| THE BIG STORY
There have been no problems counting votes, so the president is making up a bunch of lies
President Donald Trump, who is currently lagging behind Joe Biden, held a press conference at the White House on Thursday night, delivering a dispirited address about election fraud — fraud that absolutely did not happen, and for which he offered no supporting evidence.
Even by the standards set during his presidency, it was a shocking address for a sitting president, undermining the very election system at the heart of the nation’s democracy. Worth noting, too: the same voting system that put Trump into power four years ago.
Trump spoke of “mystery ballots,” “secret count rooms,” and “illegal votes.” He concocted an imaginary, elaborate, impossible-to-pull-off system of election fraud that was designed to make sure he lost — but not other Republicans around the country who won in many of the states he lost.
The three broadcast networks — ABC, NBC, and CBS — cut away from the address because of his lies.
Brendan Smialowski / Getty Images STAYING ON TOP OF THIS The state of the presidential race
Ballots are still being counted in key states like Nevada, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. In some states, counting went on through the night.
👉 This morning Joe Biden pulled ahead of Trump in Georgia, setting the stage for him to become the first Democrat to win the state since 1992. Biden leads by a little over 1,000 votes.
👉 The margin is so narrow that many news organizations, including BuzzFeed News, are not projecting a winner. A recount in Georgia could potentially flip the state back to Trump.
👉 Judges are rejecting Trump’s claims of shady poll practices after looking at the evidence. Trump’s campaign so far it has either lost cases outright or gotten orders with little to no effect on vote tallies.
The bottom line: Biden’s campaign wants you to chill. Trump’s campaign wants you to freak out.
Joe Biden takes his face mask off to speak in Wilmington, Delaware, Nov. 4.Drew Angerer / Getty Images SNAPSHOTS Fears for ballot counters’ safety amid a tight race. One ballot counter, who was inside a Detroit facility when angry Trump supporters demanded to be let in, told us, "I think we had that feeling of, What if we have to physically defend ourselves?”
Biden supporters played Beyoncé to drown out Trump campaign officials. The upbeat protest comes as Democrats are fighting against Trump to ensure every vote in the key swing state is counted.
Democrats’ chances of winning the Senate are shrinking rapidly. There is still a long shot for Democrats to control the White House and both chambers of Congress, but they might need to win two tough races in the new year.
Eric Trump is an election disinformation superspreader. The president’s son has prematurely claimed victory in Pennsylvania, spread rumors and lies, and, so far, gotten away with it.
Pollsters changed how they do things after messing up in 2016. They still screwed up in 2020. Here’s an early look at where the polls got it wrong, and how badly.
MEASURING UNREST Facebook has an internal metric for “violence and incitement trends.” It’s rising.
As Election Day stretches into election week, internal data at Facebook shows significant movement in a metric it calls “violence and incitement trends.”
In a post to Facebook’s internal message board, one employee alerted their colleagues to a nearly 45% increase in the metric, which assesses the potential for danger based on hashtags and search terms, over the last five days.
The post, which we’ve reviewed, notes that trends were previously rising “slowly,” but that recently “some conspiracy theory and general unhappiness posts/hashtags” were gaining popularity.
👉 The existence of the metric itself tells us a lot. Although Facebook has a policy on violence and incitement, this shows the extent to which the company actively measures activity on its platform that can foster unrest.
TIME TO EXHALE Long reads for a long week Sam Smith’s new album is gloriously queer. The pop star is back with a beautiful, expansive new album. Alessa Dominguez wrote about the new phase of Smith’s career, and what they’re leaving behind: “Pop music is still, in some ways, the last gasp of straight, white monoculture. It’s not an accident that Smith stuck to a butch image at the start of their career, and refused gender-specific pronouns, in order to appeal to the largest audience.”
Watching this new HBO docuseries is the most I’ve laughed for weeks. How To With John Wilson wasn’t on my radar, until reading Shannon Keating on how the series captures the beauty in the bizarre: “Nothing I’ve watched so far has felt quite so perfectly timed to this moment — in terms of capturing the best of what we’ve lost as well as giving us reason to laugh and delight and maybe even hope.”
14 page-turners that will keep you from obsessively checking election results. Election results are stressful, pals. So we decided to compile a list of fun, rewarding stress instead: here are some fun mysteries, thrillers, and suspense books where you can redirect all of that energy.
Wishing you the clarity you need to tell your story today, Elamin P.S. If you like this newsletter, help keep our reporting free for all. Support BuzzFeed News by becoming a member here. (Monthly memberships are available worldwide). 📝 This letter was edited and brought to you by Elamin Abdelmahmoud and BuzzFeed News. You can always reach us here.
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