Biden Pushes Closer To Win As Trump Presses Legal Threats

Speaker 1: 00:00 The counting is still underway. An update this morning saw Joe Biden's lead grow in Nevada. Donald Trump's lead shrink in Georgia and Pennsylvania, but no new States have been called for either candidate as our marathon presidential election continues. According to the news organizations, keeping track momentum is moving in Biden's direction, even as the margins and the outstanding races remained razor thin and an array of legal challenges has already been launched by Donald Trump's lawyers with Trump himself repeatedly demanding that States should stop the count I'm joined by Stephen. Goggin a lecturer and the political science department of San Diego state university, who has expertise on campaigns and elections and welcome Stephen. Speaker 2: 00:47 Thanks. Thanks so much for having me. Speaker 1: 00:50 Now, this was the outcome that many political observers were dreading, very narrow margins and a potentially disputed election. What do you make of the situation so far? Speaker 2: 01:01 Well, so far it's been quite interesting because it's quite close right? In multiple States, not just one where it's kind of razor thin and the States right. Are different in that in Nevada and Arizona, right. Biden currently leads, whereas in Pennsylvania and Georgia, right. Uh, president Trump currently leads in many of the late or the arriving ballots, right. Or late counting ballots, um, are going in Biden's direction. So he might actually end up overtaking Trump there. Um, right. The legal challenges are kind of pretty widespread, right. But notably they've all been filed in Pennsylvania and Georgia and Michigan States in which Trump kind of has the early lead, but ballots that arrived by election day, right. Are still being counted and still being added into the totals there. And his lead may very well disappear. Speaker 1: 01:45 Americans have been asked to be patient while the numbers continue to come in for this election, but can you explain some of the reasons why the results are taking so long? Speaker 2: 01:56 Sure. So I think it's really instructive that looking kind of at the difference between Ohio and Pennsylvania. So Ohio also had a large share of mail-in ballots as did many other States given the, kind of the ongoing pandemic. Um, but in Pennsylvania and in a number of other Midwestern States, right. Laws were not changed, uh, earlier this summer in response to other electoral changes, uh, given the, the COVID-19 crisis. Um, and so in fact, in Pennsylvania, right, the ballots couldn't be processed or opened or started to be counting counted, even if they arrived before election day until election day. And so then it's of course takes quite a bit of time to count millions of ballots. Um, so we're seeing that play out here. Um, but other States, right, had also millions of mail-in ballots. They just were processed and counted before the election. And I think it really highlights, right? How relatively small differences in kind of the legal requirements of the statutory requirements, different States have for how their elections operate. That can make a huge difference in how this plays out, uh, because we could have known Pennsylvania much earlier if this law had in fact been changed. Now, Donald Trump has said that Speaker 1: 03:00 The U S Supreme court, which has three of his nominees on it now will settle the election. Now that we remember the high court settled the Bush V Gore dispute in 2000, do you think the high court would do that again? Speaker 2: 03:13 I think there are a lot of key differences between kind of what happened in 2000 and this election, um, in particular, then it came down to a very narrow margin at one state Florida. And in fact, the initial count was completed and there are also a lot of kind of technical errors with the butterfly ballot and kind of hanging CHADS and everything there. Um, whereas in this case, right, there are very few kind of errors or problems or kind of violations of various statutes or constitutional requirements in these States. And so many of the challenges that the Trump campaign has filed are relatively thin on the merits that are mostly trying to kind of simply delay or ask for additional access, not directly challenging a number of ballots. Uh, the Supreme court did weigh in right earlier about kind of possibly segregating later rising ballots in Pennsylvania. Uh, but in many cases, the way the councilor shaping up, it's looking like it's not going to come down to hundreds of votes in kind of all of these States. And the result will be kind of quite a bit more clear than it was in 2000. So the ability of the court to intervene on in a particular way and kind of push the election in one way or another is much, much smaller. Speaker 1: 04:16 How long could such a legal challenge go on if indeed the Trump administration gets a ruling from a lower court and then wants to move it onto the Supreme court? How, how long could that continue before we had to have a answer to this election? Speaker 2: 04:33 Well, so if we work backwards, right, the electoral college, the electors in each state meet in mid December and so theoretically, right. Things could be drawn out until then. Um, and that's part of the reasoning behind the Bush V Gore decision. It's kind of finalizing it in those those needs. Um, but many of the cases, right, we've already seen, right? A handful of cases, either being withdrawn by GOP officials today, um, or dismissed by judges and in state, in both state and federal court. And so many of these challenges were likely to resolve themselves in the coming days and weeks. Um, because a number of them are simply asking for more access to the counting process or ballots or other things which could reasonably be granted without really changing the result or changing anything, just kind of delaying the process slightly more. Um, and as possible, even with those delays, we'll still have a clear answer in the very near future about the kind of the outcome of the election or the likely outcome. Even if, you know, maybe dozens or hundreds of ballots are contested here and there around the country, it wouldn't necessarily be consequential for the overall result. Speaker 1: 05:31 Now, one thing that Joe Biden mentioned yesterday that hasn't been commented on that much is that Biden is comfortably ahead in the popular vote. Does that strengthen his case if he should win the electoral college too? Speaker 2: 05:43 Well, you know, legally winning the popular vote, doesn't kind of exactly matter. But I think from a public sentiment perspective and from the kind of willingness of other GOP officials, particularly in state legislatures, right. And others that have to kind of certify, um, kind of are involved in electoral college process, I think kind of weakens their hand and possibly trying other kinds of tactics later on that would be kind of relatively are quite unpopular, arguably. Uh, and so while legally informally, it doesn't matter. I think it strengthens the hand kind of in, um, kind of early claims for victory and by early, I mean, simply kind of, as soon as it becomes quite clear and definitely kind of diminishes the ability of president Trump to claim kind of the need for further delay or that this thing is actually closer than it might actually be. Speaker 1: 06:28 And how are you hoping the American public reacts while their selection is being resolved? Speaker 2: 06:34 Well, so we've already seen a few reactions that are maybe not the best right, with kind of protests and rallies, uh, in Arizona and, um, in Michigan and response to this, that kind of got a little uncivil at times. Uh, but in general, one of the big lessons we know from political science, right, is that many people follow the elite cues and follow what politicians are talking about. And so the hope generally is whatever the outcome of the election is, right, is that the leaders of both sides and the kind of the president tweet president's current tweets, right, are an indication that maybe the opposite of that, that is once the results are clear that politicians do kind of fall in line and respect, right? What the, the kind of the results are showing them. Um, because people generally will listen to write various calls to arms or other things that might come from from leadership. And so the hope right is, is that the transition will kind of will automatically happen through the electors being selected and electoral college. That the process is not necessarily a messy Speaker 1: 07:31 Steven. Goggin a lecture in the political science department at SDSU. Thank you so much for speaking with us. Thanks for having me. Speaker 3: 07:42 [inaudible].