Republicans make history in the House as Biden plays the part of a winner

“I’m not here to declare that we’ve won, but I am here to report: When the count is finished, we believe we will be the winners,” the Democratic presidential nominee said Wednesday during a speech that otherwise had the tone of a victory speech.

A Biden transition team website was also launched on Wednesday. A brief paragraph on its homepage says that while votes are still being counted, “the transition team will continue preparing at full speed so that the Biden‑Harris Administration can hit the ground running on Day One.”

A top legal adviser for Biden, Bob Bauer, went further than the former vice president in a briefing the day after Election Day.

“We’re winning the election. We’ve won the election. And we’re going to defend that election,” he said. “We don’t have to do anything but protect the rights of voters and to stand up for the democratic process.”

In Wilmington, Delaware, a stage and infrastructure in the Chase convention center parking lot, set up for a drive-in event, remain in anticipation of a victory speech that could happen any day.

While the Biden team is confident, the election is closer than it would have liked. In the final days of the campaign, Biden visited the “reach” states of Georgia, Iowa, and Ohio, and California Sen. Kamala Harris visited Texas. President Trump won the last three states and is narrowly leading in Georgia as the state continues counting votes.

As Trump’s campaign files lawsuits and recount challenges, fundraising pitches from the campaign continue, asking for contributions to the “Biden Fight Fund.” – by Emily Larsen

Ranks of female Republican House members set to grow

The House Republican Conference is going to look different starting in early January.

Several of GOP women were elected on Nov. 3, boosting their ranks in the House’s minority party considerably. With ballots still being counted in dozens of races, House Republicans are poised to have up to 33 women in their conference out of more than 200 members overall. Currently, there are 13 Republican women in the House.

That’s still a far cry from House Democrats. Even with several female incumbents losing reelection, the majority party will still have a minimum of about 75 Democratic women in office when the 117th Congress convenes on Jan. 3, 2021.

For Republicans, though, it’s a tangible improvement from even a couple of years ago, when party leaders were divided about how heavily to recruit female candidates. It’s not that some lawmakers were against it, but they questioned whether extra time and resources should be devoted to it.

In the 2018 midterm elections, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, the National Republican Congressional Committee’s head of recruitment, had wrangled more than 100 female candidates to run. Only one emerged victorious, Rep. Carol Miller of West Virginia.

That led to tension between Stefanik and the NRCC chairman, Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota. But the pair eventually settled their differences, and a more concerted focus on female candidate recruitment paid off big-time in the 2020 elections.

Notable incoming freshman women include a swath who defeated Democratic incumbents, such as Stephanie Bice of Oklahoma, Michelle Fischbach of Minnesota, Yvette Harrell of New Mexico, Nancy Mace of South Carolina, and Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida. – by David Mark

After all that, the Republican majority in the Senate is poised to hold

Liberal donors — the grassroots who gave in small amounts and the wealthy who wrote big checks — delivered hundreds of millions of dollars to Democratic Senate candidates. In retrospect, some Democrats are questioning how wise it was to pour so much money into uphill battles in states like Kentucky and South Carolina. But the green tsunami was so vast that Republican strategists working on Senate campaigns were freaking out, and that’s not hyperbole. But the Republican incumbents on the ballot were by and large quality senators who ran strong campaigns. And Republicans responded with a mini-money wave of their own.

Through the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and especially the Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC affiliated with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican donors plowed hundreds of millions of dollars of their own into Senate races to protect vulnerable incumbents. And, it largely worked. President Trump, who was so much trouble for Republicans in the suburbs, juiced GOP turnout in ruby-red states where Republicans were running scared, adding some extra cushion.

And although Sen. Cory Gardner could not survive an anti-Trump tide in Colorado and Sen. Martha McSally appears in trouble in Arizona, Sen. Susan Collins overperformed in Maine, doing her part to ensure the continuation of the Republican Senate majority. Now, Republicans are waiting on possibly two Senate runoff elections in Georgia to make it official. Neither is a sure thing.

But the GOP would get a boost in both races if Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden prevails over Trump in the race for the White House after all of the votes are counted. – by David M. Drucker