Local GOP Activists Weigh in on EL Presidential Election Results
It is no news to anyone that this has been an unusual year. Add an election to the mix, and it becomes even more unusual. Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election defeating President Donald Trump. What’s a little more unusual? East Longmeadow voters favored by more than a 6 point margin.
Biden captured 52.3% of the East Longmeadow vote compared to President Trump’s 45.7%. This is a reversal of the 2016 presidential election when Trump received 54.4% of the East Longmeadow vote while Hillary Clinton’s received 39.3%.
“I wasn’t entirely surprised by the result,” ELHS graduate Jon Torcia said, “even as President Trump carried the town in 2016, he did so only with a plurality share of the vote.”
Historically East Longmeadow has voted in favor of the Republican candidate,but not this year. Sam Leone, also a ELHS graduate, said, “I don’t think this represents a change in EL’s historic lean. At the risk of oversimplifying, there are Mitt Romney Republicans and Donald Trump Republicans. East Longmeadow has plenty of both.”
One thing to go unnoticed in the massive amounts of claims made by the Trump Administration and his supporters that there was election fraud. The Trump Administration has filed over 50 election lawsuits claiming there is election fraud happening in our country, and has won a few human-error based cases not affecting the outcome of the election.
“There has yet to be any independent and seriously investigated reports of voter fraud. There is nothing wrong with investigating all allegations, but at this time, it appears there are none. The only issues that have been raised were just either clerical or human error,” Torcia said.
Many key battleground states flipped for Biden to win the election, including Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Georgia.
“The thing I thought was really interesting was Arizona,” Leone said. “Here you’ve got a traditionally red state that wasn’t even on the radar, and to everyone’s shock, it goes blue. But Arizona was McCain territory, and after constant attacks on their beloved senator, said enough is enough. Ultimately, Arizona gave Trump the same thumbs down on election night McCain gave in the senate.”
Nebraska and Maine can split their electoral votes between presidential candidates in “Just one state Maine split their vote,” Jon spoke on Maine, “supporting both Biden and incumbent Senator Susan Collins.”
(At the time of this reporting, every state had certified their votes).
