful and innovative organizers have been trying to transform the region for generations. Don’t turn your backs on their hard work for a cute, quippy, self-righteous put down.”

To be fair, on Friday when Joe Biden overtook Donald Trump’s vote share in Georgia, Democrats celebrated—and rightly so. The state is the closest it’s been to going for a Democratic presidential candidate in decades, and both Georgia’s races for US Senate seats will go to a January runoff. One Democrat candidate is Rev. Raphael Warnock, who would be the state’s first Black US Senator if elected.

But there was also a heap of impressive progress in the state and across the region that’s gotten way less attention. Georgia also elected its first queer state senator, Kim Jackson; Tennessee elected two of the first openly gay candidates to its state legislature; and Florida elected its first Black queer woman to the state House, Michele Rayner-Goolsby, and its first gay state senator, Shevrin Jones. Florida also raised the minimum wage in the state to $15 per hour. Mississippi not only voted to remove a Jim Crow-era provision from the state constitution that was meant to preserve white political power, but it also voted for a new state flag, officially moving on from the former Confederate design that was retired this summer. Alabama too voted to remove racist language from its state constitution, including old Jim Crow provisions banning interracial marriage and racially integrated schools. Virginia voters approved an amendment to form an independent, bipartisan redistricting committee in an effort to make its congressional districts less gerrymandered. And, as Adam Harris pointed out in the Atlantic, 2020 saw the largest number of Black candidates for political office in the South—the Deep South, in particular—since Reconstruction.

These changes came from grassroots activism that was made possible by a powerful spirit of organizing that has existed in the South since the Civil Rights Movement. And the Civil Rights Movement, of course, was born out of centuries of oppression and the dehumanization and enslavement of Black people. But the South’s history of white supremacy is old and so deeply entrenched in the identity of the place that carefully weeding it all out to allow more room for progress and equality takes time; I’ve written before about how that history lingers in the present day in ways that sometimes make it hard to recognize fully, even as it continues to cause harm. That is why we need to celebrate these small(er) victories when they happen—they are indicative of something much bigger. 

It’s also important to note that the people who are fighting the hardest for equality in this country, but especially in the South, are also those who are the most disempowered by the infrastructure in place—think gerrymandering, felony disenfranchisement laws, voter ID laws, and voter roll purging, not to mention the vast economic inequalities that people of color face that reverberates through education, health care, and emotional wellbeing. That makes the organizing work being done in the South that is led by so many Black folks all the more incredible—not only should they not need to do this work in 2020 in the first place, but they’re doing it in the face of extreme adversity. I’m talking, of course, about women like Stacey Abrams, who has changed the voting demographics in Georgia through her voter registration efforts, and Nikema Williams, the state senator who was elected to the late Rep. John Lewis’ seat this week and is chair of Georgia’s Democratic Party. I’m thinking about the powerful history of the Black church, and the way Black churches and faith communities continue to lead the march toward justice in the South. There are the organizing efforts of Black Greek organizations; sororities like Delta Sigma Theta, Alpha Kappa Alpha (which counts Kamala Harris as a sister), Zeta Phi Beta, and Sigma Gamma Rho have played a significant role in voter registration, as have fraternities like Alpha Phi Alpha, which Warnock belongs to—his brothers have been at most of his campaign events. There are the Black mayors of the South—Steven Reed in Montgomery, Ala.; Keisha Lance Bottoms in Atlanta; Frank Scott Jr. in Little Rock, Arkansas; Randall Woodfin in Birmingham, Alabama; Vi Lyles in Charlotte, North Carolina; Chokwe Antar Lumumba in Jackson, Mississippi, to name a few. 

Change comes slow, especially when so many of those fighting for it have been shoved to the bottom of America’s caste system. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening; it’s happening, and each change will continue to build on the one before it as history marches forward. 

John Minchillo/AP

The Philadelphia residents who filled the street outside the Pennsylvania Convention Center on Thursday were already a joyful bunch. The scene was even more merry on Friday, as union workers, musicians, activists, and other protesters cheered the news that Joe Biden had taken a lead in Pennsylvania and Georgia and was within striking distance of victory over Donald Trump. 

More than a dozen progressive groups, including Reclaim Philadelphia and the Movement Alliance Project, staged the block party in response to protests from Trump supporters, who grew in number from Thursday but attracted barely any notice from the progressives, who danced and held signs saying, “Count Every Vote.” A line of police officers on bikes kept the two sides separated. 

If no journalists were here, the Trump supporters would be getting zero attention. The “Count the Vote” folks seem completely disinterested in engaging with them. (There being a line of bike cops between the two certainly isn’t encouraging engagement either.) pic.twitter.com/Z8HX1TwjSd

— Dan Spinelli (@danspinelli902) November 6, 2020

With victory in Pennsylvania seeming likely, the “Count Every Vote” crowd seemed more interested in looking ahead to a possible Biden presidency. “Listen, Biden is aggressively fine for this moment in American history,” said Melissa Dunphy, a musician who joined the rally with a sign—featuring Philadelphia Flyers mascot Gritty—that read, “Fuck Around and Find Out.” 

“Compared to what we have right now as president, Biden is going to feel like manna from heaven,” she added. “But there is so much more work to do.”

Certainly no one would mistake the “Count Every Vote” contingent with a staunchly pro-Biden crowd. The rally’s highest-profile speakers, including Councilmembers Kendra Brooks and Helen Gym, endorsed Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary, and another speaker, Sergio Cea of Reclaim Philadelphia, expressly described the rally as “pro-people power and pro-democracy,” not pro-Biden. 

“This is NOT a pro Biden rally, this is a pro people power and pro democracy rally” Reclaim leader Sergio @PAStandsUp @formadeluchar #CountEveryVote pic.twitter.com/SueZtu65Xk

— Reclaim Philadelphia (@reclaimphila) November 6, 2020

Even as the presidential election has occupied virtually everyone’s attention—and thrust Philadelphia into the national spotlight—local injustices remain paramount in the minds of Philadelphians who took to the streets this week. The death of Walter Wallace, a West Philadelphia man who was shot by police officers last month, led to citywide unrest and a mandatory curfew ahead of the election. The release on Wednesday of 911 audio and bodycam footage related to Wallace’s case sparked protests outside City Hall.

Wallace’s funeral, which is scheduled for Saturday, could be another event that draws protesters. Biden’s likely victory was, as Dunphy said, a “first step,” but nowhere close to the last gasp for Philadelphia’s progressive movement. 

Jodi Hilton/NurPhoto/AP

As states continue counting ballots, Joe Biden’s lead in the popular vote has grown to 4,102,314 votes—a margin of 2.7 percentage points over Donald Trump.

As I wrote yesterday:

The United States does not determine its president through a direct popular vote, but through an electoral system that weighs votes differently depending on which state they come from. And since the candidate with the most votes in a state wins all of that state’s electors (in most cases), there’s no difference between winning 51 percent of a state’s vote and winning 70 percent of the vote. This makes it possible to win the presidency while losing the popular vote.

Cries for abolishing the Electoral College have grown stronger following the recent elections of two presidents who lost the popular vote: In 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote by a margin of 543,895, and in 2016, Hillary Clinton won it by a stunning 2,868,686 votes. Sixteen states—most recently, Colorado—and the District of Columbia have already joined the National Interstate Popular Vote Compact, which is intended to essentially nullify the Electoral College if more states eventually sign on. Still, it remains unclear how exactly the compact would go into effect without congressional approval.

Biden’s popular vote lead is expected to continue to grow as election officials tally votes from mail-in ballots and urban centers. Of course, Biden is also leading in the Electoral College and appears to be on course to secure more than the 270 electoral votes needed for victory.

Demonstrators dance in the street outside the Pennsylvania Convention Center, where votes were still being counted on the Thursday following Election Day.Rebecca Blackwell/AP

Amanda Mcillmurray, sporting a yellow “Voters Decide” mask on Thursday, has seen her share of protests as political director of Reclaim Philadelphia, an activist organization founded in 2016 by former Bernie Sanders campaign staffers. But even she imagined that the scene outside of the Pennsylvania Convention Center, pitting flag-waving Trump supporters against a sea of progressive activists, would be a “more tense protest.” 

Instead, what she and dozens of reporters and activists found was more akin to a family reunion or block party, complete with music and dancing. “Philly people know how to party,” she told me. “We do this work because we care about each other, we care about our communities. It just makes sense for us to bring radical joy and love into everything that we do.”

pic.twitter.com/BjWuCXsgz5

— Dan Spinelli (@danspinelli902) November 5, 2020

The progressive movement in Philadelphia, with years of experience in coalition-building and mobilization, was ready to hit the streets in an uncertain post-election period with help from national groups and nonpartisan organizations like Election Defenders, whose “Joy to the Polls” effort, which had live music greet voters at polling stations across the country, was central to the musical vibe outside the convention center. Even as the coronavirus pandemic has kept people indoors more than usual, Philadelphia organizers have rallied throughout the summer and fall in protests following the killing of George Floyd and the grand jury decision exonerating three Louisville police officers in the death of Breonna Taylor. Last month, the death of Walter Wallace, a West Philadelphia man who had been experiencing a mental health episode, sparked widespread protests, a citywide curfew, and the arrival of National Guard units.

A contentious election, held during a pandemic at a time when the national spotlight is on Philadelphia, was just the latest thing demanding attention from activists. “This moment has been a crash course in how our electoral process works,” Bryan Mercer, executive director of the Movement Alliance Project, a Philadelphia activist organization founded in 2005, told the Philadelphia Inquirer last month. 

Since the first presidential debate, when Donald Trump ominously suggested that “bad things happen in Philadelphia,” the president’s campaign and its supporters have sowed doubt and confusion about the voting process in Pennsylvania and other swing states. On Wednesday, the Trump campaign sued to stop the vote count in Pennsylvania, and Trump ally Lou Dobbs urged viewers of Fox Business show that night to “surround” Philadelphia and apply a “real rigorous, demanding presence” in the rooms where polls were being counted. 

Several Trump supporters, organized by conservative groups like Tea Party Patriots Action and FreedomWorks, stood outside the convention center waving flags and attracting throngs of attention, while journalists from as far away as Australia lobbed questions at them. Occasionally, the Trump supporters, who were separated from the liberal protesters by a police barricade, traded jeers or, in one woman’s case, loudly yelled “NOT TODAY, SATAN!” through a megaphone. But mostly the crowds ignored each other and, as the afternoon went on, the crowd of Trump supporters dwindled. 

While @KendraPHL speaks, this Trump supporter is yelling, “Not today, Satan!” and “Dead men can’t vote!” Most anti-Trump protesters have consciously stopped engaging with the MAGA crowd (and are urging each other to this end) to take the attention off them. pic.twitter.com/gGnj5wO6VG

— Dan Spinelli (@danspinelli902) November 5, 2020

At around 2:15 p.m., several organizers carried eight Domino’s pizzas over to the intersection of 12th and Arch streets, outside the convention center. Next to the pizzas, Robin Hynicka, lead pastor at nearby Arch Street United Methodist Church, a close partner to the city’s progressive movement, handed out masks, water, and mini-bottles of hand sanitizer. “We’re holding on to a block party atmosphere so that every vote gets counted in Philadelphia,” he told me. 

To that point…free pizza (and hand sanitizer) pic.twitter.com/DWGIyH95qO

— Dan Spinelli (@danspinelli902) November 5, 2020

One Trump supporter who stood outside the barricade was Dion Cini, a New Yorker best known for viral stunts where he displays a Trump flag in public locations. He used his popular Facebook page to urge Trump supporters to “stop the steal” in Philadelphia, Detroit, and Phoenix, but seemed reticent to draw a comparison with his work and the type of protesting by liberals that Trump supporters often decry as violent or hostile. “I’ve never protested in my life,” he told me. “I rally. Big difference.” Pointing to the group of progressive protesters, he said, “They protest and their protest turns into violence and then, somehow, some way, they win.” 

That caricature certainly doesn’t apply to Thursday’s protesters, but also fails to capture how remarkably organized and collaborative the progressive movement has become in Philadelphia. Kendra Brooks, one of the speakers at Thursday’s rally, was elected to the City Council last year as a member of the Working Families Party, the first time a council seat reserved for non-Democrats had been filled by anyone but a Republican. One of several marquee progressive victories in Philadelphia—along with the election of reformist district attorney Larry Krasner in 2017—Brooks’ rise to political prominence crystallized the waning impact of the mainstream Democratic establishment that has held sway in the city for decades.

For Brooks, the movement to shield the vote count from political interference has less to do with Biden—who virtually none of the organizing groups endorsed in the Democratic primary—and more to do with protecting the political interests of voters disillusioned with politics and marginalized by the two major parties. “We drove so many people to the polls by pushing, pushing, pushing young folks to vote, folks who aren’t usually involved in the process to vote,” she told me. “And we need to show them that we will stand with them and make sure that their vote is counted.” 

Before entering politics, Brooks and Helen Gym, another council member who spoke on Thursday, were active in activism around public education—a particularly potent issue in Philadelphia, the poorest big city in the United States. They are fluent in the language of movement building and activism that sees injustice across social, economic, and racial lines as unmistakably interconnected.

Not even the post-election chaos could be divorced from Philadelphia’s existing problems. On Wednesday night, city officials released bodycam footage taken by the officers who killed Wallace, sparking more protests.  “I had meetings all morning about police reform,” Brooks told me. “The city is still running, regardless. I still have my city responsibilities. But on the other side, I have a responsibility to my constituents and that’s why I’m out here.”

Evan Vucci/AP

To call the speech President Trump gave at the White House Thursday evening a “news conference” wouldn’t be right. For 17 minutes, he repeated dangerous lies about the legitimacy of the election results—claims so outrageous that even the conservative New York Post called them “baseless.” Fox News anchor John Roberts noted that the president we saw tonight “believes that at the end of the day…the election is not going to go his way” and is trying to plan an “alternate route” to retain the White House. 

“If you count the legal votes, I easily win,” he began. “If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us.” To be clear, there is no deadline by which votes must be counted, and a person is more likely to get struck by lightning than to commit voter fraud. The president is, again, lying.

Donald Trump just opened his afternoon press conference by declaring, "If you count the legal votes, I easily win."

This is not true. pic.twitter.com/coxlQFkjwu

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) November 6, 2020

Trump also claimed that he won the state of Pennsylvania, which has not yet called a winner. His margin of victory in the state did get “whittled down”—his words—following the initial reporting of results, but that’s because the state is still continuing to count mail-in votes, which have largely favored Biden. And it’s no wonder mail-in votes aren’t a boon for the president: Trump has spent the last several months trying to delegitimize mail-in ballots, which offer a safer alternative to voting in person amid a pandemic.

Trump, calling mail-in voting "one-sided," claims he won both the states of Pennsylvania and Georgia. (That is not true.)

"I won Pennsylvania by a lot," the president falsely claimed. "And that gets whittled down." pic.twitter.com/Vk0lMGuWQQ

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) November 6, 2020

After he wrapped up, Trump refused to take questions from the press, slinking out of the briefing room:

“Are you being a sore loser?” — @Acosta asks Trump as he exits.
(Note: Trump’s exit is the only clip of that lie-filled speech we will tweet.) pic.twitter.com/MS8TdICwZM

— The Recount (@therecount) November 6, 2020

Trump’s comments are as dangerous as they are dishonest—a sitting president attempting to undermine the legitimacy of an election while votes are still being counted is unprecedented in United States history. CNN’s normally understated Anderson Cooper summed it up: “That is the most powerful person in the world, and we see him like an obese turtle on his back flailing in the hot sun, realizing his time is over, but he just hasn’t accepted it, and he wants to take everybody down with him, including this country.”

What did Anderson Cooper just say???? pic.twitter.com/JjsCEREe5U

— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) November 6, 2020

John Nacion/NurPhoto/AP

As battleground states race to tally the final votes and determine which candidate will win the Electoral College, one thing is almost certain: Former Vice President Joe Biden will win the popular vote, which he currently leads by 3,886,875 votes.

As you surely know by now, the United States does not determine its president through a direct popular vote, but through an electoral system that weighs votes differently depending on which state they come from. And since the candidate with the most votes in a state wins all of that state’s electors (in most cases), there’s no difference between winning 51 percent of a state’s vote and winning 70 percent of the vote. This makes it possible to win the presidency while losing the popular vote.

The Electoral College was a boon to Southern states during slavery, because the three-fifths compromise boosted slaveholding states’ electoral clout even though enslaved people couldn’t vote. Southern states have remained the system’s staunchest defenders; in 1970, southern lawmakers were responsible for upending an effort to abolish the Electoral College.

Wyoming is 92% white.

California is 37% white.

A Wyoming voter has nearly 4x more influence than a California voter.

The Electoral College is racist. It must be abolished.

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) November 3, 2020

Cries for abolishing the Electoral College have grown stronger following the recent elections of two presidents who lost the popular vote: In 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote by a margin of 543,895, and in 2016, Hillary Clinton won it by a stunning 2,868,686 votes. Sixteen states—most recently, Colorado—and the District of Columbia have already joined the National Interstate Popular Vote Compact, which is intended to essentially nullify the Electoral College if more states eventually sign on. Still, it remains unclear how exactly the compact would go into effect without congressional approval.

Any effort to undo the Electoral College would have to overcome fierce opposition from Republicans, who are well aware of how much it has helped them in recent decades. Of course, people’s views on this matter have been known to change over time:

The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2012

Carolyn Kaster/AP

Despite the GOP’s best efforts and mountains of cash, Michigan Democrat Gary Peters will serve a second term, according to projections from multiple news outlets. Peters narrowly defeated Republican John James. Though Peters was the incumbent in a seat that Democrats have held for decades, his was one of a few Democratic seats that were seen as vulnerable—both because of his low profile in the senate and because of James’ better-than-expected performance two years ago in the race for Michigan’s other senate seat.

James lost by just 6 points to incumbent Democrat Debbie Stabenow in 2018, emboldening Republicans to throw money into his campaign against Peters. And throw money they did. The Michigan senate race was the most expensive in the state’s history and one of the most expensive in the country this election cycle, with the candidates raising a combined total of $79 million. James, the 39-year-old Iraq war veteran and businessman, boasted a huge backing from prominent GOP bundlers, including the family of Betsy DeVos, President Trump’s secretary of Education, as well as from dark money groups. In the end, James’ campaign raised a whopping $37 million, but wasn’t able to top Peters’ final haul of $42.5 million. The effort nearly paid off for James, as he currently trails Peters by less than 2 percentage points.

mpi43/MediaPunch /IPX/AP

New York City was so New York City tonight, indulging in a collective sense of dread and on-brand anxiety, while the world watched and waited for final election results. But it wasn’t skipping a beat, either: A scheduled protest of a few hundred briefly swarmed a double-decker tour bus driver, who honked in support, while socially distanced diners clapped from converted bike lanes, and a woman struggled to alight a marooned yellow cab with her lap dog. Hey, New York seemed to say, I’m democratically backslidin’ here.

Javier Rivadeneria, a 30-year-old from Queens, was taking a break from his Taco Bell shift to gawk at the demonstrators. “People are sick and tired, and people are hurting,” he said, describing himself as “ecstatic” about the tightening of the tally in favor of Biden across the day.

But mostly, the New Yorkers I met tonight were embracing a trepidation deeply familiar to anyone who has experienced, well, 2020. “I’ve been so disappointed by the country before,” Lee, a 46-year-old social worker, told me, explaining why she was cautious about becoming too optimistic. “The election is fomenting this stuff,” she said, nodding at the protest, which had turned into a physical fracas in front of her al fresco dining spot. Police used their bikes to aggressively cordon off protesters and lock down a Greenwich Village intersection. Someone shouted, “NYPD go home! No one wants you here!” from an overlooking window. (A protest monitor later told me she witnessed at least two dozen people arrested across the night.)

RIGHT NOW: Protesters and NYPD converge in NYC as demonstrators march from Washington Sq Park.@jameswest2010 and I are following along—more in the thread below 👇 pic.twitter.com/WOoLuhFUAI

— 🎥 Mark Helenowski (@markhelenowski) November 5, 2020

Isabel Verkes, a 31-year-old Dutch expat, saw tonight’s protest as an understandable reaction to tense times: a spasm of angst. “I think people are so angry and anxious,” she said. “I think this is releasing a lot of anxiety.”

Verkes had struck up conversation with another onlooker, Iyad Abdi, a 23-year-old student who had just finished up his architecture degree at nearby New York University. While Abdi had hoped for a deeper, more progressive political reckoning in the country, he was satisfied, for the moment, with relief: “I’m hoping for a collective national sigh”.

“Purgatory,” is how Katie, a 29-year-old art director at Cosmopolitan, described the wait for results—and the coming drag-out contest over results. “I’m prepared for it. It’s not going to stop.”

“These divisions were deeper than a lot of us recognized,” her friend, a financial controller, Jasmin Alkema agreed, provoking a feeling of being “completely depleted bordering on depressed.”

“Yesterday was the confirmation that half the country is okay with a racist,” she said. “I was hoping the country would prove it had a moral compass.”

She added: “Even if Biden wins, he’ll be the president of Trump’s America.”

As a restaurant quickly packed up outdoor tables and protest monitors scrambled to get the names of those who were detained, Katie gave voice to that unspoken creed of any true New Yorker: “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

Voters slowly make their way through the long line Tupelo Miss., on Nov. 3, 2020.Thomas Wells/The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal via AP

Mississippi voters overwhelmingly supported a ballot initiative on Tuesday to dismantle a Jim Crow–era constitutional provision that was created to preserve white political power in the state. 

The constitutional amendment required candidates seeking statewide office to win the popular vote, in addition to a majority of Mississippi’s 122 state House districts. It was created in 1890 at a constitutional convention that was convened with the goal of disenfranchising Black voters. Several Jim Crow provisions were added to the state’s constitution that year, including literacy tests, a poll tax, and separate-but-equal school districts.

As Mississippi Today points out, although these provisions remained in the state’s constitution, they had all been found unconstitutional by federal law, and were therefore nullified—except for the election requirement, which was arguably more subtle and therefore survived the evolution of federal discrimination law. Still, its white supremacist intentions were never actually hidden. The election provision received vocal support from state Rep. James K. Vardaman in 1890, who was elected on his white supremacist beliefs and was known as the “Great White Hope” in Mississippi. In praise of the convention, he said: “There is no use to equivocate or lie about the matter. Mississippi’s constitutional convention of 1890 was held for no other purpose than to eliminate the nigger from politics—not the ignorant and vicious, as some apologists would have you believe, but the nigger. Let the world know it just as it is…. In Mississippi, we have in our constitution legislated against the racial peculiarities of the Negro…. When that device fails, we will resort to something else.”

Over the past several years, the provision has gotten more attention. It came up in national conversation in 2018, when Mike Espy, a Black man, first challenged Cindy Hyde-Smith for retiring Sen. Thad Cochran’s seat. It came up again last year when then-Attorney General Jim Hood, a Democrat, ran against then-Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, for governor. During the campaign, the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, an organization led by Eric Holder, the first Black attorney general, backed a lawsuit to challenge the provision filed by four Black Mississippi voters. “This racist electoral scheme achieved, and continues to achieve, the framers’ goals by tying the statewide election process to the power structure of the House,” the lawsuit stated. “So long as white Mississippians controlled the House, they would also control the elections of statewide officials.” The lawsuit failed, though the courts signaled that they may step in should the race require a state House vote, and Reeves won the governorship. Even though the last race that triggered a vote in the state House was in 1999, the provision remained a stain on Mississippi’s democracy—until last night, as a whopping 78 percent of voters eliminated the provision for good. 

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.)Yara Nardi/AP

President Donald Trump’s Mini-Me in California’s Central Valley, Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, will be going back to Congress for a 10th term in January. Voters in California’s 22nd District reelected Nunes over Democratic challenger Phil Arballo, according to the Associated Press and the Modesto Bee.

Over the past four years, Nunes has built a reputation as a bombastic sycophant of the president, using his position as chair of the House Intelligence Committee in 2017 and 2018 to lead the Republican response to investigations into Trump’s ties to Russia. The “Nunes Memo” released in 2018 questioned the justification for FBI surveillance of a former Trump campaign advisor, angering Democrats who claimed it was released solely to undermine Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. 

That year, Nunes faced his first serious challenge from Andrew Janz, who took aim at Nunes’ lack of attention to voters in his district. Nunes defeated Janz’ bid by 5 points largely by excoriating the media, including the Fresno Bee, which had supported him in every previous reelection campaign but turned against him over his Trump-Russia antics. Since his 2018 win, Nunes has filed at least seven lawsuits against media organizations, politicos, and online critics including anonymous parody Twitter accounts known as Devin Nunes’ Cow and Devin Nunes’ Mom. None of his suits have been particularly successful. 

This year, Arballo made many of the same arguments as Janz while emphasizing issues like health care access and COVID-19. Meanwhile, Nunes doubled down on Trumpism, demonizing Arballo and other Democrats as socialists, claiming that conservatives are under attack from the so-called Deep State, and pushing rumors about Hunter Biden. He remained one of the Republican Party’s strongest House fundraisers, pulling in over $10 million for his reelection, including $200,000 raised in the two days after he announced a lawsuit against the Washington Post in March. 

Like Janz, Arballo didn’t do badly; he got nearly 47 percent of the vote. But Nunes isn’t going anywhere soon. And neither, it seems, are the trolls who made him have a cow:

Devin’s district is one of the reddest in the country. He should have won easily, significant double digits. The district is set to be redrawn. Both @PhilArballo2020 and @JanzAndrew came close.

I’m not going away. I hope you don’t either🐮#CA22 #PresidentBiden https://t.co/W9XoSvT3dI

— Devin Nunes’ cow 🐮 (@DevinCow) November 4, 2020

Joe Biden makes remarks on the election from the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware, on November 4, 2020.Biden Campaign/CNP/ZUMA

As supporters of President Donald Trump and his top surrogates unfurled a stream of disinformation on Wednesday afternoon to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the presidential election, Democratic nominee Joe Biden predicted victory in a speech in his home state of Delaware, promising to govern as a president of all Americans.

.@JoeBiden: "After a long night of counting, it’s clear that we’re winning enough states to reach 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. I’m not here to declare that we’ve won. But I am here to report when the count is finished, we believe we will be the winners." pic.twitter.com/RzYdbMKAC8

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) November 4, 2020

Biden, joined by his running mate California Sen. Kamala Harris, spoke just minutes after Trump supporters attempted to physically shut down the counting of votes in Detroit.

“After a long night of counting it’s clear that we’re winning enough states to reach the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency,” he said, noting his leads in Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nebraska’s second congressional district.

“Of special significance to me is we’ve won with the majority of the American people,” he said, referring to his strengthening margin in the popular vote. “Every indication is that that will grow as well. Indeed, Sen. Harris and I are on track to win more votes than anybody in the history of this country has ever won.”

But Biden wasn’t just there to predict he’ll win. As Trump ominously sought to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election, Biden presented himself as a unifying figure.

"To make progress, we have to stop treating our opponents as enemies. We are not enemies. What brings us together as Americans is so much stronger than anything that can tear us apart… We’re campaigning as Democrats, but I will govern as an American president." —@JoeBiden pic.twitter.com/qhagcjgSj5

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) November 4, 2020

“Once this election is finalized and behind us, it’ll be time for us to do what we’ve always done as Americans: to put the harsh rhetoric of the campaign behind us, to lower the temperature, to see each other again, to listen to one another, to hear each other again, and respect and care for one another, to unite to heal to come together as a nation,” he said. 

“I know this won’t be easy,” he continued. “I’m not naive—neither of us are.” But “to make progress, we have to stop treating our opponents as enemies.”

While he turned down the heat and perhaps offered a preview of how he might approach the presidency, Biden was unflinching on what he believes must happen over the next few days and weeks: “Every vote must be counted—no one’s gonna take our democracy from us, not now, not ever.” He added: “We the people will not be silenced. We the people will not be bullied. We the people will not surrender. My friends, I’m confident we’ll emerge victorious.”

Bill Clark/Congressional Quarterly/ZUMA

After years of speculation that the Trump era had doomed Sen. Susan Collins’ (R-Maine) reelection, the Maine Republican and her brand of moderate conservatism narrowly defeated her Democratic opponent, Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon, who conceded the race Wednesday afternoon.

Over 24 years in the Senate, Collins’s trademark has been her independence and willingness to buck her party on key votes. During the Obama administration, she sided with Democrats to repeal the ban on gay and lesbian troops serving in the military, supported expanding background checks in the wake of the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre, and resisted Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) efforts to skewer Obama’s climate regulations. In her past election runs, she was the rare Republican endorsed by nominally nonpartisan single-issue groups whose agendas align closely with Democrats, such as the League of Conservation Voters, Human Rights Campaign, and Everytown for Gun Safety. It also earned her overwhelming voter support: Six years ago, Collins took nearly 70 percent of Maine’s vote—including 40 percent of Democrats.

That support had faded as Collins headed into her fifth reelection campaign. A senator who appeared moderate under past administrations looked mealy-mouthed and untrustworthy as Trump leaned into his party’s most dangerous, extremist instincts. Collins did vote against her party’s attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2017, but more often she toed the party line—most memorably when she joined her Republican colleagues to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. She sided with her Democratic colleagues in their efforts to bring forth more witnesses during Trump’s Senate impeachment trial, but joined Republicans in their vote to acquit the president. And though Collins had urged Senate Republicans to not name a replacement for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg after the justice’s death just six weeks before Election Day but was ultimately overruled, a signal to voters and the single-issue groups that once endorsed her that she lacked the requisite clout to change her party’s mind.

Activists whose political enthusiasm was forged in the wake of Trump’s 2016 victory led the way in holding Collins to account and mobilizing support around Gideon. The shift also caught the eyes of Maine’s seniors, a key demographic in the state with the oldest population and with whom the spirit of New England political nonconformity lives. During Collins’ 2014 election, seniors supported her by a 20-point margin; polling heading into November showed them favoring Gideon. But ultimately, loyal Republican voters in northern Maine—the same ones who delivered an electoral vote for Trump four years ago and again this time around—carried Collins to victory.

Bill Clark/Getty

There was at least one clear winner on Election Day: legal weed.

Across the country, five states voted on marijuana reforms on Tuesday. Cannabis advocates saw victories in all five states, bringing the number of states with medical marijuana laws on the books to 36, and bringing the number of states that have passed recreational cannabis to 15.

“With the passage of these initiatives, one-third of the population now lives in jurisdictions that have legalized cannabis for adult use, and 70 percent of all states have embraced cannabis for medical use,” Steve Hawkins, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project, an advocacy group, said in a statement. “The federal government is out of step with a clear national trend toward legalization.”

New Jersey passed recreational, adult-use marijuana:

The vote allows New Jersey officials to begin the thorny, potentially lengthy process of establishing rules related to regulating and testing cannabis and issuing licenses, including how many permits to grant — and to whom.

It also instantly raises the ante for neighboring states like New York and Pennsylvania, increasing pressure on lawmakers who support legalization to take action or risk losing the competitive edge to New Jersey in what is expected to be one of the largest marijuana markets in the country.

As did Arizona:

Arizona’s Proposition 207…legalizes marijuana possession and use for adults 21 or older, and allows individuals to grow up to six cannabis plants. It charges the Arizona Department of Health Services with licensing and regulating marijuana businesses, from retailers to growers, and imposes a 16 percent tax on sales. Local governments can ban marijuana businesses within their borders, however. It also lets people with marijuana-related criminal records petition for expungement.

And Montana.

Meanwhile, Mississippi passed medical marijuana:

The outcome means Mississippians with debilitating medical conditions will be able to get medical marijuana with a doctor’s approval. Initiative 65 requires the medical marijuana program to be running by August 2021.

And South Dakota passed recreational and medical marijuana:

The recreational measure, which is a constitutional amendment, will make it so people 21 and older will be able to possess and distribute up to one ounce of marijuana, and they will also be allowed to cultivate up to three cannabis plants. Upon formal passage, legalization will become the law on July 1, 2021. The Department of Revenue will be charged with developing licensing regulations by April 1, 2022.

The medical cannabis initiative will make a statutory change to allow patients suffering from debilitating conditions to possess and purchase up to three ounces of marijuana from a licensed dispensary. The state Department of Health will have until October 29, 2021 to enact regulations for the program and then must issue patient registration cards by November 18.

Donald Trump, who may or may not have won an election that it is impossible to know the result of because millions of ballots still haven’t been counted, took the stage at the White House shortly after 2 a.m. ET this morning to make good on his earlier signals that he would declare victory even if he hasn’t won.

Trump has now done what @jonathanvswan reported and what Trump denied he would do – came out and said “we did win this election” and called the current vote counting “a fraud on our nation.” Says he will go to Supreme Court to stop counting.

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 4, 2020

In a rambling speech that contained all the trademark characteristics of Trump’s mendacity, the president said he had won things he hasn’t won and promised illogical legal action to secure victories that don’t yet exist.

A+ chyron game pic.twitter.com/Ccd2cXkmUz

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 4, 2020

It was not good! Indeed, it was scary. Even many conservatives were aghast.

No, Trump has not already won the election, and it is deeply irresponsible for him to say he has.

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) November 4, 2020

That was one of the most dishonest and despotic speeches ever given by a president of the United States.

— Justin Amash (@justinamash) November 4, 2020

Chris Christie on Trump's speech: "It's a bad strategic decision. It's a bad political decision."

— Michael M. Grynbaum (@grynbaum) November 4, 2020

A Republican congressman from Illinois https://t.co/y7phQkIokR

— Steven Hale (@iamstevenhale) November 4, 2020

GOP lawyer Ben Ginsberg says there’s no direct right of appeal to SCOTUS to stop counting ballots. He says they can challenge individual states over procedures. Ginsberg says courts would believe Trump’s lawsuit would be a “massive disenfranchisement that would be frowned upon”

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) November 4, 2020

He said he won the election. There is no evidence of that. He said the election is being stolen. There is no evidence for that. This is not something leaders who care about the health of our democracy or our institutions do.

— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahDispatch) November 4, 2020

On CNN, Rick Santorum was also not very happy.

Buckle up. It’s going to be a helluva week. 

Donald Trump makes a statement to the nation as his supporters look on in the East Room of the White House on Election Night.Chris Kleponis/Zuma

In the early hours of Wednesday morning, the United States still didn’t know who the next president would be. Due to a record turnout and an increase in mail-in ballots due to the coronavirus pandemic, tabulating the votes in key states has been predicted to take days. Despite those facts, Donald Trump is still claiming that he’s winning, and that continuing to count the votes is tantamount to stealing the election. To be clear, as long as a voter is in line when the polls close, their vote will count. Votes have always been counted after Election Day. (Note the Twitter misinformation disclaimer.)

We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 2020

In addition to the incorrect tweet, during a speech from the White House early Wednesday morning, Trump baselessly implied that Trump voters specifically had been disenfranchised, and suggested that votes should not continue to be counted in the coming days. “As far as I’m concerned,” he said, “we already have won it.” Anchors on the major television networks, including Jake Tapper on CNN and Brian Williams on MSNBC, quickly cut in to clarify that Trump has not been declared the winner and that he cannot declare victory until all the votes are counted. He also incorrectly claimed he had won specific states that had not yet in fact been called for him, and noted he’d take the fight over the vote to the Supreme Court.

While galling, Trump’s rhetoric should not come as a surprise. He said he would do this. He loves to take credit for things even when he deserves no credit, when he has in fact lost, or when he is lying. As I wrote on Monday:

According to an Axios report, Donald Trump is planning on declaring a premature victory if it appears that he is ahead before all the ballots are counted. Because coronavirus concerns curtailed in-person voting, many states, including pivotal ones like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, are dealing with a deluge of mail-in ballots, presumably from mostly Democratic voters. Trump has urged his supporters to vote in person to avoid non-existent mail-in voting fraud. But his campaign strategy seems to be that with many in-person votes cast for him, he will use the opportunity to claim victory early by lying that the remaining ballots are fraudulent.

His fake claim joins a long list of other instances in which Trump has called himself a winner without evidence. For example, though he lost the popular vote by 3 million votes in 2016, he claims he won it—you’d just need to deduct the millions of so-called “illegal” ballots cast for Hillary Clinton. And he repeatedly speaks about the coronavirus, which has killed 231,000 people and is surging across the country, as if he’s defeated it. It’s all part of a steady pattern we’ve seen over the last four years:

Despite his long track record of claiming victory without any evidence, Trump insisted the reports about his premature declaration of victory are fake. But he has made it clear that he’s planning a bitter fight in the courts to have mail-in ballots in key states discredited, because in his mind, he’s already the winner. “As soon as that election is over, we’re going in with our lawyers,” he told reporters on Sunday night decrying Supreme Court rulings that are allowing Pennsylvania and North Carolina to continue counting ballots that come in after election day. “Because we’re doing great in Nevada. We’re doing great in Arizona, we’re doing great all over.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden made an early morning statement urging his supporters to be patient while Trump decided to plant the seeds for yet another false victory. The reality is that we may not have complete results for key battleground states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania until sometime on Wednesday. Or later. 

This post has been updated.

Andrew Harnik/AP

The presidential election isn’t anywhere close to being decided, but Joe Biden expressed confidence early Wednesday morning that he would prevail. “We feel good about where we are,” he told supporters gathered in Wilmington, Delaware. “Tonight, we believe we’re on track to win this election.” 

Despite a loss in Florida, where Donald Trump was boosted by support in Miami-Dade county, Biden is currently leading in Arizona and competitive in the Rust Belt states that he would need to win the presidency. 

Pennsylvania, home to Biden’s campaign headquarters, is still counting votes after an unprecedented amount of mail-in ballots came in due to the coronavirus pandemic. The outcome there will not be known Wednesday morning and might not be clear until Thursday or Friday. “It’s gonna take time to count votes,” Biden said, but “we’re gonna win Pennsylvania!” 

While generally optimistic, Biden did not declare victory. “It’s not my place or Donald Trump’s place to declare who won this election,” he said in sharp contrast to a series of tweets from Trump just minutes later—one of which received a warning label from Twitter for being “misleading about an election or other civic process.” 

It’s going to be a long night, series of days, week, month.

The Mexican magic mushroom is a psilocybe cubensis, whose main active elements are psilocybin and psilocin.Alexander_Volkov/Getty

On Tuesday, Oregon passed a first-of-its-kind measure to formally legalize access to hallucinogenic mushrooms. Specifically, Measure 109 directs the state to establish and regulate a program whereby adults in the state will be able to consume psilocybin, a psychoactive compound found in magic mushrooms. As I wrote earlier this week:

[W]hat sets Measure 109 apart from [decriminalization] efforts is that it offers a legal pathway, specifically to psilocybin therapy. That is, rather than blocking penalties for possessing psychedelic products, it would establish a state-regulated program for using and obtaining them. In essence, accessing psilocybin as an adult in Oregon would be about as easy as signing up for counseling.

…Although it is radical, Measure 109 isn’t totally unprecedented. Decriminalizing psychedelics, or legalizing them in certain settings, has become more of a mainstream idea since the release of [food writer Michael] Pollan’s article [“The Trip Treatment”] and his subsequent best-selling 2018 book, How to Change Your Mind, amid a recent surge in research on the possible benefits of psychedelic-assisted therapy. And, the movement follows a decades-long push to legalize marijuana, which activists say helped open the door for psychedelics. “I think cannabis really cleared the way in large part,” says David Bronner, the Cosmic Engagement Officer (aka CEO) of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, which has been a major supporter of Measure 109, as well as cannabis policy reform.

It was a big night for drug policy reform. In Oregon, voters also passed Measure 110, which decriminalizes several drugs, including psilocybin, as well as cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine. It also funds drug addiction treatment. Voters in DC also seemed poised to overwhelmingly pass a measure to decriminalize magic mushrooms and other psychedelic plants. And so far tonight, New Jersey and Arizona passed measures to legalize recreational cannabis. 

Read more about Oregon’s psilocybin program initiative, and Dr. Bronner’s Soaps role in getting it passed.

Lynne Sladky/AP

On Tuesday night, voters in the Sunshine State voted to give up to 2.5 million Floridians a raise. More than 61 percent of voters approved Amendment 2, a ballot measure that will require the state to raise its hourly minimum wage to $15 by September 2026, and to enshrine that increase in the state’s constitution.

The approved increase will nearly double the state’s current minimum wage of $8.56. The increase will happen slowly, with employers being required to add one dollar a year to wages in order to work up to the $15 minimum. The first increase will bring the hourly minimum up to $10 by September 2021.

This vote makes Florida the first state in the South to approve a $15 minimum wage—a livable wage benchmark that progressive labor groups like Fight for 15 have sought for years, and which became part of the Democratic Party’s official platform in 2016. Florida is the eighth state to approve the $15 minimum, and the first state to do it by ballot measure. The ballot measure was spearheaded by Florida For A Fair Wage and local personal injury lawyer John Morgan, who poured millions of dollars into the effort behind Amendment 2.

Both the Florida Chamber of Commerce and the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association opposed the measure, warning that forcing employers to pay workers more would lead to fewer jobs in the state and stymie the state’s economic recovery from the pandemic. A number of economic studies have found that raising the minimum wage does not necessarily hurt employment. A 2019 study from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that raising the minimum wage to $15 could lead to a nationwide loss of 1.3 million jobs, but would increase wages for 17 million people, and lift 1.3 million out of poverty. Another study from the University of California Berkeley found that a $15 minimum wage would have no negative effects on employment. 

Raphael Warnock speaks to Biden supporters as they wait for former President Barack Obama to arrive at a rally at Turner Field in Atlanta. Brynn Anderson/AP

The race to fill an open US Senate seat in Georgia will go to a January runoff between Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Democrat Rev. Raphael Warnock. This was the pretty widely expected result, given the crowded ballot with more than 20 candidates, the pandemic, and another Democrat who refused to drop out, making it more difficult for Warnock to get over the 50 percent threshold and avoid a runoff. 

If Warnock wins in January, he’ll be the first Black senator to represent Georgia. But January runoff races are notoriously hard for the candidate who does not belong to the reigning party, which in Georgia, of course, is the Republican party. Without a national draw to the polls, Warnock faces a significant challenge in motivating his base to come out and vote.

His opponent, Loeffler, currently holds the Senate seat. She was appointed by Gov. Brian Kemp following the retirement last year of Sen. Johnny Isakson. Warnock and Loeffler couldn’t be more different candidates: While he built his campaign on access to health care and issues of racial and social justice, her campaign has leaned into creating an identity for her as a die-hard Trump ally, even welcoming the support of fellow Republican candidate and QAnon supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene. (Loeffer’s top Republican opponent in the jungle primary was Rep. Doug Collins, who conceded Tuesday night.)

Warnock, a preacher at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, began his candidacy as a relative unknown on the national scale, but he picked up steam quickly for a first-time candidate. As I wrote in an October profile of his candidacy:

Over the past couple months, partly due to grim circumstances, Warnock has cultivated a national profile. He delivered a stirring eulogy for Lewis when the civil rights icon passed away from cancer this summer. And following the police killing of George Floyd in May, VOTE WARNOCK began appearing organically on national TV screens—via T-shirts worn by WNBA players protesting Loeffler, who is also co-owner of a WNBA team and who made odious comments about Black Lives Matter. More recently, after the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, money started pouring in from terrified, grieving Democrats to Warnock’s war chest, placing him ahead of all his opponents in fundraising. This was followed by endorsements from former presidents Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter, as well as Abrams. All of this has boosted Warnock to lead the crowded field in many polls this fall, and for his once long-shot bid to be considered a toss-up.

“The character of our country, the soul of the nation hangs in the balance,” Warnock tells me. But, he adds, “the best saints actually get their hands dirty. John Lewis embodied that—it’s not a kind of saintliness that stays out of the fray, it gets in the fray, it gets in good trouble.”