In Detroit -
By five oāclock on Wednesday morning, it was apparent Trumpās lead would not hold.
Deprogramming Confederates Part 4
It was clear Trump was running far more competitively than theyād anticipated; he was on track to win Florida, Ohio and North Carolina, three states that tally their ballots quickly, meaning the spotlight would abruptly shift to the critical, slow-counting battlegrounds of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
Everyone here knew this had been a possibility, but it wasnāt until midnight that the urgency of the situation crashed o over Republicans. Trump had built a lead of nearly 300,000 votes on the strength of same-day ballots that were disproportionately favorable to him. Now, with the eyes of the nationāand of the presidentāfixed on their state, Michigan Republicans scrambled to protect that lead. Laura Cox, chair of the state party, began dialing prominent lawmakers, attorneys and activists, urging them to get down to the TCF Center, the main hub of absentee vote counting in Detroit. She was met with some confusion; there were already plenty of Republicans there, as scheduled, working their shifts as poll challengers. It didnāt matter, Cox told them. It was time to flood the zone.
āThis was all so predictable,ā said Josh Venable, who ran Election Day operations for the Michigan GOP during five different cycles. āDetroit has been the boogeyman for Republicans since before I was born. Itās always been the white suburbs vs. Detroit, the white west side of the state vs. Detroit. Thereās always this rallying cry from RepublicansāāWe win everywhere else, but lose Wayne Countyāāthat creates paranoia. I still remember hearing, back on my first campaign in 2002, that Wayne County always releases its votes last so that Detroit can see how many votes Democrats need to win the state. Thatās what a lot of Republicans here believe.ā
As things picked up at the TCF Center, with more and more white Republicans filing into the complex to supervise the activity of mostly Black poll workers, Chris Thomas noticed a shift in the environment. Having been brought out of retirement to help supervise the counting in Detroitāa decision met with cheers from Republicans and Democrats alikeāThomas had been āthrilledā with the professionalism heād witnessed during Mondayās pre-processing session and Tuesdayās vote tabulating. Now, in the early morning hours of Wednesday, things were going sideways. Groups of Republican poll challengers were clustering around individual counting tables in violation of the rules. People were raising objectionsāsuch as to the transferring of military absentees onto ballots that could be read by machines, a standard practiceāthat betrayed a lack of preparation.
āReading these affidavits afterward from these Republican poll challengers, I was just amazed at how misunderstood the election process was to them,ā Thomas chuckled. āThe things they said were going onāitās like āYeah, thatās exactly what was going on. Thatās whatās supposed to happen.āā (The Trump teamās much celebrated lawsuit against Detroit was recently withdrawn after being pummeled in local courtrooms; his campaign has to date won one case and lost 35.)
At one point, around 3:30 in the morning, Thomas supervised the receiving of Detroitās final large batch of absentee ballots. They arrived in a passenger van. Thomas confirmed the numbers heād verified over the phone: 45 trays, each tray holding roughly 300 ballots, for a total of between 13,000 and 14,000 ballots. Not long after, Charlie Spies, an attorney for the U.S. Senate campaign of Republican John James, approached Thomas inside the TCF Center. He wanted to know about the 38,000 absentee ballots that had just materialized. Thomas told him there were not 38,000 ballots; that at most it might have been close to 15,000.
āI was told the number was 38,000,ā Spies replied.
By five oāclock on Wednesday morning, it was apparent Trumpās lead would not hold.