Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

How are Republicans going to find someone with more charisma and personal charm than Jim Jordan?

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

There are no moderate Republican – only extremists, and cowards.

RIP Zandar. We are still here fighting the stupid, now in your honor.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

It’s easier to kill a dangerous animal than a man who just happens to have different thoughts/values than one’s own.

Glad to see john eastman going through some things.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2016 / Late-Night Rambling Open Thread: Whither the Michigander Vote?

Late-Night Rambling Open Thread: Whither the Michigander Vote?

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I haven’t been a Michigan resident since Debbie Stabenow was running for the state House, but I’ll always have a soft spot for the Mitten. Which is one reason I’ve been obsessively following Dana Houle’s twitter account…

(Traverse City, which was a sleepy little local resort town when the Spousal Unit was growing up in the area, is now a high-dollar resort town where snowbird retirees show up to golf when the Florida summer weather becomes oppressive. Very GOP-leaning, in a normal year.)

Also, following the next thread led me to a really charming under-the-national-radar news report:


… from the Arab-American News:

Bill Clinton woos Arab Americans with surprise Dearborn visit
DEARBORN – Former President Bill Clinton surprised Arab American residents in Dearborn on Sunday evening, with unannounced visits to two local businesses.

The 42nd President was in town following a rally in Lansing earlier in the afternoon, where he was campaigning for his wife and Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Bill Clinton first made a stop at the Greenland Supermarket located on Miller Rd., where he took a tour of the Middle Eastern grocery store and greeted star-struck customers as they were shopping.

One local woman told Bill that her brother was stuck in Syria, and asked if Hillary would be able to assist him in leaving the war-torn country, if she were elected President.

Bill promised that he would do everything he could to assist the woman’s brother, and had his aides take her contact info.

Bill then headed over to the Al-Ameer Restaurant across the street, where dining patrons literally dropped their silverware as he popped in.

Sawsan Azaz, who was having dinner with her family at the Middle Eastern cuisine restaurant , said she was delighted to have been at the right place at the right time.

“I was definitely taken away,” Azaz said. “I have always loved Bill Clinton. He is great. We had the best days during the Clinton times, so I will be voting for Hillary. The majority of us here are.”

Yunus Musa, an employee at Al-Ameer, said the staff had no clue that the former president would be making an appearance. Bill Clinton wasn’t able to dine at the restaurant because he had to catch a flight, but he did order falafel to go.

“No one had any idea,” Musa said. “It’s pretty crazy. A lot of people were very happy to see him. There was a bunch of smiles across the room. The whole staff got to see him and take a picture with him, which is pretty cool. Most of the staff working here believes that he was the best President that we’ve ever had.”

Congresswoman Debbie Dingell shadowed Bill Clinton as he spoke and took selfies with local residents during his stop at the two Arab American owned businesses.

Dingell encouraged the community to come out and vote on Election Day.

“What I’ve been the most worried about is that everyone thought it wouldn’t be a close race and their vote wouldn’t matter,” Dingell said.

“Everyone needs to know that their vote does matter. If they worry about what’s happening in this country, and if they don’t like the division and hate, then they need to go vote on Tuesday to ensure that evil and hatred doesn’t win.”…

Anybody still living in the ‘Pleasant Pennisula’ state want to hazard their opinion about tomorrow?

Speaking of Congressional Dingells…

Reader Interactions

163Comments

  1. 1.

    redshirt

    So are Democrats really losing the midwest (Ohio, Michigan) while winning the west and the east coast? Maybe not this election, but as a trend going forward?

  2. 2.

    Matt McIrvin

    @redshirt: Long term, I think we’re going to lose the Great Lakes (Chicagoland possibly excepted) while winning back the South. Starting with the East Coast and working around from there.

  8. 8.

    Matt McIrvin

    @redshirt: Combined with demographic change. The South is rapidly getting less white. Though Michigan might be too, which would be the brake on the trend.

  9. 9.

    RaflW

    I feel like the closing couple of days would not be viewed as credible in a film of novel. The contrasts between hope, compassion and competence on one side, and fear, anger, and foolishness on the other would seem too saccharine or silly to really connect for an audience.

    But here we are.

    I feel like Hillary has got this. As long as (and this is my one brief spin into paranoia, I don’t spend much energy on it at all, I’m honestly not getting out the tinfoil, but…) as long as the Russians don’t actually, literally hack the Diebold machines.

    Other than that very unfortunate jag into jibber-jabber, I feel pretty hopeful tonight. I think Trump will be a lingering problem for the US, and I know the GOP will continue to embody assholishness Wednesday and all the days after, but I think the fever swamp will begin to drain tomorrow.

  14. 14.

    Mike J

    Neighbors must have fireworks left over from something. Seahawks win, fireworks go off.

    And no, tackling the kicker is not roughing the kicker.

  15. 15.

    redshirt

    @amk: Just a guess. Obama won handily in 2008, tied in 2012. Seems representative of the general vote. That said, surprisingly, I think Clinton will do worse than Obama did up here.

    So maybe not a win in that all important demographic of crap rural NH town.

  18. 18.

    aliasofwestgate

    I live in Port Huron, which is about an hour north of Detroit. A very red little county seat. But the city is. More diverse since a decade ago. So it may be slightly purple now. I’ve been voting since I turned 18 in 1995, first President I voted for was the Big Dawg himself. I’m happy to vote for Hillz! Never underestimate Detroit, Flint, and even a large portion of Grand Rapids to make the state blue nationally. GR is flush with colleges and millenials. Just enough to help us along. It may be a GOP stronghold on the state level, but I lived there for 8 years. The kids are alright! ( i’m 39 now, BTW)

  20. 20.

    BlueDWarrior

    @Matt McIrvin: Well, a lot of the Industrial Midwest is losing population to the Sunbelt, and since most of that population is younger and more liberal, it is neutralizing some of the native red vote to make places like GA and NC viable for Democrats short term and TX long term, while, at least in the short and mid term making OH, WI, and MI more red (not all of the Reagan Democrats are dead, yet).

    I wouldn’t be surprised if next election that (presumably Clinton) wins GA and NC and loses MI and OH.

  21. 21.

    RaflW

    @Matt McIrvin: Minnesota flirts with purpleness some years, but I think we’ll be a holdout for a while. We may be flyover country (for now… I have thoughts about how climate change may make the Twin Cities rather more popular in 20 years than now).

    But we’re sort of a bubble area now. In some ways urban Minneapolis certainly, and some 1st ring suburbs, feel a bit Portlandia now. And we are quite highly educated. And we’ve gone from 94% white to 84% white in 20 years (as a state, metro more diverse) and will keep getting less and less white.

    If we do tip long-term GOP, I’m not sure I’d stay. I mean, I love it here, but much of what I love comes from us having a decency, a spirit of investing together for our future, of welcoming new neighbors (we’ve had some really heartfelt responses to Trump’s anti-immigrant shit-fest at the airport the other day).

    Who knows how long we as a country can keep it together, for now this is a great home, and if Colorado keeps trending blue (and doesn’t dehydrate) that’ll be my back-up place, I already spend 7-10 weeks a year there.

    I’m sort of amazed that I feel like I can breathe tonight. My chest has been tight for weeks now. Hope I still feel calm and optimistic this time tomorrow night.

  22. 22.

    BlueDWarrior

    @redshirt: that’s because they were doing an experiment, and having it be a rolling tracking poll of certain respondents, and they appeared to overweight for Republicans/whites in their sample. So they were consistently sour on Clinton for no apparent reason.

  24. 24.

    Spider-Dan

    @amk: As I mentioned in the other thread, the LA Times should be ashamed for pushing an obviously-fraudulent poll for months without having the spine to stamp their name on it for an electoral prediction.

    If they knew their polling methodology was broken (and they obviously do), they should have stopped publishing the poll long ago.

  26. 26.

    BlueDWarrior

    @efgoldman: I think I agree with some people there are some short term complications, because you have a highly aggravated white population in those states that will flock toward demagogic Republicans; but eventually the youth will take hold just like they have in any other state with large cities (minus TX).

  29. 29.

    Suzanne

    @Walker: The problem in AZ is that the
    Latino population here is much more recent than in NM or even CA, and so many of them are not citizens yet or are undocumented and cannot vote. Also, there is a stereotype that AZ is filled with old people, and they certainly are here, but it’s actually one of the youngest states on average—filled up with lots of Mormons and evangelicals.

  30. 30.

    RaflW

    Oh, and fuck the NYT for running a Frank Luntz op-ed tonight. He’s in the 7th circle of hell for his GOP turd-polishing, but the Times gives him a space to tut-tut the tone of the election.

    Up yours, you evil snakehandler.

  31. 31.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @RaflW:

    as long as the Russians don’t actually, literally hack the Diebold machines.

    Apparently that is not a thing. They’re not hooked up to the internet. They operate independently, with backup copies and redundancy systems and everything is divided up rather than centralized, and basically there’s just no way to interfere long range, and it’s quite hard to interfere even close-up without getting caught in the act.

  33. 33.

    Spider-Dan

    @efgoldman: As Gary Johnson would say, in the long run the sun will envelop the earth and none of this will matter.

    While there will eventually come a time when MN, WI, IA, and IN are majority-minority, that time is sufficiently far off in the future that if the parties are still in their current demographical alignment, the GOP at that time will have all the political relevance that the Dixiecrats do today.

  38. 38.

    hovercraft

    @redshirt:
    Yes. The south east will continue to become bluer and we will slowly lose OH, MI, and possibly WI and MN, the browning is not occurring there at the same pace as the rest of the country. As the GOP loses the south east, they will have to find new states to replace them. PA has the benefit of two dynamic large metropolitan areas that have adapted and are growing, so even though they are one of the oldest states, until the GOP can reverse the trends in the collar counties of Philly they won’t flip it. PA will probably remain like IL which apart from Chicago is very red. The other midwestern states don’t have enough or big enough big cities to offset the sea of red. WI and MN are pretty liberal, so I think they will be more difficult to flip. Chris Hayes said earlier that the reason the Clinton campaign is concerned about MI is that the 2012 campaign felt that the reason they won that state so easily was because of the auto bailout, and because Romney was against it. It was also the state where they over performed the polls by the most. If not for that they would have expected it to be their most vulnerable states.

  41. 41.

    redshirt

    @Mike J: I know it means little, but if you look at past results, they do generally mirror the overall election. Which I find encouraging that so few wanted to vote for Trump, and instead voted for Johnson and (lol) Romney.

  42. 42.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Omnes Omnibus: Long-term, it seems to me that Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and maybe even Minnesota have been getting gradually more Republican. Maybe Pennsylvania too, though it’s a very slow process. Trump is already going to win Ohio. And Iowa (not technically Great Lakes) seems to be a solid red state now.

    Of course, this time around, the only states I mentioned that are really likely to go R are Ohio and Iowa. But Michigan suddenly became competitive, as mentioned in the OP.

  43. 43.

    RaflW

    @BillCinSD: I should have been more clear, it’s the eventual tabulation that worries me. I mostly see it as a risk in a couple states with less-than-stellar GOP S.O.S.s.

    Like I said, it’s not a significant worry, but it’s not zero. I’m so thankful we had a successful deflection of a total ideologue-idiot Repub who tried to nab SOS here in Minnesota. It was the one statewide race that wasn’t a fairly easy ‘get’ for the Dems this last time. But the decent, competent man won. Phew.

  45. 45.

    MCA1

    @efgoldman: Yeah, I agree on balance. Iowa seems to be going the way of the rural plains states, and Ohio has a definite problem with revanchist white assholes, but that’s really it. And the latter of those two has been in the balance for several cycles, to the point where I’ve gotten tired of its importance to the electoral map.

    Wisconsin elects goofy Republicans in statewide elections but doesn’t go that way for President. Michigan knows the Democratic Party was there for them after the econopocalypse. Minnesota has a booming economy, a growing diversity and little of the white angst driving the rust belt. Illinois ain’t never going red. Indiana’s the Mississippi of the Midwest and has been lost for decades.

    Demographics push a lot more states from purple to blue than to red in the next several cycles.

  46. 46.

    Emerald

    @Mike J: @redshirt:
    That Romney vote tells me a lot. I really think Trump is going to lose at least 10%, and I’m betting much more, of the Republican vote. It’ll be mostly women, but not all.

  48. 48.

    Mike J

    Jon Favreau ‏@jonfavs 1 minute ago
    “DIXVILLE NOTCH VOTERS GIVE CLINTON PASS ON EMAILS”

    Alex Seitz-Wald ‏@aseitzwald 2 minutes ago
    Huge Mittmentum.

    MadamePresidentElect ‏@HalloweenBlogs 4 minutes ago
    Its hilariously funny that Donald Trump was handed his 1st electoral loss of the day by a bunch of white men in New Hampshire

  52. 52.

    jacy

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Larry Sabato says that people he trusts to know the state inside and out give Hillary a decent shot in Ohio. We shall see. I do think the map is going to change — in ways I’m not smart enough to suss out.

  55. 55.

    Peale

    @Emerald: Yep. That Romney voter was only there because his neighbors forced him to be there because of the media attention. He’s the voter who will be sitting out the election entirely were he not under a lot of strain to show up. They know where he lives, after all.

  56. 56.

    NotMax

    Mike J

    Had to find it on a Chinese site, but here’s some backstory of the Notch’s electorate, such as it is.

    On this year’s Election Day, Dixville Notch voters are expected to begin voting at the stroke of midnight (0500GMT), and the ballots will not take long to tally: Dixville Notch has only seven registered voters.

    Of those voters, there is one registered Democrat, three Republicans, and three independents, according to Tom Tillotson, son of Neil Tillotson and also the town’s polling moderator.

    He told Xinhua that six voters will cast their ballots at the polling station, while his son, Tanner Tillotson, who was the town’s first voter in 2012 presidential elections, is now working in Spain and will vote as an absentee. Source

    So at least one registered R did not vote for you know who.

  58. 58.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Ann Coulter @ AnnCoulter
    If only people with at least 4 grandparents born in America were voting, Trump would win in a 50-state landslide.
    Dan McLaughlin Retweeted Ann Coulter
    Trump himself, however, would be ineligible to vote.

    as would all of his children, and grandchildren, except for Tiffany’s, maybe

  61. 61.

    Matt McIrvin

    @amk:

    mittbot got one? The guy (I am sure it’s a guy) doesn’t know it’s 2016?

    Oh, he knows. He knows.

  62. 62.

    RaflW

    @Matt McIrvin: The key in the middle time range in MN is the US House. If we can take 02 (open seat held too long by Repub Klein) and hold 08 (Nolan, who squeaked in two years ago), we’ll be at 6-2 in the House delegation, and right now we have 2-0 in the Senate and zero statewide GOP constitutional officers (gov, lt gov, AG, SOS).

    Now, two of our ag-heavy House districts would be in play if the Dem incumbents retire, and we may (I think probably will) drop to 7 House seats after the 2020 census, which will unleash a holy hell of redistricting.

    Our lege has oscillated, but I retain some (naive?) sense that the angry, shitty style of the national GOP doesn’t play well here. Plenty of time to see how it all plays out. In fact, I and I think almost all Minnesotans are in the dark wether Trump helps hand the MN House back to the Dems, or if we have 2-1 divided gov’t (Governor + MN Senate / MN House).

  63. 63.

    amk

    @SRW1: If the result had been the other way around, the worthless media minions would be concern trolling about hillary’s bad start. And some people here would be parroting them.

  66. 66.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: My grandparents were all born in the US, but the native language of one was Norwegian. Does that count?

    (When he was young, he was adopted by a different family in the same South Dakota town, and had to adjust to speaking a whole new language at home… Danish.)

  67. 67.

    Peale

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: So that’s the gold standard now? I wouldn’t be eligible to vote. Neither would my mother and father. Criminies, given that my Grandfather came from a family of 12 and he and his sister married into two different families of 10 and 14 respectively, there would be about 500 white German voters scrubbed from the polls in Wisconsin.

  68. 68.

    Mary G

    Hart’s Location NH results

    President and Vice President of the United States
    Democrat – Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine – 17
    Republican – Donald J. Trump and Michael R. Pence – 14
    Green – Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka
    American Delta – Rogue “Rocky” De La Fuente and Michael Steinberg
    Libertarian – Gary Johnson and Bill Weld – 3
    Write-In – Bernie Sanders – 2
    Write-In – Kasich / Sanders 1

  71. 71.

    aliasofwestgate

    MI tends to be blue nationally, but red outside the big cities. Which is how we ended up with Snyder and the state congress all red. But our National Senators are both blue, and the Reps are a mixed bag, depending on the region. I’m this thinking Snyder pissed off the voters in general these last few years, which is enough to vote blue again. Engler said he’d serve up Mi in 2000 to Dubya. Voters went NOPE!

  73. 73.

    hitchhiker

    My blue collar family all live in TC, where I went to high school in the late 60s. It’s an almost pure white town. The people I know there have always been resentful about the “fudgies” — which is what they call the tourists who come up from Chicago and Detroit with all their $$ in the summertime.

    A lot of class resentment, in other words. They do like it that Michael Moore has chosen their little city as a stomping ground. He started a film festival, renovated their old theater, and generally boosts the economy. They can’t stand the man himself.

  75. 75.

    hovercraft

    Micheal Steele needs to get the fuck over himself. The fact that Trump and the GOP have poisoned their base and made them hate Hillary and democrats is not her problem. She can reach out to them, but if their response is lock her u, Trump that bitch, she doesn’t have to beg them to let her govern. The GOP has to get it’s morons to understand that they are in the minority, beginning with the congresscritters themselves.

  76. 76.

    Anne Laurie

    @SRW1:

    No love for Ann Arbor?

    Too many Libertarian and/or Sanders voters to be counted as safe!

    (Srsly, some of my dearest MI acquaintances are registered Libertarian, and UM is heavy with special-snowflake liberal-arts students. Says the former Lansing resident… )

  81. 81.

    hovercraft

    @Peale:
    Feature not a bug. I guess they don’t mind that it would mean the vast majority of black people could vote, given that we are only about 9% of the country.

  82. 82.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @RaflW: that’s John Favreau, Obama’s ex speech writer, he’s been riffing on the media email obsession all day

  84. 84.

    NotMax

    Amusing. From a guide for Japanese on following the U.S. election.

    Plan ahead which colleagues you will be eating with and be sure to choose an easily digestible option, since the definitive result could well come with your Nov. 9 lunch set. Source

  85. 85.

    Anne Laurie

    @hitchhiker:

    The people I know there have always been resentful about the “fudgies” — which is what they call the tourists who come up from Chicago and Detroit with all their $$ in the summertime.

    Old saw, per the Spousal Unit: “Fudgies cross the bridge with one tshirt and a twenty-dollar bill, and in a week they haven’t changed either one.”

    Houle’s right about the “Michigan diaspora”, though. Even though we both loved the state, Spousal Unit & I decamped almost 25 years ago, when it became obvious that at least one of us would always be looking for work if we stayed. Everything we’ve heard since then, from friends & his family, indicates that we made the best choice personally — but we’re two fewer votes for sane (Democratic) leadership, just like all the rest of our fellow economic refugees.

  86. 86.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    I doubt that Minnesota will be trending red, at least on the federal level, anytime soon. It has two things that separate it from most of the rest of the Great Lakes area (by which I mean Ohio/Michigan and to the west; Pennsylvania and New York may touch on the Great Lakes, but they are fundamentally more eastern). The first is the Twin Cities. Other than Illinois, none of these states have a vibrant and growing large metropolis like that. Michigan has a large metropolis in the southeastern part of the state, and it has some economically vibrant areas, but there’s not much crossover between them, except for some isolated pockets in the Detroit suburbs. (Note: if you think of Ann Arbor as a part of the Detroit area, you might disagree, but, having grown up there, I’d say that you’re wrong.) Minneapolis/St Paul is attracting young people and will continue to dominate the state.

    The second thing is a demographic that is pretty much unique to Minnesota: redneck socialists. The Arrowhead (the part of the state north and northeast of Duluth) was settled in the late 19th century by Finnish socialists kicked out by the Russian authorities, and they maintain a tradition of left wing politics; it’s been diluted some in recent decades, but is still more of a thing as conservative Cuban Hispanics in Florida. Southern Minnesota is as politically unpleasant as the less desirable areas of Iowa, and northwest Minnesota is basically North Dakota, but they won’t take over.

  87. 87.

    NotMax

    @NotMax

    From the same article.

    After work in Tokyo, if Clinton wins and you feel inclined to celebrate with like-minded people, head to Marunouchi, where Democrats Abroad Japan members desperately hope they will be raising a glass to America’s first female president at the Pub Cardinal Marunouchi. Our research, however, hasn’t uncovered any planned celebrations for Republicans in the event of a Trump win.

  90. 90.

    Peale

    @hovercraft: I have to say, based on my understanding of Wisconsin, I think Omnes might be the only white person in the state allowed to vote. Between him and the African Americans in the state, I don’t think that state would be going for Trump.

  95. 95.

    patrick II

    @RaflW:

    I saw Luntz on 60 minutes last night also speaking with concerned despair about how the voters in his test group had so much animosity towards each other. Those voters are, in significant part, a result of his sophisticated lies increasing racial and economic tension in the country. The man is a very smart but amoral sociopath.

  98. 98.

    hovercraft

    Watching the crowd at the Hillary NC rally, they are going insane, laud, jumping up and down. Before it started Joan Walsh was talking about some sort of chant and jump thing they do at her raliies and I had no idea what she was talking about. Funny that I’ve never seen clips of this thing on TV before. She looks so happy, she’s feeding off the crowd.

  99. 99.

    Peale

    @Mary G: Honestly, Sanders Voters. Learn the names of another politician for VP. He’s 73. You may want a back up. I guess that’s what happens when you’re the last honest man in Politics. You have to do everything yourself.

  100. 100.

    redshirt

    @amk: It’s a good omen. Obviously it’s only like 40 people in lilly white NH, but that they’ve gone for Clinton indicates so too will the rest of the election, if trends from the past hold.

  101. 101.

    divF

    @redshirt: I knew some Norwegian communist refugees from Minnesota. They moved here and settled in Alameda. Politically very lefty, socially rather prim. They used to take their daughter when she was in primary school to anti-war rallies in Berkeley in the sixties. OTOH, for a couple of years I was referred to as “that nice man who used the f-word” (stated exactly that way).

  103. 103.

    hovercraft

    @Peale:
    I agree, like I said I don’t think MN and WI will be going to the GOP anytime soon. The GOP wins blue state elections when the gubernatorial elections are held in off years. Some Wisconsin reporter pointed out earlier that the democrats haven’t lost a senatorial election during a presidential year in forever. Iowa, Ohio, and perhaps Michigan will turn sooner. I can see 2024 having the big contested states be in the mid west, while the south eastern states are solidly blue. But by the I assume the GOP will have woken up, the demographic changes will eventually move all the way up north. 2042 is not that far.

  104. 104.

    Peale

    @Mary G: When I think about it, the guy who wrote in Rocky de la Fuente probably spent more time considering his options than anyone else in town.

  105. 105.

    redshirt

    @divF: Those are Norwegians. I’m talking about second/third generation immigrants who still cling to that identity for reasons I don’t understand but also don’t question. I mean if you were born in America, and your parents were born in America, but your grandparents were born in Finland, does that really make you Finnish? I say no. You’re American. But people disagree.

    They’ve all got their saunas and some weird food and nicknames though. And though the men all hunt and fish and drive trucks, they’re as liberal as anyone here. It’s refreshing.

  107. 107.

    piratedan

    @hovercraft: yup… the GOP is in charge… where’s the bipartisanship then? The word is never mentioned, we have mandates and plans… tables turned… why aren’t you reaching out? what happened to governance together?

    At the point right now, if somehow, someway we vote these sociopaths out of office… well they can take a fucking number and wait. Feel free to pollute the media and the sunday talk shows, but get the fuck out of the way. There’s some shit that needs attending to. After all, Obama brought home the groceries and you fuckers have left the stove on while you’ve been binge watching Deal or No Deal.

  109. 109.

    redshirt

    @amk: In Dixville Notch, it was Clinton 4, Trump 2, Johnson 1, and Romney 1, yet Hassan and Ayotte 4-4. That feels like the general nature of the entire election.

  111. 111.

    NotMax

    Oy. An obviously very tired Andrea Mitchell (on the screen when briefly looked that way) looks like nothing so much as Bill Maher in drag.

  112. 112.

    divF

    @redshirt: I should have said “Norwegian-American communists” – second generation, I believe.

    ETA: As NotMax said, a tendril of DFL.

  114. 114.

    RaflW

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Rochester, MN, with lots of rich Mayo doctors, will be an unpleasant thorn in our state’s side for years to come.

    Open question for years to come is if we can register and mobilize non-white farm workers as they settle in to the souther couple tiers of counties. That’s all Walz (D) country, including Roch, and it’s considered R+1 now.

  120. 120.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Ground game!

    Over at Trump’s Manchester headquarters, another outsider was already looking for ways to capitalize on Trump’s energy to feed a different long-term cause.
    Kevin Deame, a scraggly bearded man in a blue sweatshirt, left the GOP office with a clipboard and a list of addresses and brochures to canvass for Trump. But he wasn’t using them to evangelize for Trump.
    “Jesus, no, are you kidding?” he said when asked whether he supported Trump.
    Instead, he was going door to door to persuade the people on the GOP list to vote for his write-in presidential candidacy with the Pirate Party, an international movement centered on Internet privacy.
    “From my point of view, Trump voters are a lot of times a protest vote in general,” he said.

  123. 123.

    redshirt

    @amk: What M4 said. It shows a voter who doesn’t want to vote for Trump – good for them! – but still votes for the Repuke Senator or Congressman.

  124. 124.

    Mary G

    Millsfield NH screwed up the narrative by going 16-4 for Trump, so Trump goes to bed ahead 32-25. Boo hiss Millsfield.

  127. 127.

    Mary G

    @Mary G: People on Twitter reassure me that Millsfield went 16-5 for Romney in 2012, so this is a meaningless result. Sometimes I can’t decide if I love or hate the internet.

  128. 128.

    GrandJury

    Sam Wangs final prediction is
    Clinton 323 EV, Trump 215 EV

    Not humiliating enough for the tangerine shit stain but I’ll take it.

  130. 130.

    amk

    LOLGOP ‏@LOLGOP 3h3 hours ago

    There would be some justice in Trump going down in history as the first man ever defeated by a woman.

    0 replies 313 retweets 842 likes

  135. 135.

    Matt McIrvin

    @amk: Wang nudged his North Carolina prediction a little to pick the mode at 323 instead of 308. Call it optimism.

  136. 136.

    seaboogie

    The most illuminating moment of this election for me was watching a few pro-Clinton protesters outside a Trump rally, carrying “Love trumps hate” signs. And opposite them was a small group of pro-Trumpers, including a woman who kept shouting “Hate Will Win – Hate Will Win!” I think that distilled the essence of this election for me.

    Watched Hillary’s NC rally tonight, and my heart felt full.

  138. 138.

    joel hanes

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    IA

    I’ve never actually been ashamed of Iowa until this year. Yah, Grassley and Ernst, but decades of Tom Harkin. Iowans used to be better, I think.

  140. 140.

    Tripod

    I don’t put much stock in Brogressive history. Like the idea that the midwest was a solidly Democratic New Deal workers paradise until Bill Clinton came along.

    That’s just bullshit.

  143. 143.

    redshirt

    @Daulnay: What I’m getting at is different. Maine had a KKK history, pretty notable. But they were disappeared over time, replaced by consensus liberal values we all hold dear. But the real Reagan Revolution unlocked something and every election since it’s worse. This year being the worse ever. This is the poison now spreading everywhere. It’s transmitted by TV, radio, the internet and email. Word of mouth has little to do with it these days.

  144. 144.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    @redshirt: Keep in mind that they are not representative of all Suomi. The Finns that settled in Michigan’s UP and much of northern Wisconsin are from a very different, much more conservative, set. I know nothing about the Finnish population of Maine.

  145. 145.

    Mnemosyne

    @Tripod:

    Like the idea that the midwest was a solidly Democratic New Deal workers paradise until Bill Clinton came along.

    Yeah, I guess those massive layoffs in the Midwest during the Reagan years didn’t really exist in places like Flint, MI.

  146. 146.

    Greg Gabrielse

    The Trump campaign called me twice to see if I wanted tickets for tonight. Suffice to say, I am not their target audience.

  148. 148.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    @Mnemosyne: The “solidly Democratic” is even more wrong. In the eleven presidential elections after World War II and before 1992, here’s how the Midwest voted:

    Ohio: 8-3 Republican
    Michigan: 8-3 Republican
    Indiana: 10-1 Republican
    Illinois: 8-3 Republican
    Wisconsin: 7-4 Republican
    Iowa: 8-3 Republican
    Missouri: 6-5 Republican
    Minnesota: 8-3 Democratic

  149. 149.

    opiejeanne

    @hovercraft: You’re 12.3% of the country. :-)
    I looked it up earlier today because my husband wanted to know if Hispanics/Latinos are a similar percent; they’re 17%, Asians are 5.6%.

  150. 150.

    Betty Cracker

    Via TPM, Pats-holes:

    Trump Touts Support From Tom Brady, Bill Belichick At 11th Hour In NH

    Donald Trump opened a Monday night rally in Manchester, New Hampshire with what he told the crowd were two enormous endorsements from the area: New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady.

    Still, neither sports hero has publicly endorsed Trump themselves, and neither attended the rally.

    “Two people I really like as people, respect as people, and because they’re so important to the area, I thought I’d give you this information. They told me I could do it, so I’ll do it,” he said, buttering up the crowd as his running mate and family left the stage.

    “Tom Brady—great guy, great friend of mine, great champion, unbelievable winner,” Trump began. “He called today, and he said, ‘Donald, I support you, you’re my friend, and I voted for you.’”

    “‘If you want to say it you can say it,’” Trump said Brady told him about announcing the endorsement.

    Trump also said he had received the “most beautiful letter” from Belichick, whose cult status in New England’s football world is rivaled only by Brady’s.

    “‘Congratulations on a tremendous campaign,’” Trump said he was quoting from Belichick’s letter. “‘You have dealt with an unbelievable slanted and negative media and have come out beautifully. You’ve proved to be the ultimate competitor and fighter. Your leadership is amazing. I have always had tremendous respect for you, but the toughness and perseverance you have displayed over the past year is remarkable. Hopefully tomorrow’s election results will give the opportunity to Make America Great Again. Best wishes for great results tomorrow, Bill Belichick.’”

    What a pair of douchecanoes. Still, it speaks volumes that they couldn’t be bothered to show up.

  152. 152.

    opiejeanne

    @seaboogie:

    a woman who kept shouting “Hate Will Win – Hate Will Win!”

    Despite everything we’ve seen his supporters say and do, it’s still shocks me.

  153. 153.

    Anne Laurie

    @Betty Cracker:

    What a pair of douchecanoes.

    Quite possibly! Nevertheless, Tom Brady has been dancing between the raindrops, refusing to endorse Trump or Clinton, for many months now. And Bill Belichick is a devout follower of famous Masshole Martin Lomasney: “Never write if you can speak; never speak if you can nod; never nod if you can wink.” I’m sure he’s heard the words John Barron thoughtfully used in that letter, but I’m not sure he’s ever said them — at least not in public.

    Deliciously, if it can be verified before the polls open that Trump made this shit up, it will keep some of his natural Masshole voters from pulling the lever in his favor. Not that they’ll vote for Hillary, but as long as they’re not voting for him…

  155. 155.

    LayedBackGuy

    Lifelong Michigander here. I took a vacay day for tuesday off work, so I could I could vote for President H. Clinton, and other misc liberal evil doers. 50 yr old white dude in a red part of mid Michigan, but I get the feel all the confederate dudes in my shop are feeling kinda down these days. We gonna whomp Trump in Michigan tonight!

  156. 156.

    Betty Cracker

    @Anne Laurie: The alleged Belichick letter sure does sound like a Trump PR production. It’ll be funny as hell if they deny it in the morning.

  159. 159.

    Jim Kelly

    I’m in Northern MI, Alcona County (1st of 83!). Clinton/Kaine votes from me, my wife and my son. Most of the Trump supporters here are old and scared, and dying soon. The top of the Lower Peninsula, my area, is slowly becoming more blue, not less. For the first time in a long time, my districts (1st Congressional, 106th State) have a very good chance of going to the Democratic nominee.

  160. 160.

    Yes, my first name is Walker

    Michigan resident here. Voted for Hillary this morning. I think eventually Wisconsin goes red, but Minnesota and Michigan will likely hold as blue leaning for the long haul. Let’s just not discuss the shithole that is Ohio.

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