Joe Biden and Kamala Harris win historic election with popular vote landslide

After an election with historic levels of voter turnout, Joe Biden will be the 46th president of the United States. California Senator and Oakland native Kamala Harris, the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrant parents, will become the first woman, first African-American, and first Indian-American to serve as vice president.

The new administration will inherit an unprecedented health and economic crisis caused by the Trump’s mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic. The virus is running unchecked throughout the United States which reached the grim milestone of 10-million COVID-19 infections the week following the election. With over 100,000 new infections each day, and hospitals nearing ICU capacity throughout the Midwest, scientists are warning that the pandemic is entering its worst stage yet.

The Biden administration will also need to repair fractured relationships with allies in Western Europe and restore confidence in America’s democratic institutions that were undermined by four years of Trump’s authoritarian attacks.

ILWU leaders react

“Congratulations to President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris,” said ILWU International President Willie Adams. “Our democracy was on the ballot this year. Millions of Americans voted to stand up for the democratic values this country was built on. The working class was the true hero of this election. Workers in Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Detroit, Las Vegas and elsewhere turned out in record numbers to reject the greed, cruelty and racism of the last four years,” Adams said.

ILWU International Vice President Bobby Olvera said that electing Joe Biden was a necessary first-step for the labor movement. “Now the work begins. A Biden administration will give us some breathing room to organize but the work ahead of us remains. Workers everywhere are struggling because wages are too low and their rights in the workplace are under attack,” Olvera said. “Economic inequality is as high as it has ever been. We must be ready to take advantage of the organizing opportunities that a Biden administration  will bring and to continue to fight for the rights of all workers and we must continue the struggle for racial justice.”

ILWU International SecretaryTreasurer Ed Ferris celebrated when his home state of Pennsylvania put Biden over the top of the 270 electoral vote threshold. “Workers could not afford another four years of this administration. The greed, corruption and incompetence of this presidency has been unprecedented in modern memory,” Ferris said. “It is sad and unfortunate that, even after the election, the Republican Party chooses to continue to undermine faith in our democratic process instead of working to solve the many serious issues that threaten workers throughout this country.”

Retaking the rust belt

Biden’s path to victory went through the Midwest. He won back several key swing states in the rust belt—a region hard-hit by de-industrialization and the off-shoring of unionized manufacturing jobs—that Hilary Clinton lost in 2016. With a massive voter turnout this year, Biden won Wisconsin, and flipped Michigan and Pennsylvania. In the Southwest, Biden also flipped Arizona, won Nevada and ran a competitive race in the normally solid Republican state of Texas.

The Electoral College margin was much closer than the popular vote. Biden won the electoral vote 306-232, the same margin of victory for Trump in 2016.

The Electoral College is a unique, anti-majoritarian feature of the United States Constitution that gives disproportionate weight to votes of less populous, rural states compared with more densely populated states.

As the Dispatcher was going to press, Biden was leading by over 5 million votes nationally, which could rise to a 7 million vote margin by the time all the votes are counted. In comparison, Trump won the election in 2016 while losing the popular vote to Hilary Clinton by almost 3 million votes. The Democratic Party has now won the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections.

Eyes on Georgia

Another important win for Biden occurred in the State of Georgia which has not voted for a Democratic President since 1976. Flipping Georgia was the result of years of on the ground organizing and legal battles by voting rights activists. Leaders like Stacey Abrams and organizations like Fair Fight registered over 800,000 voters in the state and have fought to overcome voter suppression efforts that have increased since the Supreme Court gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in 2013.

“It was fitting that voters from the district of the late John Lewis put Biden in the lead in Georgia,” said President Adams. “A new generation of activists has taken up his legacy of fighting for voting rights.”

Flipping the Senate

President Adams said that the Senate runoff elections in Georgia are a priority. “Georgia will decide who controls the Senate,” Adams said. “January 5 will determine whether or not Biden will have the votes needed in the Senate to move the country forward for workers or whether Mitch McConnell will be able to thwart the will of the majority of the Americans who voted overwhelmingly to reject the last four years of Donald Trump. The ILWU will be active in this election supporting Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock.”

Trump refuses to concede

Major news services called the election for Biden after he built an insurmountable lead in Pennsylvania on November 7th, but Trump refused to concede the election. Instead, he has focused his efforts on attacking the democratic process by peddling unsubstantiated claims of fraud and Tweeting that he won the election by “A LOT,” despite the fact that he did not win the election.

Trump has vowed to use the courts to attempt to overturn the will of the voters and to undemocratically give himself another term. Trump’s strategy may play well politically to his base, but must scholars believe his legal case is extraordinarily weak. Regardless of whether or not he concedes, Joe Biden will be sworn-in as the 46th President of the United States on January 20th and Trump will no longer be president.

DOJ Intervenes

In violation of Department of Justice (DOJ) policy, Attorney General Bill Barr authorized federal prosecutors to investigate “substantial allegations” of voter fraud before states certify elections. There is no evidence to back up any claims of widespread fraud. The decades-long policy was created to prevent the DOJ from interfering in elections. The breach of Department policy promoted Richard Pilger, the director of the Department of Justice’s elections-crime branch to resign in protest.

Prominent Republican veterans of the DOJ issued a letter criticizing Barr’s move. The statement was signed by former officials, including Ken Wainstein, the former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and homeland security adviser to President George W. Bush, and Don Ayer, who was a deputy attorney general under President George H.W. Bush.

“The voters decide the winner in an election, not the President, and not the Attorney General,” the statement said. “Thanks to a bipartisan group of experienced officials and poll workers across this country, the states, once again, ran fair and secure elections. We have seen absolutely no evidence of anything that should get in the way of certification of the results, which is something the states handle, not the federal government. The American people spoke clearly, and now the country needs to move forward toward a peaceful transfer of power.”

As Trump delays the inevitable, he has refused to allow Biden’s incoming team the ability to begin the transition process with the outgoing administration. Biden transition officials have warned that delays in the transition process could cause unnecessary delays in the distribution of coronavirus vaccines that are expected to be ready in early 2021.

In a joint statement, the presidents of the American Hospital Association (AHA), the American Medical Association (AMA), and the American Nurses Association (ANA) urged Trump and his administration to “work with the incoming Biden administration on COVID-19 response.”

Biden makes gains in the union vote

According to New York Times exit polls, Biden won 60% of the vote of union households, a 9 point improvement over 2016 when Hilary Clinton won union households by a slim 51%. Other polls had Biden winning a slightly lower share, winning union households by 58%. Union members in Nevada played a decisive role in getting out the vote and helping Biden win the state. Members of UNITE-HERE, many of whom have been unemployed because of the pandemic, led an aggressive canvassing and phone banking effort to drive voter turnout.

ILWU members also helped to get out the vote. Volunteers up and down the coast made thousands of calls in swing states to turn out voters for the election. Prop 22 passes in CA In a blow to workers’ rights,

California voters passed Proposition 22

This was the most expensive initiative in history. The “Yes on Prop 22” campaign was led by Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, InstaCart and Postmates.

The initiative allows these app-based companies to misclassify employees as independent contractors and exempts them from labor law requirements relating to health care, unemployment insurance, safe working conditions, and other benefits. Under the new law, ride-share drivers will only be paid for “engaged time” — time spent driving a passenger or on their way to pick up another — not for time spent waiting for rides.

According to the UC Berkeley Labor Center, this could result in drivers being paid as little as $5.64 per hour. Starting in 2021, the minimum wage in California will increase to $14.00 per hour for employers with 26 employees or more. The measure could also open the opportunity for other employers to adopt a similar app-based model and drive down wages and conditions in other industries.

Multnomah County passes universal preschool policy

In Oregon, Multnomah County passed a universal pre-school policy. The measure will be funded by a tax on high wage earners and provide free preschool for all children aged 3 and 4, regardless of income. The new law will also raise wages of preschool teachers to that of kindergarten teachers. The program is expected to start in 2022.

The measure was endorsed by the Oregon Area District Council and was strongly supported and endorsed by the Growing Seeds Workers Union, who voted to join Local 5 in March and are currently in negotiations for their first contract.