On the week of the election, the country held its breath in anticipation of the results whether they supported one side or another. Eventually, the nation received the results. In the House of Representatives, the Democratic party maintains a slimmer majority with 222 Democrats winning reelection, 205 Republicans winning reelection, and 8 seats uncalled as of yet. In the United States Senate, there will be 46 Democrats serving in the Senate with 2 independents who caucus with them, 50 Republicans serving in the Senate, and there are 2 Georgia Senator runoffs which will decide the control of the Election. With an electoral vote of 306 to 232 (an exact reversal in votes of 2016), Joe Biden won the Presidency.
(Ohio went for Trump in the Presidential race. We had no Senate Races. Ohio went with 12 Republicans and 4 Democrats in the house, with our county being won by Bob Gibbs, A Republican. Our State House of Representatives and our State Senate remained in Republican control with 38 Democrats with 61 Republicans and 9 Democrats with 24 Republicans, respectively. We sent Brett Hudson Hillyer (Republican) to the State House of Representatives from this county. This is notable because Republicans will once again control the redistricting of Ohio. Other Elections by this county with more than one option resulted in: State Board of Education is Michelle Newman, Justices of the Supreme court are Sharon L. Kennedy and Jenniffer Brunner, Judge of the Court of Appeals will be William B. Hoffman, Judge of Court of Common Pleas will be Michael J. Ernest, and both tax levies passed. (The vote totals can be found here.)
While that is all reported by the states, Associated Press, and Ballotpedia, there have been many challenges and implications from these results.
The Congress could end up divided or united under a Democrat President (and yes, I will be addressing the many, many challenges in a moment). The Senate could go two ways. If both Georgia races go to the Democrats, then Democrat candidates will win the control of the Senate with the tie-breaking vote of the Vice-President. If even one race goes to a Republican candidate in Georgia, then Republicans will maintain a slim control of the Senate. The runoffs will be a greatly impactful decision point for the next four years: whether there will be a divided government with continued gridlock between the two parties or a united Democratic government that will be able to enact more of their platform policies.
While the United States government could become completely controlled by Democrats in the elected branches, there is a notable implication created by the slim margins and the decrease of control within the House. The object of focus for divisiveness may have been voted out, but it will still take time for the United States population to come together in a path forward.
Now, to speak of the travesty of the discussion around the presidential election (which will use opinionated language that in no way reflects anything other than my own opinions). Despite throwing a bucket of claims against the wall to find an accusation that sticks, there is no evidence of voter fraud in this election. The members of the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council Executive Committee, the National Association of State Election Directors, and the National Association of Secretaries of State have stated that “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.” Election officials in every state and both parties, including our Republican Secretary of State, told the New York Times that there was no evidence of voter fraud. Trump has fired his own Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency chief for contradicting him about voter fraud. Trump has consistently lost court cases (which will have a paragraph all to itself) because of his tactics to make broad sweeping accusations of wrongdoing without nearly any evidence. On top of all of that Trump has finally allowed the transition team to start with Biden after a long delay despite Trump’s continuing public and unfounded rhetoric that he won “by a lot” aside suggestions of strictly undemocratic suggestions such as Republican state legislatures ignoring the vote of the people to put on faithless electors instead (which is illegal in many states and rejected as a suggestion by state officials in the rest of import). The gradual and sore acceptance of Donald Trump shown by the transition team doing its job does come to show the inevitability of the winner of the vote taking office in January.
In states where he lost (and not in any that he won as far as I know), Trump filed and lost over 30 legal cases. Ignoring the fact that most of his accusations are of so few ballots that all of his filings combined still would not change the results, Trump continues to claim that he won “by a lot.” Ignoring the fact that the claims made outside of the court are much grander than the claims in court where there could be legal repercussions for lying. If we choose to ignore the fact that Trump seems to be putting the accusation out before finding the evidence (even going as far as to set up hotlines to ask his voters to call in with evidence), he still seems to be making the case for voter fraud only working against him (despite cases where Republicans engaged in it and were caught before the election). Trump has still even lost lawyers at an alarming rate as they got laughed out of court by judges who were literally asking for evidence. With quotes emerging such as “I heard somebody else say something, tell me why that’s not hearsay. Come on, now.” and “I’m asking you as a member of the bar of this court, are people representing the plaintiffs in the room?” (which was responded to in the affirmative since that line is how judges gently remind attorneys that they could be disbarred for being deceitful which was the followed by) “I’m sorry then what’s your problem?,” it sounds like Trump’s failure to have evidence is being shut down repeatedly by the Federal courts. (For further reading about Trump’s legal failures, you can read this from the Washington Post or use google to find the incoming dismissals from the court).
While the legal route has been blocked by judges, the sphere of public influence is dominated by the QAnon side of Republican voters, officials, and Donald Trump himself throwing baseless accusation after accusation. Threads have been all throughout the internet (including this one spotlighted by Business Insider) that have dedicated themselves to debunking those accusations, some even went as far as to offer up cash prizes for accusations with merit. And the threads are honestly worth reading to show yourself how misinformation can overwhelm the truth through exhausting those who care by the imbalance of work put into spreading each. It is the best real example of a Gish gallop (a technique of spewing lies to “win” an argument) that I have seen other than politicians who we have let enact it over the past four years.
While his schemes have been and will continue to be unsuccessful without evidence and especially now that the Electoral College has cast the necessary votes to confirm Biden’s presidency, it is still horrible that it happened. Trump has a large base that will believe that this election was stolen which greatly hurts the strength and trust of our fundamental democratic institutions. While many reasonable Republicans are jumping ship from this failed coup, there is still a concerning amount believing Donald Trump and QAnon conspiracies above the truth of the matter. And just because he failed in taking power as a tyrant, it does not mean that Donald Trump’s actions were not a cause for concern or did not cause damage to our society. We will be healing from his constant addition to our divisiveness for years to come, and Donald Trump made it that much worse by throwing a tantrum on his way out of the door.