Today on Sojourner Truth, our post-election special.
Reaction, analysis and a view from poll watchers in Pennsylvania. On Tuesday, November 3, millions of people across the United States headed to the polls and cast their ballots as part of the 2020 elections. Along with over 100 million people who did early voting, this election is reported to be the largest turnout in 100 years. In a race that turned out to be much closer than had been predicted, Democrats Joe Biden and Kamala Harris faced off against Donald Trump and Mike Pence. As of the time we go on the air, it remains still to early to project a winner in the presidential race. Votes are still being counted in Alaska, Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Maine, Georgia and Pennsylvania, according to CNN. Biden holds the lead in the Electoral College at this stage, with 224 votes compared to Trump's 213. A total of 270 Electoral College votes are needed to become President. On Election Night, Trump won a tight race in Florida, bumped up by the Latino vote in Miami Dade County, where large Cuban and Venezuelan exile communities live. There, Trump won 51.2 percent of votes compared to Biden's 47.8. In Florida, Latinos make up 19 percent of all of the state's voters, according to Al Jazeera. In contrast, in Arizona, Latino voters favored Biden by nearly 2-1, with Trump barely making a dent. In Wisconsin, with more than 90 percent of votes counted, Biden holds a narrow lead over Trump. In Nevada, with 85 percent of the votes counted, Biden leads by less than a percentage point. Now, all eyes are on Michigan, where the clerk of Wayne County (a key suburb) says they are counting votes, with no foreseeable end in sight. Pennsylvania, a state which Trump falsely claimed he had won, is just beginning to count hundreds of thousands of early votes mailed in that are expected to be heavily in favor of Biden.
Aside from the presidential race, a number of important developments have taken place. In the Senate race, as of Wednesday morning, Republicans are in the lead with 47 seats compared with the Democrats 45 seats. 51 seats are needed to form a majority. Republicans appear poised to maintain a narrow Senate majority after winning a number of tight races and with others remaining too close to call. The Republicans currently hold a 53-47 seat majority. Democrats need to win four seats to flip the Senate after Alabama Sen. Doug Jones lost to Republican Tommy Tuberville. Democrats have picked up a seat in Colorado, with John Hickenlooper defeating Republican Sen. Cory Gardner, and one in Arizona, with Democrat Mark Kelly, a former astronaut, beating GOP Sen. Martha McSally. Meanwhile, all four progressive congresswomen referred to as The Squad have all won reelection in the House of Representatives. They include Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Ilhan Omar, D-Minn, Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.
Our guests are Dr. Robin Kelley, Bill Gallegos, Phoebe Jones Schellenberg and Tara Galatt. Dr. Robin Kelley is the Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History at UCLA. He is the author of several books, including Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination, Yo Mamas DisFunktional: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America, and Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original. Bill Gallegos is a longtime Chicano Liberation and Environmental Justice activist. He is the author of "The Sunbelt Strategy and Chicano Liberation, and Reflections on The Green Economy." Phoebe Jones is a women's rights campaigner in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. Shes a Quaker, a mother and has a PhD in physical education. She was a poll monitor for the Poor Peoples Campaign " A National Call for Moral Revival, covering a polling station in her neighborhood. Tara Galatt served as a poll monitor in Allentown, Pennsylvania, for the 2020 elections. She is based in New Jersey.
