Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer at WNYC. As we continue to take your calls on how you're anticipating a Biden victory, and what it would mean for America, compared to how you were anticipating a Hillary Clinton victory four years ago, when it looked like that was imminent. Biden/Kamala Harris, I should say, there is a woman on the ticket this year even though not at the top of the ticket, and a Black woman, Indian woman at that. How does that, from a demographics perspective, influence your anticipation, as well as all the other things we've been talking about. 646 435 7280. Mayat, you're on WNYC. Hello Mayat.
Mayat: Greetings, can you hear me?
Lehrer: I can hear you just fine.
Mayat: Love you, greetings to the beloved radio family. Brian, I need to talk about the nervous exhaustion of this, because this was, this week, a nail-biter. While we hear that Black men and Latino men and partly the way Texas went, voted in higher numbers in '20, than '16 for Trump, one of the things we're not talking about on any of the media is how the 53% of white women went to 55%, and similar and higher for college educated in quotes "white men" because it is a status, as opposed to something scientific.
Lehrer: Although what I saw is shockingly the exit polls indicate that, yes, even more white women including a higher percentage of college educated white women voted for Trump this time than last time, his percentage of white men was substantially down, like 13 points down from last time. I don't know what to make of any of it. It could be that these early exit polls need to be refined when they get a chance to look more closely, but yes, what you say is shocking.
Mayat: Where we have to go now, because the country is almost split down the middle, there has to be a Biden and Kamala strategy of how do we bring the country together and go beyond this white supremacy that is coming up, and very violently.
Lehrer: How do you feel today compared to 2016 when you were anticipating Hillary?
Mayat: To me, it goes back to a certain type of nervous exhaustion, because I was despondent in 2016 because it was so stunning, although it goes back to the Democratic strategy of putting someone that represented dynasty, and who had a lot of baggage. We have to be more clever, as the strategy of the Democrats.
Lehrer: Thank you Mayat. I appreciate it a lot. Dorina in Manhattan. You're on WNYC. Hi, Dorina.
Dorina: Hi. I wanted to call and say how excited I am that Kamala is going to be VP. As much as I was excited about Hillary, I was actually more of a Bernie Sanders fan. As much as I enjoyed so much voting with my middle daughter for that election, I am just really excited. I think Kamala brings such a great energy, and with everything that's been going on, I'm happy to have all this joy with it, even though I know there's so much to be concerned about.
Lehrer: How old is your daughter now and how are you talking to her about this, compared to 2016 if she was old enough?
Dorina: I think it's been very hard for them, for a lot of young people, with seeing how Hillary- what happened with all that. I think it's been very hard, and I think she's stuck her head in the sand a little bit maybe with it. We persevere, we say, "You got to keep on, you got to keep on the good fight." Another caller just mentioned this earlier, I think we've really built up such a great- so many people that weren't involved before, are now. These four years have really been a wake up call. [00:04:58 sound cut] people involved and fighting and caring about each other, wanting to promote the love that Biden and Kamala talk about, that I think is really important for us.
Lehrer: Thank you so much Dorina. Here's something that's just in from the AP on those exit polls that the previous caller Mayat was talking about, not about the same demographics she brought up, but about another one. The AP says, "Trump won support from about 8 in 10 white evangelical Protestant voters in his race for reelection according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 110,000 voters nationwide, but Catholic voters split almost evenly between him and Democratic opponent, Joe Biden." It says, "Trump's stronghold on white evangelical voters illustrates the GOP's enduring success with that block of religious conservatives, who've been a linchpin of the president's political base. The president's path to a second term has grown narrower following losses in the Rust Belt battleground states." It doesn't compare to 2016 in this story, but I actually think that's extremely similar, Catholics were split previously.
It could be that there's more Catholic support for Biden than there was for Hillary Clinton based on what I'm seeing here. I can't confirm that, but evangelical Protestants who are white held for Trump 8 out of 10. Here's another important development, "A key Republican Senator says he sees no evidence to support president Trump's baseless claim that Democrats are trying to steal the election." This came from Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, and it's so significant that it is Pennsylvania, because that's ground zero for these claims. "Senator Toomey is calling the president's words very disturbing." Of course, Toomey's state, as the AP points out again here, is a key battleground state. Georgia has said they will have a recount, because it's going to wind up so close in that state. We're anticipating any time now that Nevada could be called. That would put Biden over the top according to some of the networks on the AP. We're anticipating any time that Pennsylvania could be called, that would put Biden over the top, according to all the networks. We will cover developments as they happen.
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