Democrats across the country woke up in shock on Wednesday morning to a presidential election outcome as disappointing as it was indisputable. None of the complex what-if scenarios experts gamed out had come to pass. There was no split between the popular vote and the electoral college. There were no states with such narrow margins that a demagogue could cast doubt on the outcome. There would certainly be no dayslong wait for an outlying county to tally ballots needed to determine who got 270 electoral votes.
Instead, former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in an electoral college blowout that is set to upend American politics for years to come.
With some votes still being counted on Wednesday, Trump was up in North Carolina by more than 200,000 votes, in Pennsylvania by more than 150,000 votes, in Georgia by more than 100,000 votes, in Michigan by more than 80,000 votes, and in Wisconsin by about 30,000 votes. In Nevada and…
