The vote continues to drip in from some of the larger and less contested states. Biden’s popular vote margin is now up to 5.9 million, or 3.8%; that is with fairly complete results from California (Biden 63.6-34.2) and Illinois (Biden 57.4-40.6), but New York (56.5-42.0) is still a work in progress, particularly in NYC.

There are still 8 uncalled House races, 5 in New York; Republicans are leading in all of them, in one case (Iowa 2nd) by 48 votes and in another (California 25th) by 422 votes. As such Pelosi’s House majority could end up being as narrow as 222-213.

Trump’s litigation strategy appears to be going nowhere, in a direct sense. However many are speculating that his real strategy is indirect – to create enough smoke about ‘general election fraud’ that the election officials responsible for certifying the elections in certain states refuse to do so, potentially opening a pathway for Republican legislators to submit a set of Trump electors even though the reported popular vote in that state favors Biden. For a few hours earlier this week there was a hint this was working, when Republican election officials in Wayne County (Detroit) refused to certify the county’s election results, before reversing course later in the evening, although now they apparently want to rescind their votes. However there are myriad problems with this overall “alternate electors” strategy, many of which are summarized in this Politico article from today.

Perhaps the real objective here has been for Trump to create enough doubt about the election outcome that he feels justified governing during the ‘lame duck’ session as if his administration will continue beyond January, thus giving conservatives additional opportunities to ‘burrow in’ to the federal government. Six district court nominees were confirmed these week, even though since 1897 only one judicial nominee had been confirmed during the lame duck session after a presidential election in which the incumbent lost. That one exception? In the fall of 1980 a Democratic Senate staffer was appointed to the First Circuit by an 80-10 vote, despite Reagan’s election: Stephen Breyer.