Vice President Kamala Harris finally conceded the election on Wednesday, nearly 12 hours after the race was called, saying she spoke to President-Elect Donald Trump to congratulate him on his blowout election victory. Trump currently stands at 301 electoral votes to Harris’ 226 with Arizona’s results still outstanding, and that state is also leaning toward Trump. During her speech, Harris said, “While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fuels this campaign.” “I am so proud of the race we ran and the way we ran it,” Harris told a crowd of her supporters in Washington, D.C. “Over the 107 days of this campaign, we have been intentional about building community and building coalitions, bringing people together from every walk of life and background — united by love of country.” “The outcome of this election is not what we wanted, not what we fought for, not voted for, but here me when I say … the light of American’s promise will always burn bright as long as we never give up and as long as we keep fighting,” she added. Kamala Harris: “While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign … the fight for our country is always worth it” pic.twitter.com/tXtHzUl1Fz — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 6, 2024 “Now I know folks are feeling and experiencing a range of emotions right now. I get it,” she added. “But we must accept the results of this election.” Harris said that she spoke with Trump over the phone earlier on Wednesday and congratulated him on his election victory. “I also told him that we will help him and his team with their transition,” Harris continued. “And that we will engage in a peaceful transfer of power.” She vowed to continue to fight for Americans, saying, “I will never give up the fight for a future where Americans can pursue their dreams, ambitions, and aspirations, where the women of America have the freedom to make decisions about their own body, and not have their government telling them what to do.” MATT WALSH’S ‘AM I RACIST?’ NOW STREAMING ON DAILYWIRE+ “We will never give up the fight to protect our schools and our streets from gun violence,” she added. “And America, we will never give up the fight for our democracy, for the rule of law, for equal justice, and for the sacred idea that every one of us, no matter who we are or where we start out, has certain fundamental rights and freedoms that must be respected and upheld.” Harris also vowed that Democrats will “continue to wage this fight in the voting booth, in the courts, and in the public square.”

Former — and now future — President Donald Trump pulled off a stunning victory Tuesday night, flipping battleground after battleground red as tens of millions of Americans voted to send him back to the White House. Pennsylvania was his silver bullet. “If we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole deal,” Trump told a local Pennsylvania radio station as votes rolled in on Tuesday. The Keystone State was considered a must-win for Vice President Kamala Harris. Without it, Harris would have had to win both Michigan and Wisconsin as well as one southern swing state, North Carolina or Georgia, and a western swing state, Nevada or Arizona. However, both North Carolina and Georgia began trending red early in the evening, boxing Harris into needing a Pennsylvania win. Before the night was over, it was clear she wouldn’t get one. Trump made inroads in several key areas of Pennsylvania and swayed several crucial voter blocs, both of which locked in his win. For decades, black and Latino voters swung hard for Democrats. But both groups have begun moving to Trump, driven largely by men. Democrats have been unable to stop the bleeding. Harris underperformed with both groups in Pennsylvania’s major cities, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. She garnered 89% of the black vote in Pennsylvania, while Trump got 10%, exit polls show. This is down from Biden’s 92% support in 2020. She performed abysmally with Latino voters in the state, winning just 57% to Trump’s 42%. In 2020, Biden did much better, winning 69% of Latino voters to Trump’s 27%. In the final days of her campaign, Harris went to Philadelphia and pleaded with black and Latino voters to turn out for her. In the end, it didn’t work. Harris also severely underperformed in several counties that were vital to her success.  Trump was able to flip Erie County in the northwestern corner of Pennsylvania, a bellwether that tends to predict the winner of the state. In 2020, President Joe Biden won the county by 1%, and in 2016, Trump won it by 2%. The president-elect appears to have won by a similar margin this time. In Lackawanna County, President Joe Biden’s home turf, Harris appears to have won by three points, worse than Biden’s comfortable eight-point margin. Even before Tuesday’s decisive defeat, there were rumblings within Harris’ camp that her Pennsylvania operation was coming up short. Democrats complained privately to the campaign that the Pennsylvania team was not cultivating relationships with key elected officials, among turnout issues and other problems. Meanwhile, voters in the suburbs of the blue cities said life was just too expensive under Biden and Harris, and many of them voted for a Trump economy. Trump’s assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania and his triumphant return to that area to rally supporters again may have galvanized voters in the vital swing state as well. On Wednesday, one Philadelphia Democrat served up some cold realism. “This is not just one county. This is not just one storyline. This is not just someone using this to explain their priors, right? This is pretty systematic,” said Representative Brendan Boyle. “This is a solid Republican victory, and the largest Republican victory by a presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan in 1984″ in Pennsylvania, he said. “I don’t think any Democrat who wants to improve upon this situation should sugar coat this.”

Trump seems to have won the popular vote, against all odds

'Independent campaign'

'She didn’t separate herself'

'We will continue to wage this fight'

These are bedrock issues on which our Republic rests

'I was shocked'

He didn't mince words with his complaint

Abortion was on the ballot Tuesday in more ways than one. Nationally, Kamala Harris’ campaign increasingly emphasized the issue, claiming that electing Donald Trump again would lead to a “national abortion ban.” And voters in 10 states had the opportunity to amend their state constitutions to protect a right to abortion. Here are the results. The Harris campaign’s claims were demonstrably false. Trump repeatedly said he would veto a national abortion ban if Congress ever passed one. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., claimed that Project 2025’s set of policy proposals called for a national abortion ban even though the 920-page volume says nothing about it. Abortion took center stage as a long line of celebrities endorsed Harris. Trump’s victory, winning a higher percentage of the popular vote than in 2020 or 2016, showed that this strategy failed. The picture is different at the state level, where the abortion issue itself was on the ballot. In Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973 invented a right to abortion that prevented states from enacting virtually any law to protect the unborn. Over the next few decades, 12 state courts interpreted existing provisions in their constitutions to protect that right. And then the Supreme Court overruled Roe in 2022, leaving state charters as the only source of constitutional protection. In the 2022 election, voters in California, Michigan, and Vermont added language to their state constitutions protecting a broad right to “reproductive freedom.” That step was cosmetic in California and Vermont, where the two states’ supreme courts had already interpreted the constitution to protect this right. But it was a dramatic change in Michigan, where the new language covered a vague category of “decisions about all matters related to pregnancy.” Ohio voters adopted a similar constitutional amendment in 2023. Which brings us to the 2024 ballot. Even if the line for prohibiting abortion remains the same, voters drawing that line in their state constitution makes a more significant statement than legislators doing so in a statute. With that in mind, voters in six states were asked whether their state constitution should prohibit any limitation on abortion before “viability” or, even after viability, when necessary to protect the mother’s life or health. The measure passed in five of those states: Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, and Nevada. Viability is a subjective term that designates when an unborn child can survive outside of the womb; generally, it’s considered to be at about 24 weeks. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that 99% of abortions occur before viability. Colorado, Montana, and Nevada already had drawn a legislative line at viability; Arizona had done so at 15 weeks. Although moving the line for permissible abortions from 15 weeks to viability might appear significant, the CDC data show that a 15-week ban still allows 94% of abortions. The most dramatic change occurred in Missouri, which legislatively bans abortion from conception. A slim majority of voters (52%) approved amending the state Constitution to remove this ban and allow abortions up to viability. In Florida, 57% of voters supported Amendment 4, which also would have prohibited any abortion limitations before viability. Florida, however, is one of the few states that requires 60% of voters to amend their constitution. The measure would have passed under a simple majority threshold, a dramatic change from the current six-week legislative ban. Maryland currently has no gestational limit on abortion and, therefore, voters adopting a constitutional provision protecting “reproductive freedom” didn’t change the overall legality of abortion there. Similarly, New York voters adopted a broad constitutional provision protecting women from unequal treatment based on “reproductive health care and autonomy.” This shift effectively legalizes 100% rather than 99% of abortions in New York state. Voters in Nebraska approved a ballot measure that will allow abortion only in the first trimester, but Nebraska already allows first-trimester abortions. Nebraskans rejected a separate proposal to protect “a fundamental right to abortion until fetal viability.” The margin for both ballot measures, however, was narrow: 55% voted to restrict abortion to the first trimester but 49% voted to allow the 99% of abortions that occur before viability. Finally, 60% of South Dakota voters rejected adding protection for abortion to the state Constitution. This proposal would have established different standards for restrictions on abortion during different periods of pregnancy, a complicated approach that the Supreme Court had imposed in Roe v. Wade but abandoned because it is unworkable. These results for the state ballot measures give abortion advocates cause to celebrate. The percentage of voters supporting the measure on Election Day, for example, exceeded preelection polling by four percentage points in Arizona, five points in Nebraska, six points in Colorado, and 11 points in Florida. The result matched polling in Maryland and Missouri. Even in Montana, where polling overestimated support, voters still approved the abortion measure. And even in states with pro-life legislatures, such as Missouri and Nebraska, voters chose to protect the right to abortion during all or part of pregnancy in the constitution, the state’s fundamental law. The pro-life movement always has known that its goal must be to achieve a life-affirming culture. These results show how much work still needs to be done. The post Voters Put Abortion in Their State Constitutions appeared first on The Daily Signal.