Yee fuckin’ haw, y’all. Vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris is doin’ a little dosey doe around Texas as the 2020 campaign season winds down. The Texas Tribune reports that Harris will visit Fort Worth, Houston and McAllen on Friday. Fort Worth’s Tarrant County went for Trump in 2016, and Houston’s Harris County is the state’s most populous county, with an increasing percentage of Democratic voters. But it’s Harris’s upcoming visit to McAllen that might prove most strategic.
From the Texas Tribune:
McAllen is a major city in the [Rio Grande] Valley, a politically important region given its high concentration of Latino voters, who typically tend to lean more Democratic. The announcement of Harris’ visit to the border city is notable considering a New York Times/Siena College poll on Monday gave Trump a 4-point lead in the state, which was bolstered, in part, by Hispanic voters.
And given running mate Joe Biden’s not-so-enthusiastic support among Latinos, he can use all the help he can get.
A few months ago, the idea of the Biden campaign spending time in Texas so close to election day would have been laughable, but the traditionally red state of Texas is now a certified toss-up with Biden and President Trump polling neck-in-neck of each other. Trump is currently ahead of Biden by single digits. Every recent election cycle has courted talks of Texas turning purple, but this might be the first election to actually do it. Time will tell, lads.
The 2020 election is less than a week away and polls in several battleground states are either incredibly close or favor Biden—which is exactly why the Republican Party is hellbent on making it even harder to vote than it usually is. The New York Times published a damning round-up of the ways in which state and local Republican courts and legislatures are scrambling to disenfranchise voters. From Pennsylvania to Nevada to Wisconsin, fuckery is afoot.
Here’s a taste, from the New York Times:
North Carolina: Republicans and the Trump campaign have asked the Supreme Court to block the state’s board of elections from extending the deadline to receive mail ballots. The board has said ballots can arrive until Nov. 12, as long as they were mailed by Election Day.
[…]
Nevada: The Trump campaign has sued to stop the counting of absentee ballots in the Las Vegas area, evidently hoping to challenge the signatures on many ballots. Last night, the campaign and Nevada Republican Party filed a separate lawsuit, seeking detailed information on the vote-counting process.
[…]
Texas: The state’s top court yesterday upheld a policy announced by Greg Abbott, the Republican governor, which limits each county to a single drop-off box for mailed ballots. The state’s largest county — Harris, which includes Houston — is home to 4.7 million people.
They’re not even trying to hide it anymore. This is happening in broad daylight, right before our eyes, with abject shamelessness. If only there was a well-respected higher court that wasn’t in the pocket of ultra-conservatives to help prevent these injustices from happening. Oh well!
- In happier news, a shitton of young people are voting already so fuck everybody who said we wouldn’t show up:
- Biden forgot that it’s in good taste to condemn a black person getting shot by the cops before reprimanding people stealing from Walmart in protest of state violence:
- Kavanaugh confirmer Jeff Flake is thirsty for a cabinet position in the Biden White House.
- Looks like some ballots from the not at all significant state of Pennsylvania got lost. [Butler Eagle]
- Former Department of Homeland Security official Miles Taylor revealed that he was the anonymous author of a New York Times op-ed and subsequent book, proclaiming himself a secretive insider member of the #Resistance. If you’re asking “who the fuck is that?” trust me, you’re not alone! But something tells me Taylor, who was chief of staff at DHS during their family separation policy, will probably have to answer the carnage into a book deal. [New York Times]
- White nationalist Trump stooge Stephen Miller is alleging, without evidence, that a Biden administration would “incentivize child smuggling and child trafficking on an epic global scale.” The QAnon weirdos have logged on!
- “Yeet!” – John Hickenlooper.
- Sorry, we’re canceling the Girl Scouts. Where can I cop Trefoils?