Year: 2020

Disinformation, foreign interference, a global pandemic and an incumbent president who refused to say he’d accept the results — all were concerns headed into the 2020 election.

If those challenges were a test of America’s democratic system, did we pass? Jelani Cobb of The New Yorker and election law expert Michael Kang weigh in, with Joe Biden on the verge of becoming the president-elect.

Listen to more election coverage from NPR:
Up First on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
The NPR Politics Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

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Early on election night, when it seemed clear that Joe Biden was underperforming with a specific group of Latino voters in the Miami-Dade County, a narrative began to take hold: the Democratic Party had failed to energize the Latino vote.

But as more results came in from across Florida, they told a different story. Biden would have lost the state even if he had performed better in Miami-Dade, because of President Trump’s popularity with white voters.

NPR’s Leila Fadel reports on Democratic head-scratching about the Latino vote, and Gene Demby of NPR’s Code Switch podcast talks about the enduring power of the white vote in the American electorate.

Listen to more election coverage from NPR:
Up First on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
The NPR Politics Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

In participating regions, you’ll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what’s going on in your community.

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Early data suggests 160 million people voted this year — which would be the highest turnout rate since 1900. With an unprecedented number of those votes cast by mail, knowing the results of the presidential election on Tuesday was never a guarantee.

We know a little more about the results of congressional elections — and they are not great for Democrats. NPR congressional correspondent Susan Davis explains.

One thing we do know is that voters in 32 states decided on dozens of ballot measures, from legalizing marijuana to raising the minimum wage. Josh Altic with the website Ballotpedia has been tracking those measures.

Listen to more election coverage from NPR:
Up First on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
The NPR Politics Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

In participating regions, you’ll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what’s going on in your community.

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

The electoral college is a system unlike any other in American democracy. Why does it exist? Ramtin Arablouei and Rund Abdelfatah explored that question on a recent episode of NPR’s history podcast, Throughline. Find them on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

NPR senior political editor and correspondent Ron Elving explains why more Republicans now support the electoral college — and whether that’s likely to change.

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NPR political correspondents Tamara Keith and Asma Khalid reflect on an election season shaped by unprecedented events: a global pandemic, President Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis, and the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — none of which seemed to dramatically change the shape of the race.

In participating regions, you’ll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what’s going on in your community.

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Today, a bonus episode from NPR’s Code Switch.

For the first time in election history, Latinos are projected to be the second-largest voting demographic in the country. The reason? Gen Z Latinx voters, many of whom are casting a ballot for the first time in 2020. So we asked a bunch of them: Who do you plan to vote for? What issues do you care about? And what do you want the rest of the country to know about you?

There is no reason to expect we will know the result of the Presidential election on Tuesday night. Wendy Weiser of the Brennan Center and David Scott, deputy managing editor with the Associated Press, explain why.

Part of the reason: a few key states will have millions of mail-in ballots to count after in-person voting has concluded. The Supreme Court ruled this week to allow that counting to proceed in two key states, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Election lawyer Ben Ginsberg has been following those cases.

NPR’s Joel Rose reports watchdog groups who normally monitor elections abroad for violence and unrest are turning their sights toward the U.S.

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Four years after Donald Trump won, he turned out to be a better president than many of his supporters hoped — and worse one than many of his opponents feared.

That’s what NPR’s Ari Shapiro found as he re-connected with voters who first spoke to NPR in early 2017, just before Trump was inaugurated.

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More than 74 million people have already voted. Michael McDonald of the Florida Elections Project tells NPR that could indicate the U.S. is headed for record turnout in a modern election.

Maya King of POLITICO has been following the early vote in Georgia, where black voters came close to electing the nation’s first black female governor in 2018.

NPR’s Miles Parks and Pam Fessler explain why it may be too late to vote by mail — and how legal challenges are still complicating the rules around early voting in some states.

Additional reporting this episode from NPR’s Greg Allen and Barbara Sprunt; Stephen Fowler with Georgia Public Broadcasting and Jen Rice with Houston Public Media.

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The U.S. looks poised to exceed its summer peak, when the country averaged as many as 65,000 cases a day for a 10-day stretch in late July. The seven-day average of cases is now more than 69,000, according to the COVID Tracking Project.

The situation is similar in Europe, which just logged more new cases than any week so far.

Cases are rising in North Dakota faster than any other state. Fargo Mayor Tim Mahoney recently imposed a mask mandate there.

NPR’s Will Stone reports on the growing outbreak in the Midwest, where some hospitals may not be able to handle an influx of COVID-19 patients.

In participating regions, you’ll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what’s going on in your community.

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