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Some Progressive Points of Light in the Election
November 15, 2016 in Uncategorized | by Eric Kirk | 6 comments
From a friend:
THINGS TO CELEBRATE:
In the California race to replace retiring Senator Barbara Boxer, Kamala
Harris, daughter of Indian & Jamaican immigrants, was voted the nation's
first Indian-American and second black female Senator.
In Oregon, Kate Brown was the first openly LGBT person to be elected to
a US governorship.
Lisa Blunt Rochester earned Delaware's sole seat in the House of
Representatives, becoming both the first woman and the first African-
American to represent Delaware in Congress.
In Minnesota, Ilhan Omar, a former refugee, is the first Somali-American
Muslim woman elected to a state legislature.
Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada is the first Latina elected to the
Senate.
Tammy Duckworth took back Obama's Senate seat in Illinois.
In Florida, Stephanie Murphy was the first Vietnamese-American woman
elected to Congress, defeating a 23-year Republican incumbent.
Pramila Jayapal will be the first female Indian-American Congressional
Representative. An immigrant from India at 16, she was elected to
represent the Seattle area on a Bernie-Sanders-style platform.
In NJ, Josh Gottheimer, first time Democratic candidate, beat
Representative Scott Garrett, seven-term Republican incumbent and one
of the most conservative Tea-Party-aligned members of Congress.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio was ousted in Arizona.
A woman handily won the popular vote for President of the United States.
One more look at the California results maps
So check out the Presidential race. Although it's still very conservative compared to most of the rest of the state, Orange County is no longer a Republican stronghold in national elections. I remember during the 1970s and 80s when California was a sure win for Republicans, it always looked close throughout election night. But Orange County, for whatever reason, was always late to report anything. We would watch the returns coming in and OC would still report 0 percent returns until late in the evening and then "Boom!" The Republican would pull way ahead. It's one of the most populous counties, and combined with San Diego, Santa Barbara, Ventura, etc. it would pack a conservative wallop.
It's changed a bit, largely to the closure of the military bases and industry in the 90s, as well as the growth of Latino votes who helped Loretta Sanchez rid Congress of B-1 Bob Dornan in the 90s – we should always be grateful to her for that. It went convincingly to Clinton. Note that Shasta County went to Clinton, though just barely. Big Libertarian vote back there. Interesting, because Trump actually campaigned there back during the primaries. I guess they weren't impressed.
Now check out the Senate race. Sanchez took two counties. Lost in her home county, Orange. Because Sanchez identified as a Blue Dog there was speculation that Republicans might rally behind her, but no indication of that.
Looking at the death penalty repeal – mostly the affluent liberal areas were in favor. It passed in Humboldt County, but only just barely. Same with Los Angeles, and now that the repeal has failed a second time during elections in which leftish voters turned out heavy, we need to look at why. It does appear that people of color aren't quite ready to abandon the death penalty, accounting for the close vote in L.A.
Meanwhile, 66, which would speed up the appeals process for death penalty cases and radically transform the whole habeus corpus concept, is still passing, but only just barely. With millions of votes remaining to be counted, there is a decent chance it will fail. It's failing in the liberal areas and a few other places, but seems to have strong enough support in the conservative areas to offset the urban areas – with a little help from urban POC? Again, it just barely failed in Los Angeles. Went down by a large margin in Humboldt – lots of voters here not willing to give up the DP, but also not wanting to speed up the appeals process to increase chances of fatal error.
All the maps can be found here.
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