"Red wall voters will not forgive Boris Johnson if he sells out to get a trade deal with Brussels, polls show"

It's in The Sun. Harry Cole wrote it...

So let's dig a

OK then.

So the new CDU Party Leader #CDUvorsitz is known - it's Armin Laschet.

This 🧵 will explain why he won, explain what he means, and outline what happens next.

1/20

At the CDU's party congress today, the three candidates - Laschet, Friedrich Merz & Norbert Röttgen - gave 15 min speeches

That was the first signal of what was to come... Today we saw the very best of Laschet - playing the reliable, careful person, not heavy on detail

2/20

Merz by contrast gave an ill focused speech, and did not make a single reference to Merkel or AKK, the outgoing party leader. He seems to have learned nothing

Röttgen, long the outsider, gave a speech with a lot more detail - especially on green issues and the future

3/20

1001 Delegates - these were the results

Round 1 🗳
Merz 385
Laschet 380
Röttgen 224

Round 2 🗳
Laschet 521
Merz 466

About 1/3 of Röttgen's vote went to Merz, 2/3 to Laschet

4/20

It's important to emphasise how absolutely *average* Laschet is in the CDU. If you were to imagine your archetypal CDU politician it would be him. Not to edgy, not too sharp, not too radical, not too conservative, not too dashing... it would be him

5/20

OK, so it's a fortnight away - the "Digital Party Conference" of the CDU to decide who the next party leader will be

And whoever wins this is going to have a good chance of being Chancellor, succeeding Merkel after the election in September this year

There are three main candidates in the running - all middle aged men from Nordrhein Westfalen
- Friedrich Merz
- Armin Laschet
- Norbert Röttgen

So who's going to win?

For ages it looked like Laschet was the clear front runner. Prime Minister of Nordrhein Westfalen (NRW), and with a kind of folksy-beergarten manner, it looked good for him.

But then came COVID, and in the first wave it looked like NRW was pushing to open up too early, and questions started to be raised as to whether he would be up to the job...

Laschet's star is falling

The candidate profiting is Merz. The comeback kid at 65 years of age would take the CDU more to the right - which seems to be what a slew of the 1001 delegates (esp those from the states of eastern Germany) want. That despite the pragmatic line of Merkel being +popular than ever.

First they came for the 🐟

And John Redwood said the 🇬🇧 fishing industry would adjust

Then they came for the 🐖 farmers and 🐷 exports

And they said don't worry, it's just teething problems

Next they came for the 🦪 exporters

And there the Minister wrote a letter saying 🇪🇺 was wrong, when his officials knew 🇪🇺 was right

Then the 🧪 industries worried about the 💷 of making a new database to replace REACH

They're still waiting

The 🚛🚚 operators fear that a load of vehicles are returning to 🇪🇺 empty, and volumes are down

We do not recognise the numbers, the 🇬🇧 Government says

NEW: @RudyGiuliani in GA hearing "Let me conclude by saying ... our Founding Fathers, miraculously, probably envisioned everything that would happen to us. They even envisioned this. A disputed election. Cheating. Stealing. And they made a choice. They made a choice of where to

2/ put the responsibility in a difficult situation like that. Article I, Section II of the of Constitution puts that responsibility right here, in the legislatures of the several states. You are responsible for the selection of the electors. Not the Governor. Not your Secretary

3/ of State, who is covering up everything that he can cover-up. Not anybody else, but you. It's your power. It doesn't come from the state constitution. It comes from the United States Constitution. You are not subjected to needing a special session. The governor has no right,

4/ really, to interfere. He has no right to call a special session or not call a special session. The Constitution has taken him out of the process. The Constitution put the power in the state legislature, so strong, that you can take that power back right up to the last moment,

5/ you can take it back two minutes before the electoral votes are counted, because ultimately it's your responsibility. You delegated it to them in the first place. And if you feel they are exercising it improperly, it is your obligation to stop them from doing it. And you KNOW

1) FL absentees, early voting:

*Dems as expected ("souls to the polls Sunday") had a good day and FINALLY take the early walk-in vote lead by 6,100 votes.

Rs total: 1,151,593
Ds total: 1,092,547

Rs +59,046 combined lead. This is very good for this point in the campaign.

2) At this point in 2016, Rs only led by 40,000. I could be mistaken but I think yesterday was the last day polls were open on Sunday, so the final "souls to the polls" Sunday.

3) As of yesterday, four red counties were yet to report. That would likely boost the lead back to 70k

4) I don't think the FL Rs in their wildest dreams expected to lead this late in the campaign.

5) Likewise in NV:
Clark (with its union "encouragement" for members turned out big yesterday and added net 6,000 voters.

However---big however---neither Washoe nor the rurals . . .

(5) contd. . . were open yesterday. My guesstimate is that would slice that number in half.

While this helped, the NV Ds are still looking at a significant--to potentially massive--shortfall from their 2016 numbers coming out of early voting.

6) Gotta make sure you compare days to days. Calendars and voting days differ.

READ AND RETWEET AS THOUGH THE LIFE OF YOUR NATION DEPENDS ON IT. WHICH IT DOES. Citizens, I am going to add to the picture with more information. I am not going to let this pass while keeping information to myself. I am going to walk you through 2 narratives.

A printing shop in Michigan prints ballots for Delaware County, Pennsylvania and as Lancashire County, Pennsylvania (this is normal). But along with the ballots it prints on contract and delivers to those counties, it prints some ballots that get diverted to Bethpage, New York.

There, a boiler room of folks fill in "Biden" (often without even voting downballot). The ballots (which are forensically legitimate, given that they come from the same print shop as the good ballots, ) then get trucked into Pennsylvania and mailed. Hundreds of thousands.

We have all of that documented. Texts, statements, affidavits, everything.

We also know that this same ballot printing company (and other firms in the same family) also print for Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia.

The initiatives of Congress are to come in two areas. One within the party and the other with other parties.
First Congress has to Improve its communication with people, cadres, leaders and supporters.
Rahul is mainly shouldering this responsibility. But why not other leaders.
/1

It may be argued that some leaders are doing it within their areas. What about other areas, other leaders?
There will be many contenders for posts, maybe even for President’s if given a chance.
Why not leaders volunteer to propagate views, counter the Modi regime on the field?
/2

Some leaders give out statements in media, write their views on social media. Are they enough? Are they doing justice to their potential?
Even during elections, they limit themselves to their constituencies/ state.
Why should they not extend it beyond & even between elections?
/3

The statements of Congress leaders with few exceptions are bland, insipid, prosaic, not interesting and attracting enough to percolate to the people.
How many of their messages reached the people?
Can they not make it more attractive or find other ways to reach the masses?
/4

Some may say there are limitations of age, barriers of territory, egos, invitations, interference.
Most of them are artificial, self-imposed and can be sorted out.
These leaders do not devote themselves to the masses.
If Rahul does it, expected to do it why not others?
/5