Post Politics Now Democrats bask in Warnock’s win in Ga., history-defying Senate gain

President Biden, speaking at the 10th annual National Vigil for All Victims of Gun Violence in Washington, told families of gun-violence victims that he admired their strength and their ability to advocate for change while navigating grief.

Biden, who has often spoken about loss and grief following the deaths of his first wife, daughter and eldest son, said it was “astounding” to see the courage these families have embodied in the wake of tragedy.

“We’ve seen you turn pain into purpose,” Biden said.

In remarks made before President Biden took the stage at the 10th annual National Vigil for All Victims of Gun Violence, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) recalled the time Biden, during his time as vice president, comforted the families of gun violence victims in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting.

“President Biden asked for time with the Sandy Hook families,” Murphy said. “And it won’t surprise you that he told his plane to wait for hours as he sat in a conference room at Western Connecticut State University until he had held every hand, hugged every grieving parent, and wiped away every tear.”

The White House on Friday will host a virtual town hall to tout the importance of getting an updated coronavirus vaccine booster.

According to guidance, the online event is scheduled for 11:45 a.m. Eastern and will feature Anthony S. Fauci, the president’s retiring chief medical adviser and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as well as Ashish Jha, the White House’s coronavirus response director.

Those who tune in will hear from experts on how to stay protected from the pandemic this holiday season. The event is part of the administration’s campaign to urge more Americans to get a booster before the end of the year.

The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it will appeal a court ruling that struck down a Trump-era policy used by U.S. border officials to quickly expel migrants because of the pandemic.

In a filing, the administration said it is looking to pause the appeal as it works out another case pertaining to the policy and as it establishes new regulations for control of disease spread in the processing of migrants.

The judge’s ruling in November will force the government to end Title 42 on Dec. 21. The appeal on Wednesday made no attempt at delaying this date, so the federal government will still be required to stop expelling migrants under this policy by that date.

As the nation closely watched who would become Georgia’s second senator on Tuesday, residents 350 miles west in Arkansas chose an 18-year-old to become their mayor.

As Ben Brasch reports, Jaylen Smith is now set to lead the city of Earle and its roughly 1,800 residents. His parents, with whom Smith lives, are ecstatic.

“My mom can’t stop crying,” he told The Washington Post on Wednesday.

Per Ben:

All levels of government throughout the country are seeing young people take office. Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) weeks ago became the first Gen Z politician elected to serve in Congress. …

Smith said he won voters over on merit and as a proven leader: He spent three years as president of Earle High School’s student government, during which he negotiated a deal with a new cafeteria vendor.

“I worked time after time to get them what they wanted,” he said.

People around town often told Smith he was too young, he said. His response? “I use doubters to motivate me to move forward.”

Smith plans to juggle being mayor and attending Arkansas State University Mid-South. He hopes to one day become a prosecutor.

Read more on Smith here.

Republican Herschel Walker was seemingly unable to turn out the voters he needed to offset Sen. Raphael G. Warnock’s advantages in urban and suburban areas. While Warnock (D) won suburban areas by 190,000 votes in November, he led them by 223,000 in the December runoff.

Walker, plagued by scandals during his campaign, had already shown weakness in these areas: The former football star had already underperformed Gov. Brian Kemp, also a Republican, significantly in the vote-rich Atlanta suburbs in November.

Journalists should stop pretending that there is a back-and-forth jostling for a lead once the votes in an election are being counted, writes Philip Bump. By pretending one candidate is taking or losing a lead as vote counting moves forward, we reinforce a sense that those results are still fungible — and that, maybe, they’re being manipulated.

Per Philip:

Consider the results of the Senate runoff in Georgia on Tuesday. As of 7 p.m. local time, the pool of votes was exactly the same as it would be at the time that counting was finished. But depending on how they were counted you could get — or give — a very different sense of how the election unfolded.

If we take all of the precinct-level results from Georgia and count them in the order to which they favored either Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.) or Republican challenger Herschel Walker you get two very different senses of the election.

Here, for example, is what the results would have looked like had you started with the precincts where Walker had the biggest vote advantage, ending with the ones where Warnock had the biggest margins.

President Biden signed into law a measure to enable workers to report workplace sexual assault and harassment even if they signed a confidentiality agreement.

The legislation, known as the Speak Out Act, received bipartisan support in Congress. Its signing coincides with the fifth anniversary of the #MeToo movement.

In a statement, members of Congress who helped shepherd the measure to Biden’s desk, including Reps. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.) and Ken Buck (R-Colo.) and House Judiciary Chair Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), celebrated the signing of the bill, saying it marks a “historic day for labor law and women’s rights in America.”