Morning Run: Trump Wins, Special Election Edition

Published Nov 6, 2024, 11:38 AM

Robach and Holmes cover the latest news headlines and entertainment updates and give perspective on current events in their daily “Morning Run.”

Morning Run with Amy and TJ and iHeartRadio podcast.

At two twenty five am Eastern Time, Lee Greenwood's God Bless the USA started to flare as Donald Trump stepped onto stage in Florida to a rowdy crowd of supporters and declared victory and the twenty twenty four presidential election. Welcome everybody to this special post election morning run. I'm TJ.

Holk and I'm Amy Roboch and we want to get right into our run and tell you where things stand as America wakes up to the news of another Trump presidency. Fox News was the only network to call the race for Donald Trump for most of the evening and into the early morning hours before ABC News called it for Trump at five thirty a m.

Eastern Time, and then other networks and agencies then started to follow suit. However, overnight, no concession speech was made and no congratulatory phone was made that we know of. Yes, Vice President Harris opted not to address her supporters last night who had collected at Howard to see her. We do expect to hear from her today at some point. And for those of you who weren't glued to the election coverage last night, on television. Well we got to cover because we were glued to coverage literally all night.

Well, some of us more than others. I did manage to get three hours of sleep. You haven't slept at all, TJ. But yes, I woke up to the Lee Greenwood song and said, Okay, well it happens. Yes, all night, TJ got no sleep. So we are a little slap happy. So forgive us as we try to go about explaining what all happened and what is happening today. We had several screens on. We were watching all the networks as much as we possibly could last night, and we started fairly early on. It was a very clear theme. Almost from the beginning. It started to emerge Harris was underperforming. That was clear compared to how Biden was doing at the same time in twenty twenty. And each network had its guy on the Magic Wall that was my favorite name, the big board. There were all sorts of names or whatever the touchscreen was where they were taking you through all kinds of numbers, all different types of paths to victory.

And that was an important one. I'm glad all of them pretty much used the same technique where they could show what the vote was in a particular county between Harris and Trump, and then just hit a button and you could compare that number to how Trump and Biden did in that same spot four years ago. And so that's the theme we kept seeing, and they were kept reporting the numbers from various counties and several swing states that showed that Harris was not getting as high a percentage of the vote as Biden got in twenty twenty. And in a lot of these counties she was underperforming, underperforming like one percentage point, two, three percentage points. But that makes a big difference, and it makes the difference of thousands of votes in an election this close. Obviously, that is going to matter, That's right.

And as the results kept coming in throughout the night into the early morning, there were other signs that things might be going Trump's way, including a tighter than expected race in Virginia that wasn't even considered a swing state or up for grabs. Harris ultimately did win the state by five percentage points, but it's worth noting that Biden won it in twenty twenty by ten points. And those types of drops kept showing up all over the mass.

It really was we saw It happened early, and that was the theme, and it continued and it happened all over the country. But we did focus, of course on seven states that were talked about, the seven battleground states that were going to make all the difference. Now Trump picked up two of those relatively early in the evening, North Carolina and Georgia. When he won those two states, it put Kamala Harris in the position that she had to win Pennsylvania or else there was no other path the victory. She had to win it.

And as you probably know, she set up shop in Pennsylvania. We reported on it during her campaign. She made so many stops we lost count in that stage. She even spent her entire final day of the campaign in that state, in the state in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which ended with a star studded night rally in Philadelphia. You remember all the stars there, including even Oprah Winfrey. Ultimately, none of that worked for Kamala Harris. In county after county, she did not do as well as Biden did four years ago.

So then move us forward to one forty seven am Eastern time. Fox News made their official projection declaring Donald Trump the president elect. However, they were the only ones to do so and were alone in making a projection until, like we said, about five thirty am Eastern Time, when ABC then declared and a couple of others followed. Yeah.

Trump came out on stage at two twenty five am with what appeared to be about forty members of his family and friends. I don't think I've ever seen that many folks on stage standing next to a president electorally someone who declared himself president elect. He did have some pep in his step. He was energetic. He called it a movement, and this isn't a surprise. He likes his superlatives like no one has seen before, the greatest political movement of all times. So we know at least he was on brand this morning as he was accepting at least the nomination he declared to have won.

You know, but he's not alone, because how many times do we hear overnight somebody say this is the greatest comeback in political history.

Oh, it's being written now. I mean, if you look at the headlines, what he said is actually what journalists are reporting.

It is true. It is incredible, and his remarks though this evening he avoided a lot of the divisive language some have gotten used to sometimes out there on his rallies, but he spoke just of his commitment to make life better for Americans. It was a kind of a loose scene up on stage, kind of impromptu. It didn't seem planned. Asked JD Vance to come up and make some remarks and Jad he got up and did his thing for a few JD. I don't know why I just called him JD. Yeah.

Now, y'all are just on those kind of terms, JTJ and JD.

Yeah, that's my guy. He's not my guy. Okay, everybody, please, we say we're a little little little lack every day. Okay, give us a break. But he also called up Dana White. If some of you might know the name. If you don't, you might know the face if you saw him. But he is the head of the UFC, and he came up in may remarks and ropes. He sounded like he was introducing fighters for a fight. He was very energetic, very rowdy, but people in the room seemed to enjoy it.

I did not know his name or his face, but I remember when he came up, you said, what is happening? It was something and this is very trump asque like we'd never seen before in terms of a victory speech, just to see the people he was calling up, and it was it was quite as spectul and I'm glad I woke back up for it. Certainly, all of this was going on, and as Trump was making these victory remarks, most news agencies, as we said, were not projecting him as the winner. It was only Fox News. So while Trump was on stage speaking accepting the nomination, thanking the voters, news agencies were putting out some of these headlines. I wrote them down and actually some of them are still up as we're recording this right now. So again Fox News is saying congratulations President Trump. The other outlets were putting out headlines like this, Trump on cusp of victory, Trump poised to win, Trump closes in on White House. This is one of my favorites, and it's still up right now. With Harris's path to victory narrowing, Trump declares victory, and then this was another one. Trump claims powerful mandate after Fox News projects he has won US presidency, And to.

Be clear, he declared victory and only Fox News had declared him the victor.

That's right on brand again for everybody consistent if nothing else.

All right. Meanwhile, all this is happening, but over at the Harris party. This was over Howard University. This was a very energetic crowd. They gradually lost steam as the reality of the night started to come into view, but they were holding out hope throughout the night. Then at twelve forty four am, instead of seeing Kamala Harris come out onto the stage, her campaign chair, Cedric Richmond, came out to address her supporters who had been hoping to celebrate a historic victory overnight.

That's right, he told the crowd, and I'm going to quote him here. We still have votes to count. We will continue overnight to fight to make sure every vote is counted. You won't hear from the Vice president tonight, but you will hear from her tomorrow. And to many observers, that sent a very clear signal about what the Harris campaign thought about their chances at that point. This is all very reminiscent. I have to say of twenty sixteen. I actually happened to be at Trump headquarters and it in the beginning, if you remember, those exit polls showed something quite different. But It felt like a dirge, like a funeral scene. And then all of a sudden, when the returns came in, you saw the energy, the excitement, and then what was happening over in the Clinton campaign at the Javit Center switched. It was almost like a repeat of that overnight and you could just feel. In fact, I believe it was NBC who reported one of their m beds who was in the Harris campaign rally or at the campaign headquarters saying that it absolutely felt as if they were at a funeral.

Can you imagine this was her alma mater. These are folks who were ready to celebrate history and so much talk about enthusiasm in her campaign in these final days, and to just have it was a moment. They didn't even get to see her for the evening. We'll get into that here in a second. But all that's going on, But here we are this morning, the day after Donald Trump will be the forty seventh president of the United States. He will be only the second president to serve non consecutive terms, the first being Grover Cleveland back in eighteen ninety two. Trump an impeached president, a twice impeached president, and a convicted. Felon appears now poised to win the popular vote in this election as well.

And that's a big change from his win in twenty sixteen when Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. So he will certainly be taking advantage of that. I'm sure we'll hear more about that in the hours to come. At one point last night, electoral college was trending on social media because folks were complaining about this antiquated system. Some people say, we have that should be done away with for the sake of elections being decided by the popular vote. We have certainly seen in recent history here in the United States where the electoral college has not matched the popular vote. But Trump is likely, yes, going to win the popular vote as well. So electoral college or not, Trump still wins.

So let the discussions begin, and they certainly did start already overnight about what went right here for Trump, but also mainly what went wrong for Kamala Harris. It is remarkable to think robes what has happened over the past just a few months, but we were in the middle of a campaign. Well when was that debate between the end of June June twenty seventh, Yeah, I was that in my head. But she became the candidate after that breakdown, and here we are. So much has happened in the past one hundred days.

And she You know, people have pointed out analysts, people who study this type of thing and how candidates rise to be able to win, you need the time, and some have suggested that people didn't get the time. I know, she's been vice president for the past nearly four years, but she had been largely in the background, so people a lot of people didn't know her, and she was rushed to try and get her message and her story out to the voters, and a lot of people just didn't feel swayed by what they saw and heard. But there wasn't a lot of time for her to do so.

And she ran away or shied away from, I should say, being a history maker, the fact that she could be the first woman president, or the fact that she could be a woman of color as president. She didn't do that through her campaign, even though she was asked about it several times. It's not something she necessarily embraced. And now so much talk we heard overnight of the analysts on television several times, even some heated discussions over how that possibly contributed to the loss, that some people weren't comfortable voting for a woman, and some people weren't comfortable voting for a woman of color in particular, as if that was in their minds and hurt her. And not just people white people not willing to do that, but the argument that some men, in particular black men were voting for Trump in some higher numbers because for some reason they also were not comfortable with Kabala Harris.

There will be a lot of Wednesday morning quarterbacking.

I believe maybe is the way to put it.

For this election, and trying to figure out what went wrong, what went right, and Democrats certainly will be regrouping for sure.

What's your take on whether or not she should have conceded tonight? There was a lot of talk about she should have at least come out even if she didn't concede. She should have let her supporters in the nation see her. She should have delivered remarks about, hey, we're keeping an eye on it, we'll see you in the morning, instead of sending out her campaign chair. I believe she should have.

Yes, I think it would have been you know, I think it's important to be able to stand up and at least speak to the people who did support you, speak to the people who did vote for you, and let them know where you are, where your head is. And even if you say, hey, maybe she wasn't ready to concede. Obviously we saw many of the networks and news organizations not willing to do the same as well. But at least to get up and speak and thank the people who came out there who were waiting to see her, and certainly to thank them for their support. I think that would have been the better call. But she has her own reasons, and we don't know what was going on with her and her family, and certainly this had to be an incredibly difficult night for her.

And to your point, it just would have been nice, I think. But who are we to say what's going through? And I said it to you earlier, I cannot imagine what is how this feels tonight for her, her family, not the supporters, but just on a personal level, what she went through and what goes into a campaign like this. That's tough. That's a tough night.

It is tough. But we will be hearing from her today and I'm sure we will all be glued to the television sets to hear how she does frame this and what her concession speech ultimately will be.

All right, folks will stay with us. We will continue this post election morning run. In just a moment, and one polster didn't just get it wrong, got it crazy wrong. All right, let's continue our post election day morning run in Iowa now where this quote is making headlines. I'll be reviewing data.

Yes, I mean I did have to chuckle at this moment when I saw that splash across my computer screen. This is from renowned and I'm quoting that because that's how she's been described. Renowned polster jay Ann Seltzer said she would be yes reviewing her data to understand how the Des Moines Register Media com Iowa poll showed VP Harris up by three points over Trump. This happened just days before the election. People were scratching their heads over it. But Trump, as we now know, overwhelmingly won Iowa latest count by fourteen points. And yes, that's a seventeen point misfire by that Iowa poll.

Yeah, you can't miss that much. I mean, margin of error supposed to be work three to four points something like that. Well, she had this to say, about the disconnecting. You said, the poll findings we produced for the Des Moines Register and Mediacom did not match what the Iowa electorate ultimately in the voting booth today.

She said, I'll be reviewing data from multiple sources with hopes of learning why that happened, and I welcome what the process might teach me. I'm sure she is, yes, learning a little bit more about humility after that glaring mistake in those numbers. But people were questioning it when it came out.

No one really believed it.

But I think perhaps some Democrats were hoping that maybe somehow they figured something out that no one else did. But listen to this, because this is pretty interesting. Seltzer has been considered the gold standard polster of Iowa. Gold stand again, I'm quoting this.

All to see the silver and bronze.

Well here's why. From two thousand and eight up until twenty twenty. So that's a pretty nice spread. The poll has accurately predicted the presidential winner in Iowa this time around. Yeah, not so much.

That is. Look, we talked about everybody new and again Trump everybody remember really poo pooed this pole. He was up by ten percentage points in a poll that came out a day or two ahead of this one. It made no sense. So but a seventeen point misfire. I like how you wrote that.

It just seemed like it was an obvious one, all right. One other election note on our run. The stock market wow seemed to like what it saw last night. The US and European stock futures and the US dollar all surging early this morning as Trump claimed victory. The dollars specifically rose against the Japanese yen, the Mexican peso, and the Chinese Is it you want right? All right? I want to make sure I said that right. The currency is expected to all be heavily impacted by Trump's proposal to raise tariffs. So we're seeing some major movements in the economy.

And the dollar on his way to its best one day gain in more than two years. Bitcoin jumped to a record a highest, surgeon to about seventy five thousand. It was up eight percent. Trump has been promoting himself as a cryptocurrency supporter on the campaign trail, which may have propelled the crypto market. US treasury yields jumped to four month highs. You has futures up one and a half percent. All this means that there was something people with money liked about what they saw in this presidential election.

That's right, and yes we're talking about the presidential election. But of course there were a lot more seats on the line in Congress, so Republicans big win there as well. They now officially take control of the Senate for the first time in four years. They were able to flip seats in both West Virginia and in Ohio, and those two victories alone ensured that Republicans will hold at least a fifty one to forty nine majority in the Senate. But Republicans, as of this recording also stand a chance to even widen that majority even further.

And as we wrap now this Wednesday morning, post election day, run Robes has pulled out a very nice quote for you for your quote of the day. So we'd like for you to consider this as you go about your Wednesday.

Yes, a lot of people having a lot of different emotion on this day as they're waking up. Maybe they're happy, maybe they're devastated. It can go both ways. But this is some great words of wisdom. These are some great words of wisdom from fd R. He says, let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a president and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.

It ain't that beautiful where you Whether you love it or you hate it, the outcome Democracy is supposed to be at work. You don't always get your a way, but if our system continues to produce these results, we can do it orderly. You know what, the country spoke last night electoral college and in the overall vote, and there's a lot to talk about afterwards, but at this point, I really hope we can turn a page.

And you know what, it's interesting, you know, regardless of where you stand politically, there is something that feels better about the fact that this time around, the electoral college and the popular vote matched. When they don't match, it feels there's a tension that's created that feels troubling on a systemic level. And I don't know, And there'll be more talk about whether or not we should do away with electoral college. There is after every presidential election. And yet when you do have both of those measures agreeing it does at least force all of us to say, hey, this is what the people shows.

That's a very very good point. So, folks, we always appreciate you going out for a run with us. We're going to try to get a nap in now, but appreciate it. I'm Djilans and.

I'm Amy Robock. Thank y'all for running with us on this Wednesday.