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    Cori Bush delivers electrifying victory speech: 'This is our moment … I love you' – video

    Cori Bush is set to become the first Black congresswoman in the history of Missouri after storming to victory over her Republican rival Anthony Rogers with more than 75% of the vote in the state’s 1st district, which includes the city of St Louis.
    Bush, a single mother, nurse and former Covid patient, gave a rousing victory speech on Tuesday, saying: ‘This is our moment to finally, finally start living and growing and thriving … My message today is to every Black, brown, immigrant, queer, and trans person, and to every person locked out of opportunities to thrive because of oppressive systems: I’m here to serve you. To every person who knows what it’s like to give a loved one that “just make it home safely, baby” talk: I love you.’
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    'This is our moment … I love you': Cori Bush's electrifying victory speech

    I was running … I was that person running for my life across a parking lot, running from an abuser. I remember hearing bullets whizz past my head and at that moment I wondered: “How do I make it out of this life?”
    I was uninsured. I’ve been that uninsured person, hoping my healthcare provider wouldn’t embarrass me by asking me if I had insurance. I wondered: “How will I bear it?”
    I was a single parent. I’ve been that single parent struggling paycheck to paycheck, sitting outside the payday loan office, wondering “how much more will I have to sacrifice?”
    I was that Covid patient. I’ve been that Covid patient gasping for breath, wondering, “How long will it be until I can breathe freely again?”
    I’m still that same person. I’m proud to stand before you today knowing it was this person, with these experiences, that moved the voters of St Louis to do something historic. St Louis: my city, my home, my community. We have been surviving and grinding and just scraping by for so long, and now this is our moment to finally, finally start living and growing and thriving. So, as the first Black woman, nurse, and single mother to have the honor to represent Missouri in the United States Congress, let me just say this. To the Black women. The Black girls. The nurses. The single mothers. The essential workers. This. Is. OUR. Moment.
    Six years ago, St Louis captured the eyes and ears of the entire world during the Ferguson uprising. We could not stand the injustice any longer, so – in the tradition of every one of our ancestors who fought for a better world – we organized for Michael Brown, Jr. We organized for 400 days, side by side, arm in arm, St Louis strong. And now in the face of a global pandemic and relentless attacks on our right to vote, we organized all the way to the ballot box. We mailed in our ballots, we voted absentee, we reached our families, friends, neighbors, and peers – and we showed up … St Louis strong.
    For years, we’ve lived under leadership that shut us out of our own government. For years, we’ve been left out in the cold: protesting in the streets, sleeping in our cars or tents, working three part-time jobs just to pay the bills. And today, today, we, all of us, are headed to Congress – St Louis strong!
    My message today is to every Black, Brown, immigrant, queer, and trans person, and to every person locked out of opportunities to thrive because of oppressive systems; I’m here to serve you. To every person who knows what it’s like to give a loved one that “just make it home safely baby” talk; I love you.
    To every parent facing a choice between putting food on the table and keeping a roof over their head; I’m here to serve you. To every precious child in our failing foster system: I love you.
    To every teacher doing the impossible to teach through this pandemic; I’m here to serve you. To every student struggling to the finish line; I love you.
    To every differently abled person denied equal access; I love you.
    To every person living unhoused on the streets; I love you.
    To every family that’s lost someone to gun violence; I love you.
    To every person who’s lost a job, or a home, or healthcare, or hope; I love you.
    It is the greatest honor of my life to accept the responsibility to serve every single person across Missouri’s first congressional district, as your first-ever Black congresswoman-elect. This is our moment.
    Tonight, we the people are victorious. We, we the people are going to Congress. Because we the people have committed to a vision of America that works for all of us. An America that treats every person with respect. That recognizes healthcare as a human right. That believes every person deserves food to eat, a home to live in, and a dignified life. Our America will be led not by the small-mindedness of a powerful few, but the imagination of a mass movement that includes all of us. That is the America we are fighting for.
    Everything I do begins with those who have the least, who’ve suffered the worst, and who have the greatest to offer. Why? Because I myself have lived paycheck to paycheck. I struggled for years under the burden of student debt. I’ve been evicted by landlords. I’ve worried about how I was going to put food on the table for my two kids. I’ve been underinsured and uninsured. And for every one of those stories that I can tell you about my life, I know there are thousands more in our community. And those are the stories that I am carrying with me and will uplift in the People’s House as your congresswoman.
    It is my job now to serve you – not just lead, not just demand, but serve you.
    This moment is brought to us by us – by our movement for social, racial and economic justice. Now, our movement is going to Congress. And we will meet the challenges of this moment as a movement: side by side, arm in arm, and with our fists in the air – ready to serve each other until every single one of us is free.
    This is a written version of the victory speech Cori Bush gave on 3 November More

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    Which party will hold the keys to states’ legislative and congressional maps?

    While the race for the White House is sorted out across tight midwestern battlegrounds, Republicans can already claim an important victory further down the ballot. The GOP held state House and Senate chambers across Texas, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Kansas, and many other key states. This ensures a dramatic edge when it comes to redrawing new state legislative and congressional maps next year, following the completion of the census count.
    This year, Democrats had hoped to avenge the GOP’s 2010 Redmap strategy, which drove Republicans that year to control swing-state legislatures in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Florida, and majorities they have not relinquished since. That also allowed Republicans to draw, on their own, nearly five times as many congressional districts nationwide as Democrats.
    Tuesday’s election offered both parties the last chance to gain influence over maps that will define the state of play for the next decade. States have different rules on this: almost three-quarters of all states, however, give their legislatures the prominent role. That heightens the stakes of state legislative races in years ending in zero. On Tuesday, in the two states with the most at stake – Texas and North Carolina – Democrats fell far short, despite millions of dollars invested by the national party and outside organizations.
    In Texas, Democrats needed to gain nine seats in the state House to affect redistricting. They may not net any. Republicans picked up several open seats, and GOP incumbents held on in almost all the battleground districts enveloping the cities of Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston. In House district 134, which includes part of Houston, Democrat Ann Johnson ousted GOP incumbent Sarah Davis. But otherwise, the party ran far behind expectations.
    The consequences could linger until 2031, if not longer. Texas Republicans may look to redraw state maps next year based on the “citizen voting-age population” or CVAP, and depart from the longtime standard of counting the total population. A 2015 study by Thomas Hofeller, the late GOP redistricting maestro, found that such a switch “would be advantageous to Republicans and non-Hispanic whites,” and create a relative population decline in Democratic strongholds in south Texas and in otherwise fast-growing parts of Dallas and Houston.
    In North Carolina, meanwhile, even a new, fairer state legislative map – albeit one that still slightly favored Republicans – couldn’t help Democrats break the GOP’s 10-year hold on both the House and Senate. Democrats netted one Senate seat – they needed five – and lost ground in the state House. Republicans will not only have a free hand to draw maps next year, but they also appear to have gained seats on the state supreme court – which will adjudicate any dispute over these maps – and cut the Democratic majority there to 4-3. (Democrats did make gains on both the Ohio and Michigan state supreme courts, both of which could be asked to weigh in on the constitutionality of maps later this decade.)
    As a result, Republicans will have a free hand in drawing new districts across both states, providing the GOP with a renewed decade-long edge and also paving the way for conservative legislation on voting rights, health care, reproductive rights, education funding and much more. Any new voting restrictions, meanwhile, could assist Republicans in maintaining electoral college dominance in these states, as well.
    Democrats in Kansas had hoped to simply break GOP supermajorities and sustain a Democratic governor’s veto power over a GOP gerrymander that could devour the state’s one blue congressional seat. But they appear to have been unable to muster either a one-seat gain in the House or the three seats necessary in the Senate.
    Wisconsin Democrats, however, did successfully preserve the veto of Democratic governor Tony Evers, ensuring that the party will have some say over maps that have provided Republicans with decade-long majorities even when Democratic candidates won hundreds of thousands more statewide votes. Wisconsin was one of the most gerrymandered states in the country after the Republican takeover in 2010.
    Democrats flipped the Oregon secretary of state’s office as well, which plays a determinative role in redistricting should Republicans deny Democrats a quorum to pass a map. The party also denied Republicans in Nebraska’s ostensibly nonpartisan unicameral chamber a supermajority that would allow them to gerrymander the second congressional district in Omaha, which carries an electoral college vote.
    There was mixed news for gerrymandering reformers in two states where fair maps were on the ballot statewide. In Virginia, voters overwhelmingly approved a redistricting commission that will consist equally of lawmakers and citizens to draw lines next year. But in Missouri, by a narrow margin of 51% to 49%, voters repealed a 2018 initiative that would have placed maps under the control of a neutral state demographer. That will leave Republicans in full control of the process.
    After 2010, Pennsylvania has elected a Democratic governor, and Michigan has adopted an independent commission, suggesting less partisan maps next year. But by holding Texas, North Carolina, Florida and Ohio, Republicans appear likely to draw at least four times as many congressional seats by themselves.
    That advantage, in turn, will endure long after whoever won Tuesday’s presidential election has left the scene. More

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    Democrats fail to persuade swaths of rural America's heartlands

    America’s rural heartland stuck firmly with Donald Trump on Tuesday, dashing Joe Biden’s hope of a decisive victory that would have allowed him to claim he had reunited the country, as well as undercutting Democratic expectations of winning the US Senate.
    Results across the midwest showed the US still firmly divided as Trump again won a solid victory in Iowa, a state that twice voted for Barack Obama, and the Republicans held on to crucial Senate seats targeted by the Democrats.
    Iowa’s Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, a close Trump ally, proclaimed that the Democrats were now history in her state as the president’s base turned out in force.
    “We have proven without a doubt that Iowa is a red state,” she told a rowdy victory rally in Des Moines where few Republicans wore masks.
    Trump was ahead in Iowa by more than seven points with over 90% of the vote counted, a victory just two points short of his 2016 win.
    In Iowa and Missouri, Trump’s support in rural counties generally held up or strengthened. In some states that delivered him victory. In others, such as Wisconsin, Biden triumphed after a surge of urban votes.
    But the president’s solid performance in rural America could cost the Democrats control of the Senate after what the party regarded as its best shot at two midwestern seats in Iowa and Kansas flopped.
    Iowa’s Republican senator, Joni Ernst, beat her Democratic rival, Theresa Greenfield, by more than six points in a race that opinion polls for many months said would be closer. Ernst won the seat from a Democrat in 2014.
    Results showed that the president dominated in rural counties that he took from the Democrats four years ago. Opinion polls said that in recent weeks voters’ primary concern shifted from coronavirus to the economy which helped swing independent voters the president’s way to supplement his core support.
    “The economy was doing well before coronavirus. That was a big thing for me, said Elysha Graves as she clutched her toddler after voting for Trump in Urbandale, Iowa.
    “They tried to blame him for the pandemic. I don’t know how anybody else would have handled it. It’s a hard situation. He just seems real. He’s not a politician. He’s more relatable. I trust him more than I trust Biden.”
    Left: Elysha Graves and her son Parker Peters of Urbandale Iowa pose for a photo after Graves cast her vote on election day in Urbandale, Iowa. Right: A sign informs residents of a voting location on election day in Urbandale, Iowa on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. Photographs by KC McGinnis/The Guardian
    Democrats disappointed
    Iowa is not a crucial state for Biden but his failure to significantly reduce the size of Trump’s 2016 victory there is evidence that the Democrats failed to persuade swaths of rural America that the party had much to offer them or was even paying attention to their communities and concerns.
    Biden was counting on the president defeating himself with his style of governing and handling of coronavirus as the economy collapsed. But large numbers of midwestern voters were prepared to forgive Trump his hostile tweeting and other sins because, in a widely heard refrain, “he is not a regular politician”, a quality they regard as central to their support of him.
    They also did not blame Trump for the economic downturn, saying it would have happened no matter who was in the White House. While the president’s handling of coronavirus was widely scorned in other places, there is a popular view in the rural midwest that Trump got it right when he opposed lockdowns as too economically damaging. More

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    Cori Bush: leading organizer and 'true progressive' on course to make history

    Missouri activist Cori Bush ended a half-century political dynasty in Tuesday’s primary elections and is now on track to become the first Black woman to represent the state in Congress.Bush, a 44-year-old nurse and ordained pastor, gained local prominence as one of the leaders of protests against the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. She has been deeply involved with this year’s protests against racial injustice and has promised to continue demonstrating if she is elected to Congress.Tuesday’s primary was Bush’s second attempt to unseat the Democratic incumbent William Lacy Clay, who took over the role from his father and held off Bush in the 2018 election. Missouri’s first district is a Democratic stronghold and Bush is expected to win in the November general election.Bush said in her victory speech: “We decided that we the people have the answers, and we will lead from the frontlines.”Bush has spoken about how being a single mother shapes her understanding of what the district’s families need.We’re sending a Black, working-class, single mother all the way to the halls of CongressCori BushWhile pregnant with her second child in 2001, Bush had to quit her job at a preschool and her family was evicted from their home. For several months, she, her then husband, their newborn and 14-month-old son lived out of a car.“It is historic that this year, of all the years, we’re sending a Black, working-class, single mother, who’s been fighting for Black lives since Ferguson, all the way to the halls of Congress,” Bush said.On the campaign trail, Bush has also spoken about her fight against Covid-19 this spring and how her concerns about the cost of hospital visits during that time helped underscore her support for the healthcare reform plan Medicare for All.Bush was a surrogate for Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, and the Vermont senator hailed her victor in a tweet. Sanders said: “She is a true progressive who stands with working people and will take on the corporate elite of this country when she gets to Congress.” More

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    Cori Bush: progressive activist beats 20-year Democratic incumbent in Missouri primary

    Cori Bush, one of the leaders of protests against the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, defeated longtime representative William Lacy Clay in the state’s Democratic primary election on Tuesday.The progressive candidate ended a half-century political dynasty in one of several notable results to emerge from primary elections in five states on Tuesday. Results were still coming in on Wednesday morning, but Donald Trump’s ally, Kris Kobach, had already suffered a defeat in Kansas.Roger Marshall won Kansas’s Republican primary for the Senate. Kobach, Kansas’s former secretary of state, lost the state’s governor race to a Democrat in 2018 and Republicans were fearful his win in the Senate primary would ensure another defeat to Democrats in November.Kobach is best known for his hardline anti-immigration policies and effort to weaken voting rights. Republicans have held the Senate seat for more than 100 years, but the party was still fearful Kobach would polarize voters in the November race. The Democratic candidate, Barbara Bollier, left the Republican party in 2018.In Missouri, Bush’s win in the district representing St Louis marked another progressive ousting of a Democratic incumbent. Clay was elected in 2000, taking over the post from his father who had served for 32 years before.Bush, a 44-year-old nurse and pastor, is almost guaranteed to win the seat in the November election because the district is heavily Democratic.Bush addressed supporters after her win and said her campaign had been written off, “they counted us out,” she said.“They called me – I’m just the protester, I’m just the activist with no name, no title and no real money,” Bush said. “That’s all they said that I was. But St Louis showed up today.”Bush entered politics after the Ferguson protests in 2014 and first ran for the representative seat in 2018, ultimately losing to Clay.Her foray into the 2018 election earned her comparisons to another progressive who took on a Democratic incumbent, New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She campaigned on issues such as a $15 minimum wage, free college tuition and Medicare for all.She was also one of four candidates, including Ocasio-Cortez, to be the focus of the documentary Knock Down the House – which trailed their 2018 campaigns.Bush was a surrogate for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign and helped organize Black Lives Matter protests against the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. In a tweet, Sanders hailed Bush as a “true progressive”.Congratulations to @CoriBush on her primary victory tonight! She is a true progressive who stands with working people and will take on the corporate elite of this country when she gets to Congress. pic.twitter.com/Q3hJGasjXe— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) August 5, 2020
    Voters in Missouri also approved expanding the government health insurance program for low-income Americans, Medicaid. This could give 250,000 Missourians access to the program, starting next year, according to the state’s auditor.The state’s Republican governor, Mike Parson, opposes Medicaid expansion but because the expansion won through the initiative process, it can only be changed if lawmakers go back to voters.In another victory for progressives, the Michigan representative Rashida Tlaib won her Democratic primary.Tlaib, a member of the group of progressive house members known as “the Squad”, held off her opponent Brenda Jones, president of the Detroit city council.“Headlines said I was the most vulnerable member of the Squad,” Tlaib said on Twitter. “My community responded last night and said our Squad is big. It includes all who believe we must show up for each other and prioritize people over profits. It’s here to stay, and it’s only getting bigger.” More