This has been one of the toughest Newsletters I have ever had to write in my entire career… and I've been doing this a long time. I was able to get an extension on when I could submit the Newsletter as the normal deadline wouldn't have allowed me to comment on one of the biggest stories of the year, the US Election. I started writing on November 3rd but with this election unable to be settled the day of, I knew that I would need more time to be able to comment on the outcome. Sure enough, it was a long, drawn-out battle and one that had some delays, plenty of frustrations and a couple of surprises. I stayed up into the early hours of the morning hoping to see an outcome. I didn't. I ended up waking up early in the morning in hopes that I would get more confirmation. Once again, I ended up waiting. Throughout the writing of this Newsletter, I had to go back and forth editing it to make sure I was providing accuracy about the results. Finally, around noon on November 4th, I felt confident enough to finalize my writing.
Similar to what we've seen in recent US Elections, the Democrat in the race won a significant victory in the Popular Vote1. I'm saying this while Joe Biden is up by over 3,000,000 votes across the nation. That's with large Blue States still reporting. We expect Biden to win well over 70,000,000 total votes so this lead is likely to be even higher by the time everything is lined up. Much of this Popular Vote lead has to do with normally Red States like Georgia swinging towards Biden and Texas being closer than in past years. It also has to do with Biden winning by landslides in large states like California, New York and Massachusetts as I alluded to above. Trump managed to have larger wins in Iowa, Ohio and Florida than expected and those were all States that Biden's team was hopeful about winning. Biden was successful in picking up Arizona and getting some States up North back into the Democratic column1. That's where a lot of the drama came from this time. In the early hours of the count, it looked like we may see Trump win those important Northern States again. That would have assured him another Electoral College victory. Throughout the night, more votes started to come in and Biden was able to claw his way back. By the morning of November 4th, Wisconsin and Michigan had officially gone back into the Democratic column and that was ultimately enough to beat Trump thus ending the circus. As of the afternoon of November 4th, we still didn't have an official outcome but with Arizona and Nevada sticking, and the "Blue Wall" going back to the Democrats, the odds of Trump pulling this off had diminished to a point where a win was out of reach. I know that I'm jumping the gun on calling this, and that could turn into a major embarrassment for me, but I have a deadline to meet here so I'm calling it!!
This won't actually be over as we will likely see the Trump team contest the results. I'm preparing myself for more drama and more false claims/information. As I did in my last email, I am going to leave everyone with some sites I use to check information. If you hear something that doesn't sound right during this process, use these tools to do a little research of your own:
- FactCheck.org: https://www.factcheck.org/
- PolitiFact: https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/
- Media Bias/Fact Check: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/
In much lighter news, we got ourselves a dog! No, we didn't throw the cats to the curb and yes, we kept all three of our daughters. I guess we just figured with the world such a crazy place in 2020, we may as well add one more Borden to the mix. We had been on a waiting list for a retired Greyhound and at the end of October, we got to pick her up. Her name is "Asha" and she's a delight to have around. While she does need to burn a little energy from time to time, she mostly sleeps and really doesn't make a lot of noise. She's kind of like a big cat, really. So now, we basically have three kids, and three cats. Never a dull moment around here!!!
Once again, we wish you sanity and good health throughout the election process (aftermath) and the pandemic,
Bryce A. Borden
1NBC News Decision 2020: - https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-elections/president-results