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Greene compiled a long list of unhinged comments and social media posts, including endorsement of violence against and assassinations of top Democrats, 9/11 trutherism and denials of school shootings.

Paradoxically, by seeking to punish Trump and Greene, Democrats may actually be helping to perpetuate the cycle of victimhood and complaints about "cancel culture" that each uses to crank up the anger of their radical base.

Greene has seized Trump's mantle by remaining defiant and insisting that she will not apologize for her mistakes in interviews and social media posts

"The entire Marjorie Taylor Greene disaster has been a meteor headed directly at the GOP conference since she won her primary. She should have been put on the bench then," said Republican strategist Rob Stutzman. "But the President liked her -- and liked the Q crazies because they liked him. GOP leadership needs to get onto cutting this craziness out of the party or it will proliferate."

Trump has long used the idea of victimhood as an anchor of his appeal to grassroots supporters who feel ostracized from the Washington establishment. In fact, one of the pillars of his defense in his Senate impeachment trial next week will be an argument that Democrats are trying to cancel his right of free speech -- which he used to discredit a fair election and to send a mob to sack the Capitol. That's a message Greene echoed with her mask on Thursday, which read, "Free Speech."

Greene's loss of her committee assignments may actually give her an opportunity to portray her rebuke as the result of standing up to liberals and even "establishment" members of her own party. She has told her supporters she has raised at least $1.6 million during the uproar over the past week.

While just 11 House Republicans voted to remove Greene from her committee assignments Thursday night, 61 voted the night before to remove Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the third-ranking member of the conference, from her leadership position over her vote to impeach Trump.

Rather than taking full responsibility for her actions in her Thursday speech, Greene said the media that exposed her lies and lunacy is as bad as the QAnon conspiracy theory she espoused. She called Democrats -- rather than Trump's rioters who invaded the Capitol on January 6 -- a "mob."

Greene told The Washington Examiner that in removing her from her assignments Democrats "don't even realize they're helping me. I'm pretty amazed at how dumb they are."

"Think of Greene as a virus. Forceful and decisive action has to be taken to prevent the spread,"

Republicans could have taken more forceful action to drive Greene and her radical sentiments from their party at any time in the last few months -- or over the past year when she was running for Congress. Instead, Greene got a standing ovation from many in the House Republican Conference meeting Wednesday night.

The former President on Thursday declined to answer for his seditious behavior, turning down a request by House impeachment managers to testify for his trial.

The furor over Trump and Greene shows that even with the ex-President out of office, most of the Washington GOP is not willing to take issue with the radical fringe that festers among its most loyal voters.

"In the House, I tell you what I think's going on. I think they're trying to play both sides," former Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich said on CNN's "The Situation Room" on Thursday. "They don't want to aggravate the people who sort of sign up to QAnon and these conspiracy theories. They don't want to aggravate them but they also want to win the majority. It's all a fight for power."

For many in the party, Trump's unrepentant departure after trying to tear democracy down with false claims of vote fraud and Greene's rocket to fame as a "Make America Great Again" heroine are a nightmare scenario.

"I do think as a party we have to figure out what we stand for, and I think we've got to be a party of ideas and policies and principles and get away from members dabbling in conspiracy theories," South Dakota Republican Sen. John Thune told CNN's Manu Raju on Thursday. "I don't think that's a productive course of action or one that's going to lead to much prosperity politically in the future."

"The House Republican Conference has been taken over by QAnon caucus, the crackpot caucus and the conspiracy caucus at the same time," Democratic House Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries told CNN's Erin Burnett Thursday night.

"The party of Lincoln is gone. The party of Reagan is gone. The party of John McCain is gone. This is now the party of Marjorie Taylor Greene."

The bigger issue here for Trump is whether his numbers in Minnesota are indicative of a broader weakness across the industrial Midwest -- Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin -- where he won the 2016 election. Trump's job approval numbers in these states has been consistent with the numbers in the Star Tribune poll for at least the last year. If that trend continues, his path to a second term narrows significantly.

Trump, for example, has described Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals and referred groups of migrants as part of an "invasion.” H

Obama said law enforcement agencies and internet platforms “must come up with better strategies to reduce the influence” of hate groups that play a role in shootings like the one that occurred in El Paso.

“There are indications that the El Paso shooting follows a dangerous trend: troubled individuals who embrace racist ideologies and see themselves obligated to act violently to preserve white supremacy,”

We are not helpless here

Washington Post Congressional Reporter Karoun Demirjian says that election could have an impact on a critical trade deal, the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Neither Canada nor the US have ratified the USMCA.

Barrón-López reports that LULAC is "trying to register tends of thousands of Latinos ahead of the Iowa Democratic caucuses, hoping that the group could have some sway" in who ultimately carries the state in the Democratic presidential contest.

But McConnell did tell Senate Republicans in their weekly meeting that they needed to prepare for an impeachment trial. The GOP cracks when it comes to impeachment are very limited, but still worth tracking.Republican Rep. Francis Rooney of Florida this past week told CNN, "I don't think you can rule anything out until you know all the facts." Rooney also decided this past week not to seek reelection, which could him more of a wild card in the weeks ahead.Former GOP Gov. John Kasich of Ohio said he would vote yes on impeachment if he were in the House. Kasich was in the House back when President Bill Clinton was impeached. Kasich, though, is a constant Trump critic, so reading too much into his tough criticism would be unwise. But, again, it is worth tracking any Republican dissent or wavering on the impeachment question.

What happens next? Well, Sanders has the AOC endorsement as well as $30+ million in the bank -- two very good things with about 100 days left until Iowa. The question now becomes: Does he have another issue on the campaign trail related to his health or age? If not, Sanders' heart attack might seem like a million years ago by the time Iowa Democrats turn out to vote in the caucuses. But if Sanders has any sort of problem between now and then, it's likely the end of his campaign.

Hillary Clinton started one of the strangest news cycles in the 2020 race at the end of the last week when she seemed to suggest that the Russians were "grooming" Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to run as a third-party candidate. Gabbard, thrilled with the unexpected chance to battle with one of the biggest figures in the party, called Clinton the "queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long."

And yet, there are cracks. Over the weekend, former Ohio Gov. John Kasich announced that he supported the impeachment and removal of Trump. Florida Rep. Francis Rooney, a Republican, said he would consider impeaching Trump -- and then promptly announced his plan to retire from Congress in 2020.

1. The new Democratic front-runner ... now what?: There's a new top dog in the Democratic field: Elizabeth Warren. As Harry Enten and I noted in our brandnew rankings of the 10 Democrats most likely to wind up as the party's nominee, Warren has overtaken Biden not just in polling but also in money and organization. She also has the clearest path to be the nominee, with a polling and organizational edges in Iowa and a geographic connection in New Hampshire.

Warren's most obvious weakness -- from a policy perspective -- is on her ongoing unwillingness to state, clearly, whether or not middle-class families will see their taxes go up under her "Medicare for All" plan. The answer to that is almost certainly yes -- as Sanders, another "Medicare for All" proponent, acknowledged in the debate.  

His name was William Blount, born in 1749 to a wealthy family in North Carolina, one of the most corrupt parts of British North America.

But with so many groups — the Cherokee and Creek nations, the Continental Congress, the British, the Spanish, etc. — vying for the southern frontiers, no one knew how to claim those lands.

Blount had other ideas.His strategy was simple: Make up the names of hundreds of settlers and then snap up the best plots with these ghost entries at North Carolina’s new land office, which opened in 1783. Then, he tried to raise land values by luring British investors with fairy tales of North America’s emerging real estate markets.

With his associates, among them a young lawyer named Andrew Jackson, Blount eventually “owned” about 1 million acres, much of it deep inside Indian country. He used these claims to gain influence with both state and federal officials. In 1790, Blount became governor of the Southwest Territory

In the face of constant invasion, several hundred Cherokees declared war on the Southwest Territory on Sept. 11, 1792.

Blount begged U.S. officials for aid, but federal authorities were focused on Ohio, prompting Blount and his confidants to privately rage that the do-gooders in the nation’s capital preferred “savage” friends to white families. So they took matters into their own hands, with Blount quietly instructing Jackson and other confidants to launch scorched-earth missions into Indian country.

required U.S. citizens to abide by solemn treaties, including a new one with the Cherokee in 1794.

this treaty blocked white settlers from further trespassing on Indian grounds, which meant they could not buy Blount’s more remote claims.

in early 1797, he used his position as one of the first senators from Tennessee to approach British agents about invading the Spanish-held lands of the Gulf Coast.

President Adams found out about these half-baked plans in a bombshell letter, which he showed to his wife, Abigail. “Here is a diabolical plot,” she wrote. The president also sent the evidence to the House of Representatives, which voted to impeach Blount “for high crimes and misdemeanors” on July 7, 1797. The senators then used their removal powers from Article I, Section 5, to expel him from the chamber.

The next year, they drew up five articles of impeachment, each of which noted that Blount had acted “contrary to the duty of his trust and station” and “against the peace and interests” of the United States.

Clinton did not mention Gabbard by name but said she believes one candidate is "the favorite of the Russians."

Clinton was referring to the GOP grooming Gabbard, not Russians.

Gabbard reacted by tweeting that Clinton is “the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that sickened the Democratic Party for so long."

Trump attacked Clinton for the suggestion earlier this week, and said Clinton and other Democrats claim everyone opposed to them is a Russian agent.

ratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard said Thursday that she will not run for re-election for her U.S. representative seat, saying she wants to focus on trying to secure her party’s nomination to challenge President Donald Trump.Gabbard, who represents Hawaii, made the announcement in a video and email to supporters."I believe that I can best serve the people of Hawaii and our country as your president and commander-in-chief," Gabbard said in the video.Let our news meet your inbox. The news and stories that matters, delivered weekday mornings.Sign UpThis site is protected by recaptcha Privacy Policy | Terms of Service She also expressed gratitude to the people of Hawaii for her nearly seven years in Congress.In January, Hawaii state Sen. Kai Kahele, a Democrat, said he would run for Gabbard's seat, NBC affiliate KHNL of Honolulu reported.An Iowa Democratic caucus poll out this week put Gabbard at 3 percent, with former Vice President Joe Biden, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg in the top three spots.She is in a crowded field of Democrats seeking the nomination to run for president. Another candidate, U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, ended his long-shot presidential campaign Thursday.RecommendedvideovideoMcConnell: If the House impeaches Trump, Senate will hold trial 'until we finish'2020 Election2020 ElectionTim Ryan drops out of presidential raceHillary Clinton recently suggested that she believed Republicans were grooming one of the Democrats for a third-party candidacy. Clinton did not mention Gabbard by name but said she believes one candidate is "the favorite of the Russians."

“I think he came to Seder or Passover with me one year at my family’s house,” he said, adding that Jackson had black and Hispanic friends at the school and dated an Asian girl.

His senior year, he was one of about 30 Latin students to travel to Italy during spring break. As the group toured ancient Roman ruins, Jackson turned to a student he barely knew and said that his grandfather had admitted on his deathbed to being in the SS.

After flunking out of Ohio Wesleyan University his first semester, he did the first of two things that would shock his former Quaker school classmates. In 2009, he enlisted. “Kids from Friends don’t do that,” recalled his history classmate. “Going to West Point is one thing. But to go and just sign up?”

“The planet is going down fast. And the best have to be saved. The weak have to die. It’s just that simple,” he continued, turning his face to the ceiling and exhaling loudly with his eyes closed. “This has to be God’s will. What other explanation could there be?”

One classmate of color said she, too, had no inkling that Jackson was racist. Instead, they bonded over their love of history. “I felt like he was the only one in the class who got me,” she said.

“The coverage of the case was not as extensive or as deep as I thought it would be, given all that was going on in America at time, and its outrageousness,” said Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr., who charged Jackson with murder as a hate crime and murder as terrorism. “Had he come from ISIS and hunted Jews and then killed a Jewish man, I think there would have been much more attention.”

It would be another five months before hundreds of white supremacists and neo-Nazis descended on Charlottesville for the “Unite the Right” rally — a gathering that would end in violence and expose the alt-right for what it really was.

Detective Schick considered the crime a window into the growing problem of white supremacy in America. “We need to know where this train of thought is coming from, how it’s being perpetuated in these hate groups,” he said. “It’s the same thought pattern used back by the Ku Klux Klan.”

At their 10-year reunion, Jackson’s classmates decided to hold a Quaker meeting for worship.There, in the meeting house Harris used to attend with them, the young professionals wondered if there were warning signs they didn’t see, or if the school’s progressivism had somehow helped push Jackson toward violence.

“There is clearly something that was missing from our high school or our experience that didn’t allow him to speak about these feelings sooner,” one Friends graduate said.

Raines, Jackson’s former history teacher who now works at another private school, said he brought up the case this fall during an assembly. The virulence of white supremacy should not be ignored.

“You see these trends, these forces, resurging,” he said. “You need to take action if you can.”

Two dozen others had turned out to see the Minnesota senator in tiny Ida Grove that same day, a county that doesn’t even have 1,000 registered Democrats. But most striking to Klobuchar was a crowd of around 50 packing the Sac County Cattle Company on a Sunday night just before Christmas.

Klobuchar is blunt about her shared background with Iowa’s voters. She brags about being from the midwest, and how she can win in rural Minnesota counties that Trump took by 20 points.

Klobuchar said those gatherings are a sign of what to expect on Iowa’s caucus day on 3 February. Klobuchar sits at about 6% support among probable Iowa caucusgoers, according to the most recent Des Moines Register Iowa poll in October, but a strong debate showing in Los Angeles brought her notice

A crowd that size in Sac City, anywhere in rural America, means something

The proprietor said Klobuchar’s crowds were at least the size of King’s, or any other Republican who has come calling.

Her entire argument is built around electability in midwest swing states such as Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan and Ohio

“He’s treating farmers like poker chips in one of his bankrupt casinos,” she said to the delight of her audience at one stop

The question is whether her momentum, which is mainly confined to Iowa, is too little too late. In less than six weeks, caucusgoers will trudge through a frigid night to precinct meetings in schoolhouses and courthouses – while she may be chained to Trump’s impeachment trial in the US Senate, which is set to start sometime in January and last for an unknown time.

“In an ironic way, her stardom in the Senate will hurt her campaigning in Iowa, where she desperately needs to do well.”

Klobuchar says a doubling of office spaces in Iowa and positive responses in Des Moines Register/CNN Iowa polls are signs of hope. Best says her strongest advantage is that overwhelming majorities of probable caucusgoers have favorable opinions of her and list her in their top three selections.

She says people there have a thirst for economic prosperity that can be achieved realistically, not with promises like Medicare for All. She never mentions challengers from the progressive wing by name. “We can win them back telling the truth. We can bring those people back.”

voters in rural areas like Sac City and Rockwell City are easier to organize than in Democratic metro strongholds such as Des Moines or Iowa City. Those who show up in Rockwell City are reliably Democratic and less issue-focused. Rarely do they see a candidate with Klobuchar’s resume. When they do, they leave with a strong impression.

“It’s a lot easier to get viability in Sac county than Polk county,” said Scholten. “She recognizes that people are familiar with her. Sac City isn’t a long way from the Iowa-Minnesota border.”

Those who hear Klobuchar’s message like her focus on the midwest.

it has become much tougher for either to amass a commanding Senate majority.

The fact that neither side will control more than 52 seats after Tuesday means that either party has held at least 55 Senate seats in only three congressional sessions since 2000.

some observers believe that the narrow Senate division certain to emerge from Tuesday's election will encourage a return to bipartisan deal-making, like the agreement between centrist Republican and Democratic senators that helped break the months-long stalemate over Covid economic relief legislation.

The narrow majorities have also contributed to a Senate that has grown more rigid, with much more partisan conflict and less of the ad hoc bipartisan deal-making that characterized the body through the second half of the 20th century. The Senate will mark a new high -- or low -- in its rising partisanship on Wednesday when about a quarter or more of Republican senators will vote against recognizing Democrat Joe Biden's election as president

So I think the closeness of it -- whether it's 52-48 or 50-50 or 51-49 -- is probably good for him and good for the country, because he is going to know how to deal in that type of a Senate."

almost all of the senators in both parties who had won their split-ticket victories in the 2008 and 2012 presidential races lost their seats in the next midterm elections (2014 and 2018, respectively).

other observers note that the narrow Senate majorities of recent years have, in practice, produced very few bipartisan compromises.

With control constantly at risk, the majority party faces heightened pressure for lockstep unity, while the minority party never has much incentive to help the majority burnish its record with bipartisan accomplishments that could buttress its advantage in the next election.

Whatever the results of Tuesday's Georgia elections between Republicans David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler and Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, respectively, those polarizing dynamics are guaranteed to remain in force, because the party that falls into the minority now will remain close enough to immediately begin plotting how to recapture the majority in 2022

The huge Democratic Senate majorities that persisted from the late 1950s through the mid-1990s were rooted in the party's continued dominance of Senate seats from Southern states that routinely voted Republican for president, notes Sarah Binder, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution. But over the past generation, it has become much more difficult for either party to win Senate seats in states that usually vote the other way in presidential elections.

As recently as 2008, six Senate candidates (five Democrats and Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine) won election in states that supported the other side's presidential candidate. In 2012, four Democrats and Republican Dean Heller of Nevada won Senate races in states that voted the other way for president.

in 2016, for the first time since the direct election of senators around World War I, the same party won the Senate and the presidential race in every state.

the meager three majorities of 55 seats or more since 2000 represent the fewest times that any party has accumulated at least 55% of the Senate seats over a 20-year span since the turn of the 20th century, according to official Senate records.

The "return of GOP South and decline in split-ticket voting and increased nationalization of US politics generally" explains "a good amount of the decline in Senate majority margins in recent decades," notes Binder.

Over the past two presidential elections, 20 states have voted both times against Trump; Democrats now hold fully 39 of their 40 Senate seats, all but Collins' in Maine. But 25 states have voted both times for Trump, and Republicans now hold 47 of their 50 seats, all but Joe Manchin's in West Virginia, Jon Tester's in Montana and Sherrod Brown's in Ohio.

In the five states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) that backed Trump in 2016 but switched to Biden in 2020, Democrats now hold six Senate seats and Republicans two, pending the results in Georgia

from 1981 through 2000, Democrats held at least 55 seats in four sessions, while Republicans reached that level of control in three

One party also controlled at least 55% of the Senate seats (which were fewer than 100 at that point because there were fewer states) in eight of the 10 congressional sessions from 1921 through 1940 and seven of the 10 from 1901 through 1920. Only the 1950s saw anything like today's precarious balances: While Democrats controlled at least 55% of the seats four times from 1941 to 1950, neither side reached that level through four consecutive sessions beginning in 1951, until Democrats broke through with big gains in the 1958 election.

Unless Republicans win both of Tuesday's runoffs, the party controlling the Senate will hold a majority of two seats or fewer. That would mark the fifth time since 2000 that the majority party held such a narrow advantage.

Again, the growing correlation between presidential and Senate outcomes may be a key factor in the shift. Pending the Georgia results, only three senators in each party represent states that supported the other side's presidential candidate this year. That means the vast majority of Democratic senators have a strong electoral incentive to support Biden --and the vast majority of Republican senators have a comparable incentive to oppose him.

Breaux, the former Democratic senator, believes the narrow balance of power can overcome that centrifugal pressure by providing small groups of relatively centrist deal-makers from each party the leverage to build majority legislative coalitions.

"You can form coalitions starting in the middle and then moving out on each side until you create a majority," he says.

The day had started as one of triumph for Mr. Biden and his party, with Democrats coming off elections the day before that sealed control of the Senate by picking up two seats in Georgia and Congress scheduled to clear away the last formal Republican objections to his victory by certifying the Electoral College outcome.

Filling out his cabinet, Mr. Biden chose Judge Merrick B. Garland, whose Supreme Court nomination Republicans blocked in 2016, to be attorney general, placing the task of repairing a beleaguered Justice Department in the hands of a centrist judge.

The assault on the Capitol by pro-Trump demonstrators devolved into a physical confrontation that halted the process of certifying the Electoral College outcome

It’s not protest. It’s insurrection.

Other interest groups quickly seized on the Georgia results to ratchet up the pressure on Mr. Biden to make good on his campaign promises.

“The work of the moment and the work of the next four years must be the restoration of democracy, of decency, honor, respect, the rule of law,” he said, adding later: “We must step up

Mr. Biden’s advisers are deep into the process of developing policy proposals to deliver to Congress in the coming weeks, starting with another stimulus package

Shortly after, Mr. Trump posted on Twitter a one-minute video in which he empathized with the rioters because “we had an election that was stolen from us,” but then urged them to “go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order.”

The Democratic victories in Georgia put Mr. Biden’s party in control at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue and reduced the risk of total partisan gridlock in Congress, at least for two years.

“With Schumer in control of the calendar, he’s got the opportunity to do some really substantial things.”

The Biden team is also drafting proposals to implement the president-elect’s “Build Back Better” campaign agenda, including new government spending on clean energy, infrastructure, health care and education, financed by tax increases on the rich and corporations.

Mr. Biden’s allies in the Senate expressed optimism that, armed with committee chairmanships and control of the legislative calendar, they could advance the president-elect’s policy goals.

“We need to fix a lot of the damage Trump’s done, and then there’s pent-up demand for a whole lot of things — what do we do about climate and about racial inequality, about wealth inequality, about structural racism,” said Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who is set to be the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee.

Mr. Biden has also proposed the most ambitious climate agenda of any president in history, including $2 trillion in spending on green initiatives. A majority in the Senate gives Mr. Biden options to make some of that happen.

But Mr. Biden’s agenda will be constrained by the Democrats’ narrow advantages in the House and in the Senate, where moderate Democrats such as Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona will wield vast power over which plans can pass.

Before the outbreak of violence on Capitol Hill, Mr. Biden signaled on Wednesday morning that despite the shift of Senate control to Democrats, he would still attempt to build legislative coalitions with Republicans on his top priorities

A high-profile business lobbying group that has long supported many Republicans, the National Association of Manufacturers, denounced Mr. Trump on Wednesday for inciting the violence and suggested it was time for his administration to invoke a constitutional provision to remove him

Player and Sorenstam faced criticism last week for accepting the White House honor amid the fury at the president. Belichick also is being called out on social media.

They joined a handful of others, including Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who have backed increasing the checks to $2,000.

While Democrats all support larger checks, they are unlikely to endorse a hasty overhaul of the legal shield currently in place for social media companies, especially measures put forward by Republican senators aimed at confronting what they believe is anti-conservative bias.

The House voted on Monday evening to increase the size of the checks to $2,000, daring Senate Republicans to either approve the heftier sum or defy Mr. Trump.

In signing the relief bill on Sunday night, Mr. Trump claimed in a statement that the Senate would “start the process for a vote” on legislation that would increase direct payments and pledged that “much more money is coming.”

Republican lawmakers in the House were visibly frustrated with Mr. Trump’s demand. Some of the president’s closest allies, including Representatives Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 Republican, and Jim Jordan of Ohio, voted against the measure, and Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, complained on the House floor that the proposal had been “hastily dropped on us at the last minute” and wouldn’t assist those who needed it most.

three Democratic members are expected to leave office to take on roles in the new Biden administration: Rep. Cedric Richmond of Louisiana (2nd Congressional District) to be White House senior adviser and director of the Office of Public Engagement; Rep. Deb Haaland of New Mexico (1st Congressional District) to be Secretary of the Interior; and Rep. Marcia Fudge of Ohio (11th Congressional District) to be Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Democrats: 222Republicans: 211

There will be 60 freshmen in the 117th Congress. Seventeen of those seats flipped during the 2020 general election, with Republicans picking up 14 seats and Democrats picking up 3.

Eleven of the Republicans who picked up seats defeated Democrats who flipped seats in the wave year of 2018, while one GOP pickup came from the defeat of long-time Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, one came in an open seat (Iowa's 2nd) and one was in a Libertarian-held seat (Michigan's 3rd District).

Total 2020 flipped House districts: 17

Total Women: 118

Republican Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, born August 1, 1995, will be the youngest member of this Congress at age 25. He takes that title from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York who, at 31, is now the chamber's second youngest member.

The 117th Congress will see a record number of women in the House, and a record number of Republican women.

Republicans: 51 (including Sen. Kelly Loeffler)Democrats: 48 (including two independents who caucus with the Democrats)

There will be 7 new senators at the start of 117th Congress, including Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, who was sworn in in December.

Total women: 26 (will decrease to 25 when Padilla replaces Harris)

Total states with two female senators: 5 (will decrease to 4 when Padilla replaces Harris)

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, born on December 31, 1979, remains the Senate's youngest member at 41.

Total Black members in the House and Senate: 61

The 117th Congress will have the largest number of Black members in the history of the House and in the history of Congress. The 58 representatives are a new record for the House, while the record-high three in the Senate remains the same, at least until Harris resigns to become vice president.

Total Latino members in the House and Senate: 44

Fourteen newly elected veterans will be joining the House this year, according to the University of San Francisco and the Veterans Campaign. That's down from the 18 veterans who were first elected in 2018, but up slightly from the three cycles before that.

According to a national survey conducted by The Upshot and Siena College, they aren’t so much fretting about themselves as they are anxious about the country.

They fear the next generation in America will be worse off. Even some voters who say they are personally better off than four years ago say the country as a whole is worse off.

“I’ve never felt this way about our country,” said Jerry Thatcher, a 76-year-old Trump voter in Yamhill, Ore.

Diane Haller, a 50-year-old Biden supporter in Avon, Ohio, says President Trump has threatened the country’s foundations by bending the Department of Justice to his personal ends. “How is a democracy going to work if that’s allowed?” she said. “We’re just teetering, and it’s scary as all get-out.”

In Pennsylvania, for instance, election officials can't do anything with early ballots until Election Day

The Election Day vote is expected to look better for Trump than the early vote in part because Democrats have encouraged their voters to utilize mail-in, absentee and early voting options.

Trump is betting the votes cast on Election Day will look better for him.

a disproportionate amount of early results will be from day-of votes, likely giving Trump an extra bump.

Democrats have improved their vote totals as more votes were counted. That happened in 2016, when Clinton's popular vote margin grew as more mail-in ballots were counted

If there's a disputed election and a state can't determine who should win its electoral votes, expect a court battle, like the one that made George W. Bush president in 2000.

In this way the US election is really 51 smaller elections. And each state has its own rules.

Each state and Washington, DC, all have at least three and as many as 55 votes (that's California).

According to CNN's electoral map, there are 125 electoral votes already safely in Trump's column.

Polling suggests he's in the lead in the Rust Belt sates that put Trump over the hump in 2016. He needs to hold the Rust Belt states.

If Trump wins Florida, Georgia, Iowa, North Carolina and Ohio along with Pennsylvania, Maine's second congressional district and Nebraska's second congressional district, both candidates will have 269 electoral votes.

. Trump probably has an edge in a tie since Republicans control more state congressional delegations.

Nebraska and Maine each award two electoral votes to the statewide winner and the rest of their votes proportionally to the presidential candidate who gets more votes in individual congressional districts

The real question is whether Republicans can hang onto their slim majority in the Senate.

They're pretty much guaranteed to lose a Senate seat in Alabama, so Democrats are looking for 4-5 seats elsewhere. There are plenty of opportunities.

Control of state governments is more important this year than usual since it's a Census year

Even if Democrats don't win the Texas electoral votes, they're hoping to get a say in how the state draws these districts.

A significant majority of ballots cast so far in Pennsylvania -- 82% -- come from White voters. Black voters make up the second largest share of those early ballots at 11%, followed by Hispanic voters at 4% and Asian voters at 3%.

President Donald Trump, former Vice President Joe Biden, Vice President Mike Pence, and Sen. Kamala Harris will all appear in Pennsylvania at some point today.

More than 14 million ballots have already been cast in these five states, which could be crucial in determining the next president.

It's no coincidence that all the candidates are stopping in Pennsylvania today. There are a lot of voters who still have not cast a ballot in the state that was the lynchpin to Trump's 2016 victory.

Democrats have dominated the pre-election vote in the Keystone State. They currently make up 66% of those ballots.

Polling shows Republicans nationwide strongly prefer to vote in person on Election Day, which the Trump campaign thinks will be enough to recapture the state's 20 electoral votes.

At 83% of early voters so far, White voters make up a smaller share of the early voting electorate compared to the 88% they were at this point in 2016

So far, 13% of Pennsylvania's early voters are under 30, and 38% are 65 or older. More younger voters have been casting ballots in Pennsylvania as the campaign comes to a close. Last week, 11% of the commonwealth's voters were under 30, and 42% were 65 or older.

Texas and Hawaii have already surpassed their total turnout from the 2016 general election. In eight more states, the pre-election vote represents at least 90% of their 2016 total vote -- Montana, Washington, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada, Florida, New Mexico and Tennessee.

Democrats hold a smaller lead over Republicans in pre-election ballots cast than they did on the day before the 2016 election. Back then, they had an eight-point lead. Currently, it's six points, with Democrats at 37% and Republicans at 31%.

Younger voters make up a larger share of North Carolina's early voters this year than at this point in 2016. Fifteen percent of the state's early voters so far are under 30, almost double the 8% at this time four years ago. That number continues to grow. One week ago, voters under 30 made up 12% of North Carolina's early voters.

Almost 56% of ballots already cast come from women in the Tar Heel State, and men comprise about 44%. This is roughly on par with the gender breakdown at this point in 2016.

Republicans want to hang onto Michigan's 16 electoral votes, while Democrats are working to bring the state back into the fold.

Black voters have expanded their share of pre-Election Day ballots cast from about 9% at this time in 2016 to 12% currently.

Women in Pennsylvania account for nearly 57% of ballots already cast, and men account for about 43%.

Slightly more than 56% of ballots cast so far in the Wolverine State are from women and almost 44% are from men.

Wisconsin has seen a large decrease in the share of early votes from people 65 or older, but the state hasn't seen as much of an increase from voters under 30.

By race, Wisconsin's early voters are similar to that of four years ago, with White voters representing the vast majority -- about 88% -- of those who've cast their ballots so far. Black voters represent about 5% of those early voters, Hispanic voters 3% and Asian voters 2% -- all on par with this time in 2016.

The racial breakdown of Ohio's early voters is almost identical to this time in 2016. Eighty-six percent of ballots already cast have come from White voters. Black voters comprise about 11% of those early ballots, with Hispanic voters accounting for about 2% and Asian voters about 1%. Younger Ohioans have increased their share of the early vote from 7% at this point in 2016 to about 12% now. These voters below the age of 30 have also continued to turn out during the last week of the campaign -- one week ago, they made up 9% of early voters.

Voting right now is something I need to get out and do.”

Many registered voters are more entrenched than ever this year; just 5 percent of those surveyed in August by the Pew Research Center said they were likely to change their minds about their preferred presidential candidate.

ote Forward said it corralled 182,509 volunteers and mailed 17.5 million messages to voters in 21 states.

Later races in Ohio and Virginia showed smaller returns, between one to two percentage points, Mr. Forman said. But it proved his theory that something “old-fashioned and authentic” could tip the scales.

That’s particularly true when it comes to voters who have been left out of traditional outreach efforts, said Melissa Michelson, a professor of political science at Menlo College in Atherton, Calif., and the co-author of “Mobilizing Inclusion: Transforming the Electorate Through Get-Out-the-Vote Campaigns.”

Vote Forward’s success at recruiting volunteers in 2020 may simply reflect Americans’ increasing political engagement, said Jan Leighley, a professor of government at American University. A global health crisis has served as a connecting event much like other national tragedies, and the handling of the pandemic has demonstrated to voters that it matters who sits in the White House.

From the beginning of the pandemic in the United States, front-line medical personnel have complained of shortages of personal protective equipment. Some of the shortages abated for a while, but supplies have become strained in certain areas of the country as a surge of coronavirus outbreaks has reached daily records.

Calling the findings no surprise, Ms. Mahon criticized federal officials for not having more robust guidelines in place. Her organization, which issued a report on workers’ deaths last month, says about 2,000 health care workers have so far died from the virus.

She says that workers should be tested more frequently so they can be identified and isolated so the infection does not spread, and that supplies of protective gear remain uneven, with some facilities unprepared for an increase in cases.

Most of the hospitalized workers in the analysis were female. They also tended to be older, and more were Black employees than the overall group of health care workers who contracted the virus.