I think only a few stray ballots remain uncounted in the presidential election. No state is slower than New York, but earlier this week it finally reported the absentee ballot results for the five boroughs of Gotham. Here's what that looked like for the borough of Manhattan:
Biden 225,435 (90%)
Trump 20,184 (8%)
For a long time, Biden had been leading Trump by exactly 4 percent of the national vote, 51.1 to 47.1, but these late additions from populous jurisdictions that voted overwhelmingly for Biden have budged the number: it looks like the final margin is going to be more like Biden by 4.4 percent, 51.3 to 46.9.
Imagine if New York were a "swing state," that the election outcome hinged on who would win its 29 electoral votes, and that the absentee ballots from New York City put Biden over the top. Then these ballots would be "a vote dump" and evidence—no, proof—of FRAUD! FRAUD! FRAUD! But, since Biden was already way ahead in New York, and there was no question of him having won the state's electoral votes, these ballots are just accepted for what they are—the tabulated votes of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers expressing by ballot their preference for president. The "ballot dumps" that Trump is complaining about, such as were added to the count in Wisconsin in the wee hours of the morning on November 4, aren't any more mysterious. Milwaukee County reporting. It happens all over the country. Democrats live in cities. It takes a while to open all those envelopes. When they're counted and added to the tally, the Democratic candidate gets a big bump.
Actually, in New York as in a lot of other big cities, it's true that Trump got trounced but also true that he did somewhat better than four years ago. For example, sticking with Manhattan, Biden carried the borough by 86.4 to 12.2 percent. Four years ago, Clinton carried it by 86.6 to 9.7 percent. In the Bronx, where the Democratic voters have quite a different demographic profile, the trend was more pronounced: Biden carried the borough by 83.3 to 15.9, but Clinton had won it by even more, 88.5 to 9.5. The only borough where Trump failed to gain ground was the won he carried, Staten Island: he won it by 15 points in 2016 and by 15 points again this year.
Staten Island is home to the city's white working class. Trump made no gains there. In the country as a whole, his share of the nonwhite vote ticked upward, and this likely explains his improved performance in the other four boroughs. One feels more sure of this after inspecting results from upstate New York. In Oneida County (county seat is Utica), Trump's margin went from 19.4 percent in 2016 to 15.5 percent this year. He carried Essex County, on the Vermont border almost to Canada, by one point in 2016; Biden won it by 51-46 this time. Bronx, Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens are almost the only places in the state where he did appreciably better than four years ago.
Trump is never right about anything. He attributes his defeat to fraudulent "vote dumps" in inner cities, with the implication that the election was stolen from him in black and brown precincts. The truth is that there was no fraud, that he gained among nonwhite voters, and that he lost because white voters turned against him. Meanwhile, the daily COVID death count is running a couple hundred below that of 9/11, a couple hundred above Pearl Harbor’s. Tomorrow will likely be another day of 2500 or more dead. Trump has nothing to say about that. He lies about the election being stolen, then turns his attention to pardons for his children. He must know they've done crimes.
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