--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Wednesday, November 6th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, America re-elects Donald Trump. In the very early hours of the morning, Fox News called the race for Donald Trump. The Fox News decision desk can now officially project that Donald Trump will become the 47th president of the United States.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: [Speaking over the phone] Hey, Shamita.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Gideon, it has been a long night. Stunning results we are seeing. It was a real sweep, just not what was predicted. How did this happen?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: I think, simply put, Trump outperformed everywhere. You know, there are these maps, the New York Times has one, of counties across the United States and their shift politically since 2020, marked by these little red arrows. And it's a sea of red, meaning Trump has improved on nearly every margin in every state since 2020.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That includes rural areas, urban areas, swing states, and then even solidly blue states. And he's also made red states even more red. Perhaps the most extreme example is Florida. So in 2020, Trump won by just over three points there. Now he is winning by more than 10 points in Florida as we speak.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And Trump spoke directly to this dynamic in his victory speech last night. This campaign has been so historic in so many ways. We've built the biggest, the broadest, the most unified coalition. They've never seen anything like it in all of American history.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let's dig into some of the demographic trends that he just mentioned. I know that it's too early to say definitively, but what do we know so far?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah, I mean, the early indications are that Trump has performed slightly better with black men and far better with Latino voters. So according to an NBC News exit poll, Trump made double digit gains with Latino voters.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Again, going back and looking at Florida, he was able to win Osceola County. That's a county that has a large Puerto Rican population that Biden won by almost 14 points. I mean, just these really big swings Trump was also able to win in Miami County which Hillary Clinton in 2016 won by almost 30 points.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And one more incredible example of this dynamic, Starr County, Texas, a border county that is heavily Latino, it's voted for a Democrat in every presidential election since 1896. And last night, it voted for Trump.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And how about with young voters? How did they turn out?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah, in an AP survey of voters, it appears that about half of voters under 30 supported Harris, compared to about 6 in 10 last time for Biden, and then about 4 in 10 went for Trump, compared to about 3 in 10 last time.
--:-- Shamita Basu: NBC News correspondent Savannah Sellers has been closely following this demographic, and she says that a lot of Trump's success here can be attributed to social media and podcasts.
--:-- Savannah Sellers: I heard so many young people say to me, in a positive way also, he is a meme. His things travel far. It's objectively funny when you see this information. So many young people, therefore, on these apps were served content straight from and straight about the former president.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And how about women? We have heard so much about this year's historic gender gap. How did that pan out?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Looking at that split between men and women, exit polls indicate that women broke for Harris, but not by the margins that her campaign had hoped. So far, it seems that she is underperforming compared to Biden in 2020, who got about 57% of women and 45% of men.
--:-- Shamita Basu: National exit polls so far indicate that around 54% of women went for Harris and 44% of men, according to the Washington Post. And that pattern really held up in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And in North Carolina, the Washington Post reports that slightly more men supported Trump than women supported Harris.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We should caveat all of this, Gideon, that it's going to take a few weeks for us to have a super clear sense of these demographic breakdowns. But for now, we have these exit polls and voter surveys to give us a sense of what's going on here.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Sure, sure. And I'm sure that there will be much written about the role that gender played in this election.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I want to state the obvious. Trump defeated a woman candidate in 2016, lost to a man in 2020, and beat a woman again in 2024.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: What do we know about what motivated people to come out and vote for Trump this year?
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's far too early to draw sweeping conclusions, but I think one takeaway for listeners should be that this election shows that this is not a fluke. Trump is not a fluke. In fact, I think you could look at these results and say he's more popular than he's ever been.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And that is despite the fact that he is a convicted criminal, in fact, is due to be sentenced in New York in just three weeks from now. That's despite what happened on January 6th. That's despite multiple sexual assault allegations against him. Despite many national security advisors, military leaders, former staffers saying, do not vote for this man. He is a threat to our country.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So I think it's going to take some time for all of us to understand how we got to this moment.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Now, there are some signs in polling that point to why people voted the way they did. One significant indicator is that so many people in this country, in both parties, feel that the country is headed in the wrong direction.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Since 1980, that question and how people answer it has been a predictor of which party would take the White House. And when that question was asked in a recent ABC Ipsos poll released this past weekend, 74% of people said they thought we were headed in the wrong direction.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So that alone, I think, is a fairly good sign that Democrats would have a hard time holding on to the White House.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We do also know that the economy was a top issue for voters, as it has been for a while. Trump painted a picture of our economy in crisis under President Biden, even though the data doesn't quite back that up.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Inflation is around 2% down from this time a year ago. Jobs figures have exceeded expectations and consumer spending seems to be strong. But of course, we lived through a pandemic that sparked inflation around the globe and things are more expensive today than they were when Trump was president.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And that feeling, the notion that I am worse off today than I was four years ago, seems to be reflected in these results.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Here's how David Urban, a former senior advisor to Donald Trump's first presidential campaign, explained it to CNN.
--:-- David Urban: Over half of America feels very strongly about the things that Donald Trump feels strongly about, right? A secure border, the economy, crime. It might not be a perfect messenger, but the message resonates.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Democracy is a luxury when you can't pay your bills. There's going to be a reckoning in America. The people have to sit back and say, maybe some of these things Trump's espousing are not crazy. Maybe he's right. Maybe the Democratic Party needs to come back to the center. They want to be competitive again.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Now, let's talk about abortion. It was expected to boost turnout for Democrats. It was on the ballot in 10 states. What do we know about how this issue played out overall?
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let's go back to Florida. Florida is a state that reports its results early. So we're relying on it a lot. There was a high bar there for the pro-abortion access measure to pass. It needed 60% of the votes and it fell just short.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: This leaves Florida's six-week ban, which took effect in May, in place in the state. Then voters in South Dakota also rejected a ballot measure that would have protected abortion access.
--:-- Shamita Basu: These are the first abortion rights ballot measures to fail since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. But pro-abortion rights measures did get some victories in other places, including Colorado, Maryland, New York, Arizona, a city in Texas, and notably Missouri, where voters cleared the way to undo one of the country's most restrictive abortion bans, making Missouri the first state where a vote will undo a ban that is already in place.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So we can't say for certain how or if it boosted turnout, but we can say that some voters both voted for Trump for president and also for measures that would protect abortion.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Okay, let's quickly touch on Congress. We know that Republicans won control of the Senate. What's happened there? And what can we say at this point about the House, if anything?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah. So, I mean, Republicans only needed two pickups in the Senate and they got them fairly easily. The first coming in West Virginia, where businessman Jim Justice won his race.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He's inheriting the seat that had been held for a long time by the Democrat turned independent Senator Joe Manchin. Justice, who inherited a coal mining business from his father, is going to be among the wealthiest members of Congress.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And then Republicans got another pickup in Ohio, where the businessman Bernie Moreno defeated Democratic incumbent Senator Sherrod Brown.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This was one of the most fiercely fought races in the country. In fact, it was the most expensive non-presidential race on record. And it's a big loss for Democrats who really valued Sherrod Brown, considered a champion of the working class.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Here are some of Brown's concession speech from last night.
--:-- Sherrod Brown: We believe that all work has dignity. We always will. We believe in the power of people over corporate special interests, we always will. We believe if you love this country, you fight for the people who make it work. We always will.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This is a disappointment, but is not a failure.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: If we look at the House, that's more of an open question at the moment, and it could be for some time if the California House races end up being determinative to the ultimate outcome there.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Gideon, looking ahead, what can we expect to happen next? And what do we know about what a second Trump term might look like?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Well, broadly speaking, Trump will be stepping into a White House more experienced than last time, with more experienced people likely around him.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He will have control over the Senate, which means the potential of additional Supreme Court justice appointments. And he's already laid out a lot of his plans for his next term.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Among them, as a quick reminder to listeners, Trump has said that he would begin mass deportations, which would include workplace raids using the U.S. military.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But if they come back into our country, it's an automatic 10 years in jail with no possibility of parole. 10 years. And if that doesn't work, it'll be 20 years. And if that doesn't work, I guess it's going to be the death penalty, right? The death penalty.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Trump has also said that he would immediately impose a 25 percent tariff on Mexican goods if if it close the border.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And he talked about broadly taking revenge on political enemies.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: We have some very bad people We have some sick people radical left lunatics And I think they the best. And it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by national guard or if really necessary by the military, because they can't let that happen.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And he has said that he would put Elon Musk into a government position and put RFK Jr. into a prominent health role in charge of women's health, among other things.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: As for what all of this means for the future of our country and its two main political parties, there is going to be a lot of hand-wringing over how and why this all happened, over who in the Democratic Party is to blame.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But the party is going to have to address the fact that they lost two elections to Trump and that in many ways, he appears to be more popular than ever and has fundamentally changed our politics along the way.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: As for Kamala Harris, she will soon be in the remarkable position as sitting vice president of having to certify these election results in just a few weeks.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's right. In fact, on January 6th of 2025.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Thank you so much.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other politics storylines we're following in the Apple News app. Starting with what happens next to Trump's various legal cases.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: As we mentioned earlier, he is now the first convicted felon to be elected president. And he's set to be sentenced in that New York criminal case less than three weeks from now, on November 26th.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The other state-level case in Georgia that involves election interference charges is on hold until December.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And then there are Trump's federal cases involving charges of election interference and misuse of classified documents. Both of those cases involve special counsel Jack Smith.
--:-- Shamita Basu: NBC News says it's almost certain Trump will appoint a new head to the Justice Department who will likely fire Smith and close the case.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Trump is also facing eight pending civil suits related to January 6th and a defamation suit filed by the Central Park Five.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Next to safety concerns on Election Day, authorities arrested a man at the Capitol Visitor Center in D.C. who police say smelled like fuel and was trying to enter with a torch and a flare gun.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: As for voting centers, the day went smoothly overall, but there were bomb threats at dozens of polling locations in swing states across the country.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Officials did not find any bombs and no one was hurt, but these threats did result in evacuations at some polling sites and some polling locations extended their voting hours.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The FBI says many of the threats are connected to emails with Russian domains.
--:-- Shamita Basu: CNN reports these incidents didn't seem to impact voting.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And finally, to some firsts. For the first time, there will be two Black women serving as senators at the same time, Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Also in Delaware, Sarah McBride has become the first openly transgender person elected to Congress.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And Representative Andy Kim has become the first Korean-American elected to the Senate, replacing disgraced New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next from The New Yorker.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This is the first time in the history of exit polling that voters were asked about whether they think the outcome of the U.S. presidential election could lead to violence.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: About seven in 10 voters, a majority on both sides, said yes.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And some Americans have been preparing for this possibility by joining survivalist communities, building bunkers, and more.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
