Today’s entry: Hi Brian, I have a 2-fold question. While I have been truly blessed in my life; I was born an American, became a Christian, married my soulmate, and had the privilege and honor of serving the United States Army under President Reagan. I am now disillusioned and disheartened that President Trump seemingly had the election stolen by "irregularities" in vote counting on a mass scale in what appear to be strategically placed voting precincts.
Question 1: Does the President have any recourse to expose the truth and hold on to the Presidency?
Question 2: Do you expect a market selloff if, in fact, it appears the 2 Senate runoff elections will go in the Democrats' favor?
Bottom Line: Life is full of irony and the final Electoral College margin, should the states be certified as they sit now, would reflect Biden with 306 and Trump with 232. What’s ironic about that total? It’s the exact margin Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by in 2016, though the composition of states was different, that’s not the end of the irony either. Trump’s win included three states he won with sub-1% margins they're Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Joe Biden is poised for four sub 1% wins with Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Right about now you might be wondering what this has to do with your two questions.
If this is where the dust settles, we will have once again had a very close election where just tens of thousands of votes across a few states out of nearly 150 million cast nationally, will have decided the outcome. Conversely, the election itself via the Electoral College outcome, won’t be all that close. Let’s say for a moment that indeed elections were “stolen”. Because of the margin of victory by Biden, you could take the two largest states in question, Pennsylvania and either Georgia or Michigan, have the results flipped in favor of President Trump and Biden would still win. I hope that reality provides some degree of solace in accepting the outcome should it be settled in Biden’s favor as is almost certain.
The upshot of Florida 2000 was resolved to never find ourselves in that situation again. As a result, a complete overhaul of the way we handle elections was taken on and has culminated in the third most populous state in the union processing a record number of votes in a record amount of time without issue statewide. It’s hard to overstate how great Florida’s handling of this election was independent of 2000 considerations. Hopefully what we’ve witnessed will place pressure on similar reforms in other states. Regardless, campaigns will go in with eyes wide open in places like Atlanta, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Las Vegas in the future. If any misdeeds did take place, it’ll be much harder for them to attempt misfeasance in the future.
Provided that Republicans hold onto the Senate, which will come down to two Senate races in Georgia on January 5th, in which Republicans must win at least one, they’ll be fine. If there’s good policy in place, markets like gridlock in Washington which they’d have with divided government. If the Senate stays with Republican control, the Trump tax cuts remain and the only headwinds become regulations that are industry-specific rather than macro concerns. Hopefully, this helps and know that the future of your belief system is brighter than it feels right now.
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