For this post I'll stick to some of the main headlines from a Green perspective, with details and links to follow (maybe).
What say you, good people? To keep the Green Party moving forward in 2022 and beyond, we need an infusion of People Power.
— David B. Collins, Green for US Senate□☮ (@dbcgreentx) November 4, 2020
Your energy.
Your ideas.
You.
Make plans to attend a Green function in January 2021.
- With about 90% of the votes counted, your humble Shadow Senator has received just over 80,000 votes statewide, nearly 0.75%. That's a higher vote total than the 67.404 in 2012, but a lower percentage because voter turnout in Texas has increased dramatically since then. More than 12,000 votes came from my neighbors here in Harris County; in 248 of the 254 Texas counties, at least one voter went Green.
- Our Green comrade katija gruene will probably finish at just under 1.2%. So neither of us got to 2% to extend ballot access through 2030.
- True to form, our presidential ticket has received far fewer votes as of now: Hawkins/Walker may not even make 0.3% in this state, similar to Stein/Honkala's showing in 2012. (Stein/Baraka received 0.8% in Texas in 2016.)
- Neither Tommy Wakely nor Hal J. Ridley, Jr., has broken 1% in their respective US House bids.
- Our three State Lege candidates are polling slightly better: Antonio Padrón in HD-119 hit about 1.3%; Brody-Andrew Mulligan in HD-92, 1.9%; Julián Villarreal in SD-26, right around 20% in a two-way race with no Republican or Libertarian opposition.
- Not having a clear winner yet in the presidential contest is hardly unexpected. However, the fact that it's this close in some of the swing states should be a wake-up call for Democrats.
- A pox on every polling organization that got Progressives' hopes up for turning Texas blue this year. Even I got caught up in that—not that I was hopeful, but that I entertained the possibility. When Biden/Harris jumped out to an early lead in Texas, it seemed that much more plausible.
- Who's lying to us: the people who conduct and analyze the opinion polls, the people who run the elections, or both? As in 2016, the results are so at odds with the aggregate polling data as to be highly suspect.
- Not all the votes are in, but Massachusetts seems poised to reject Ranked Choice Voting. Currently the No vote on Question 2 is running about 55-45.
- So far, the most complete reporting I've seen online is from USA Today. Who'd-a thunk it? Among the worst is Politico, which has chosen to pretend that Libertarians, Greens, & other alternative parties do not exist.