Election Day Takeaways & Fake News - Top 3 Takeaways – March 20th, 2024
- 61% to 28%. What’s that? It’s a comparison of registered partisan voters in Palm Beach County who voted yesterday. Most specifically, 61% of the voters in yesterday’s Presidential Preference and Uniform Municipal elections in Palm Beach County were Republicans while only 28% were Democrats. That’s the kind of number that gets your attention in a county where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by over 7%. As I referenced yesterday, Republicans had a huge voting advantage heading into Election Day and it’s one that only grew throughout the day. On the one hand, without Democrats holding a Presidential Preference Primary in Florida, and also with 16 of the county’s 39 municipalities also not holding municipal elections, Republican outperformance at the polls was to be expected. Every registered Republican in Palm Beach County had an opportunity to vote. Overall, regardless of partisan registration, 58% of the county’s entire population had the opportunity to vote. Without getting into the weeds of methodology, when you account for who had an opportunity to vote, and who made the effort to do so, Republicans outperformed by greater than 8% at the polls. It does appear that Florida’s Democratic Party, led by Nikki Fried, did their constituents a disservice down ballot in municipal races based on the decision not to allow any challengers to Joe Biden to be on the ballot thus canceling their primary.
- Nevertheless, what we’re continuing to see is an evolution of Palm Beach County politically. What was once one of the bluest and most reliable Democrat strongholds in the state is now effectively a swing state (or more appropriately a swing county within what was until recently a swing state). In the 2022 midterm elections voters in Palm Beach County voted for the entire Republican cabinet for the first time ever. In the process voters flipped the Palm Beach County Commission. Now we’re starting to see the impact of political change within municipalities. On Election Day 2022, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 106,761 voters in Palm Beach County (making the outcomes in the elections of that cycle all the more impressive for Republicans). Yesterday, not even a year and a half later, that advantage had been effectively halved to 55,136 voters. We’re entering a new era of politics in the Palm Beaches and there are increasingly elected officials at all levels and in an increasing number of communities reflecting it.
- Not even faking it anymore. When pressed ABC News, NBC News and other legacy news organizations still will pretend as though they’re offering objective news coverage. In reality, their actual coverage shows they’re not even attempting to fake it anymore. We’ve had two notable examples of how this election cycle will be covered by virtue of the handling of two recent Trump-related stories. The first was the recent George Stephanoplous interview of Nancy Mace in which Stephanopoulos repeatedly (ten times) falsely stated that Donald Trump was found liable for rape, and berated Congresswoman Nancy Mace herself a victim of rape, with the assertion (contesting Mace on how she could support Trump considering). The fact of the matter in the E. Jean Carroll case, from which this assertion was derived, is that the New York jury in question specifically did not find Trump liable for rape. When ABC News was questioned about this by Fox News they issued the statement: George did his job by asking meaningful questions that are relevant to our viewers. Now, on the one hand ABC News passing Stephanoplous off as an objective journalist has always been a big lie. He was a former senior Clinton administration advisor and communications specialist. However, standing by ten demonstrably false statements that the former President of the United States was found guilty of rape presented as fact is quite another. But then again, this is the network that just weeks ago had it’s News division president put out a memo to all employees that said of Donald Trump’s comments to the Black Conservative Federation in South Carolina: No matter one’s politics, the fact that a person running for President of the United States made these remarks period — but also to a public crowd — and with so many black people present — and that they stand with him — is mind blowing. Shocking. These remarks are as racist as they come. I suppose in the eyes of Fake News ABC, the ends justify the means. By the way, after refusing to correct the record Donald Trump is suing ABC News and George Stepanoplous for defamation. And then there’s the “bloodbath coverage”. Here’s Trump’s actual quote from his weekend rally in Ohio. China now is building a couple of massive plants where they’re going to build the cars in Mexico and think, they think, that they’re going to sell those cars into the United States with no tax at the border. Let me tell you something to China, if you’re listening President Xi, and you and I are friends, but he understands the way I deal. Those big monster car manufacturing plants that you’re building in Mexico right now, and you think you’re going to get that, you’re going to not hire Americans, and you’re going to sell the cars to us? No. We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those cars. If I get elected. Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath, for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That’ll be the least of it. But they’re not going to sell those cars. The comment was clearly about the auto industry. The coverage by the Godless, soulless and slanderous legacy news media was not. ABC News headline: Trump mentions “bloodbath” if he loses election during rally. CBS News headline: In Ohio campaign rally, Trump says there will be a “bloodbath” if he loses November election”. NBC News headline: Trump says there will be a “bloodbath” if he loses the election”. The legacy news organizations aren’t even faking it anymore. They’re just fake news.