Election Day is finally here: AirTalk wants to hear from you about what your voting experience has been like; we take a look at the most contested U.S. Senate and House seats; and history lesson on America's polarization.
What’s your voting experience been like?
Election Day is finally here. Here in California, we've got a full ballot, including 17 state propositions and many local ones. Lines are long at many polling places.
That's not a surprise for a high turnout Presidential election, even with so many voters mailing in their ballots. Just for comparison, LA County's turnout in 2012 was around 70%. Four years earlier, when Barack Obama was poised to make history, county turnout was 82%. We have no idea yet what it will be like this time. Our lines are open for you to talk about your voting experience.
Call us at 866-893-5722 or tweet @airtalk. How long did it take you to vote? Did you feel prepared for the long ballot? If you voted by mail for first time, did you miss the communal experience of in-person voting?
Guests:
Sharon McNary, KPCC reporter to check in with from the polls
Kurtis Lee, political reporter for The Los Angeles Times; he tweets
Carrie Kaufman, Host/Producer for KNPR’s State of Nevada
, national political reporter for Arizona Republic, Phoenix’s daily newspaper; he tweets @dannowicki
Who will control Congress after Nov. 8? A look at Senate and House races
November 8 will not only determine who sits in the Oval Office next year, but which party will take - or keep - control of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.
With Republicans fighting to protect their Senate majority, Democrats are hoping for a “wave” election to come through down-ballot, even potentially yielding the House of Representatives.
The most vulnerable Senate seats include Illinois, Wisconsin, Florida and New Hampshire, and while Democrats only have to worry about defending 10 seats, Republicans are in a bind to hold 24. As for congressional races, Democrats must flip 30 seats in the House to end the GOP’s historical majority, with the top five including Minnesota, Montana, Illinois, New York and California.
AirTalk speaks with political reporters who are keeping a close watch on the contested Senate and House races.
Guests:
Burgess Everett, POLITICO Congressional reporter
Alex Roarty, senior politics reporter at CQ Roll Call
More than polarized - hatred in America in 2016
On this Election Day in America, it isn't just the presidential candidates who are deemed unlikeable by polarized Americans; if Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump dropped off the planet right now, there still would be vast swaths of Americans who vehemently dislike other vast swaths of Americans.
It's akin to the intense divisions during the 1960s - amidst the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War. And while there is no polling data from the Civil War, as Professor David Karol characterizes that period: “Willingness to take up arms against fellow citizens does suggest a great deal of polarization!” Karol, of the University of Maryland, believes the best comparison to today is not the Civil War but “The Gilded Age” from the 1870s through the 1890s - with its even balance between the parties in close elections, and strong party loyalties.
Some drivers of polarization remain the same, including regional differences, but others are new, such as political parties channeling the hate from the electorate; the rise of social media; and a backlash against multiculturalism.
AirTalk will devote the coming days to dissecting the different social, political and cultural factors that contribute to our divisions. Today, we start with the history of American polarity.
Guests:
David Karol, Associate Professor of Government and Politics, University of Maryland
Jonathan Rieder, professor of sociology at Barnard College, Columbia University, where his research focuses, among other things, on unity and division in the US. He is the author of the book, "Gospel of Freedom: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter From Birmingham Jail and the Struggle That Changed a Nation" (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013)