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Yet heres one thing I worry about: As we celebrate these ballot efforts, theres a risk that we downplay the threat drugs pose. As Ive written, a quarter of the kids on my old school bus in Oregon are dead from drugs, alcohol or suicide deaths of despair so I strongly believe that decriminalizing drugs should not lead to any relaxation about their dangers.

Under the new Oregon measure, manufacturing or selling drugs will still be crimes, but possession of small amounts of heroin, cocaine or methamphetamine would be equivalent to a traffic ticket. The aim is to steer people into treatment so that they can get help with their addictions.

That focus on treatment, which Oregon will fund with marijuana taxes, is critical. Seattle has in effect decriminalized possession of hard drugs, by exercising prosecutorial discretion, but it never adequately funded social services for people wrestling with substance abuse. That has led to a backlash among voters irritated by open drug use.

We did miss the boat here in Washington State when we licensed cannabis, Dan Satterberg, the prosecutor in King County, which includes Seattle, told me. We should have dedicated much more of the tax revenue to building a better public health response to our behavioral health crisis. The states that are just getting into the pot business should learn from our mistake.

The new Oregon law is modeled after one in Portugal, which pioneered decriminalization and has emphasized treatment of those with addictions. As a result, Portugal now has, along with Greece, one of the lowest drug fatality rates in Western Europe. I visited Portugal a few years ago to report on its drug situation, and I found that while no narcotics policy works as well as we might hope, Portugals succeeds much better than others.

I hope other states will also experiment with addressing addiction through public health measures. A useful next step would be to provide safe injection sites, thus saving lives of many people who now die from overdoses.

Criminalization of drugs in the United States has failed by every metric, notes Alex Kral, an epidemiologist with the nonprofit RTI International. Oregons new policy offers us a much needed opportunity to evaluate alternatives to criminalization of drugs.

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Republicans and Democrats Agree: End the War on Drugs - The New York Times

The worst ideas on the progressives' policy and personnel wish lists including government competing head-to-head with the private sector will be shelved," said Peter Freeman, a principal at FS Vector and a former House Republican aide.

Cliff Roberti, co-founder of Federal Hall Policy Advisors and a onetime House Republican staffer, said a Biden White House and Republican-controlled Senate would be a net positive for the financial services industry especially given pre-election expectations.

Those expectations of a Democratic victory were stoked by polls and financial contributions that indicated the party had a big edge heading into Election Day. But many of the candidates underperformed in battleground states and control of the Senate may remain in flux until early January, when both of Georgia's Senate races are apparently headed for runoff elections.

No matter who wins a majority in the upper chamber, banks and other financial firms still face headaches over Bidens ability to appoint new leaders to federal agencies. But even here he may opt to name more moderates to those posts to avoid confrontations if the GOP takes the Senate, lobbyists said.

Bankers will be in better stead with more stability on the congressional side if Republicans maintain Senate control, said Paul Merski, vice president of the Independent Community Bankers of America. You wont have dramatic shifts in banking policy. The real change may be how you address the regulatory agencies and the Senate could have an influence on that as well.

Progressive groups are so alarmed that they're urging Biden to use every option to sidestep potential GOP obstruction of his nominees. One tool is the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, which allows a president to elevate existing government employees and Senate-confirmed officials to lead agencies.

"From those strategic perches, Biden can reverse much of Trump's unpopular deregulatory rampage," said Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project.

But most significant legislation would probably not get very far.

All those bills the House has passed over the years waiting for a Democratic Senate may or may not come to fruition, Consumer Bankers Association President and CEO Richard Hunt said.

Since winning control of the House in 2018, Democrats have passed new safeguards for consumer credit reporting and proposed a nationwide cap on interest rates for loans. Those would likely be impossible to enact as law with a Republican Senate, as would Democratic proposals to expand banking services offered by the Postal Service and to create a public credit reporting agency.

The biggest unknown would be the extent to which Senate Republicans would go along with economic relief that Biden and the Democrats as well as Wall Street executives and investors say is desperately needed on a massive scale amid a resurgent coronavirus.

A smaller-scale stimulus bill would be a loss to banks and other financial firms that stood to benefit. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) kept hope alive Wednesday, saying he believes a rescue plan was necessary and needed to be finished by the end of the year.

A stimulus package is still possible, maybe probable, but it will likely be a smaller deal than in a blue wave scenario, Stifel Chief Washington Policy Strategist Brian Gardner told clients in a report Wednesday, when a GOP Senate looked like a strong possibility. We think it will be under $2 trillion, which could disappoint investors.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been pushing for a package of more than $2 trillion, while McConnell has warned that many Republicans will not support a bill that exceeds $1 trillion. While President Donald Trump has sent mixed signals about how much stimulus he favors, Biden has pressed for a new round of substantial aid.

But after that, lobbyists say financial firms should feel relieved.

Biden has pledged to increase the corporate tax rate, raise levies on wealthy individuals and increase capital gains taxes from levels long enjoyed by private equity investors. Those are off the table if the Senate stays in Republican control.

A "Blue Wave" was also expected to unleash layers of new regulations and scrutiny sought by Democrats, as well as progressive-leaning watchdogs that Biden may have nominated for key financial posts, but now all that would face stiff opposition if Republicans keep the Senate. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), one of Wall Street's biggest critics in Congress, has been pushing to be named Treasury secretary if Biden wins. Bernie Sanders wants to be Labor secretary.

But even without help from Congress, his regulators could move ahead with plans to scrutinize banks for climate change risk and to rewrite anti-redlining rules. How far they go depends on whom Biden hires.

Biden wouldnt need to worry about the Senate confirmation process when it comes to naming temporary leaders of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a powerful independent agency set up by Warren, or the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates national banks. The former vice president could appoint new heads of those agencies on an acting basis soon after his inauguration and take time securing Senate confirmation for more-permanent replacements.

He would not be able to immediately replace the heads of the Federal Reserve or the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., unless they stepped down, but Democrats could quickly ascend to acting leadership roles at the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Biden's Treasury secretary would lead the Financial Stability Oversight Council, which consists of top regulators across government and was set up after the 2008 financial crisis.

The risk of harmful legislative changes is considerably diminished, and a Republican Senate will provide an important counterbalance to an aggressive regulatory agenda, Roberti said. With that being said, significant regulatory risk will remain for the industry particularly for financial institutions and other heavily regulated sectors.

Biden-picked officials could enact rules to rein in CEO pay and also expand disclosure of corporations' climate-related and political spending activities, said Lisa Gilbert, vice president of legislative affairs for Public Citizen. Graham Steele, a former Senate aide who now directs the Corporations and Society Initiative at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, outlined in the American Prospect last year sweeping steps agencies can take on their own, including capping the size of big banks and cracking down on private equity management fees.

Isaac Boltansky, policy research director for Compass Point Research & Trading, said the combination of Biden and a GOP Senate would benefit the financial industry.

"With the Red Wave off the table, this was the best possible outcome for banks as it effectively takes tax increases off the table and it should foster a renewed sense of structural stability that has been absent in recent years," he said.

"There are broader concerns including the arc of the recovery without sizable stimulus but at least for today, a steady tax code, some fiscal support and a stable macro backdrop is a win for banks."

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Bankers, fearing Democrats' 'worst ideas,' unite in support of divided government - POLITICO

Democrats went into election night anxious, hoping for an opposite result than on election night 2016.

Hours after the first polls closed, they are feeling an overwhelming sense of dj vu as President TrumpDonald John TrumpBiden claims a 'mandate' to govern, calls for end to 'partisan warfare' Mark Meadows tests positive for coronavirus Georgia Senate race between Perdue, Ossoff heads to runoff MORE builds leads in the South and Democrat Joe BidenJoe BidenBiden claims a 'mandate' to govern, calls for end to 'partisan warfare' Mark Meadows tests positive for coronavirus Trump supporters scream at Telemundo reporter during live broadcast from Maricopa ballot center MOREs hopes fall largely on the same states that doomed Hillary ClintonHillary Diane Rodham ClintonSantorum urges giving Trump time to accept defeat: 'This is a very emotional time' Stacey Abrams earns praise as Biden leads in Georgia Nevada Democrat Steven Horsford wins reelection MORE four years ago: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.

Many Democrats went into the evening cautiously optimistic that Biden could defeat Trump. The most hopeful operatives had their eyes on a landslide.

Those hopes began evaporating as Trump built a lead in Florida, and as The New York Times needles showed the president overwhelmingly likely to win not only the Sunshine State, but North Carolina and Georgia as well.

House later, none of those states have been called, but Trump is in the lead in all three. Trump also leads in Texas, another state Democrats dreamed of winning.

I feel the exact same way I felt in 2016: nauseous, said one former Obama administration official. It feels the same.

Another Democratic strategist summed it up this way: Its catastrophic.

This is so much worse than 2016. In 2016, we were surprised. In 2020, we supposedly learned our lesson, the strategist said. And we didn't.

The strategist and other Democrats pointed to Trump's dizzying schedule in recent days where he held multiple events, and they were quick to lay blame at Biden's strategy of trying to play in red states like Georgia and Texas.

At the same time, Biden allies cautioned that it was still early in the night.

Democrats are feeling optimistic that Biden will flip Arizona, where he has built a lead in the populous Maricopa County.

Counts in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, the so-called blue wall that Biden had vowed to rebuild, are ongoing. Counts could go on not only for a number of hours in all three states, but perhaps days, particularly in Pennsylvania.

We still have a path, one Biden ally said. We all need to calm down.

Democratic strategist Eddie Vale also said he felt like it was too soon to draw comparisons to 2016.

I could eat these words, but I think people are over panicking on our side a little, he said.

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For panicking Democrats, 2020 is dj vu all over again | TheHill - The Hill

Joe Biden is inching his way toward a win, but Congress is on track to be more divided than ever. POLITICO's Dan Diamond explains how the coronavirus pandemic split the nation and how polarized views of President Trump's response shaped results up and down the ballot.

Here is an uncomfortable reality for Obama and anyone who agreed with his words. Trump is on track to grow his popular vote total by millions of people, not one of whom could have been under any illusions about what they were voting for. Unlike 2016, there is no way to dismiss this as a flukish accident of democracy, or an illegitimate manipulation of democracy. His support was a robust expression of democracy.

More discomfort: This was a bravura political achievement. Strip itjust for a moment onlyfrom moral context, from the fact that crowded, maskless rallies during a pandemic are flagrantly irresponsible, that many of his words were remorselessly demagogic. In the midst of the coronavirus catastrophe, just weeks after that virus left him in the hospital needing supplemental oxygen, in the face of bad polls and mostly hostile news coverage, Trump raced across the country and came close to winning. He is a movement politician who, with his back to the wall, often demonstrates remarkable moves.

It is not possible, of course, to separate Trumps political performance from moral context. The argument of the past four years hasnt been about, say, marginal tax rates in which people may accuse their opponents of greed but in the end can easily split the difference. Its not even like arguments about abortion rights, in which the differences arent easily split and the different sides often view each other with mutual incomprehension. But even in that case, adversaries are in violent opposition to each others views, not in violent opposition to the body of institutions, rules and prevailing ethical customs that cumulatively create a democratic culture.

Trump is in opposition to that. There are hundreds of examples but no need to dig through the archives. His overnight appearance at the White House early Wednesday was a fine example. He alleged fraud without evidence and asserted, with millions of votes in key states still not counted, Frankly, we did win this election.

The origins of Trumps appeal stretch back decades, in the long-term decline of trust in most American institutions, from government, to Big Business, to the media. In recent years, in part through purposeful political marketing in which politicians and media figures on both ends of the ideological spectrum reap lavish rewards of publicity and money for extreme politics, mistrust has been refined into pure contempt. It was this environment that made Trump possible, and in which he prospered.

But a narrow victory for either side does not fundamentally alter the countrys political balance. This means that the environment that produced Trump-style politics will continue even if Trump is not president. It also means that the opposition party to any president will in many circumstances perceive implacable opposition as being in their interest. In such a dynamic it is better to keep policy disputes as weapons and shields in the ongoing ideological and partisan war than it is to resolve them.

For four years, Democrats have been caught in what might be thought of as the contempt conundrum. The only principled response to Trumps shredding of norms and defiance of accountability is steadfast opposition. This, at times, can goad them into the same politics of insult and indignation in which Trump thrives. It was no accident that the opportunity to register a verdict on the Trump years inspired surges of new voting on both sides of the question.

The conditions that created Trump will end only when one party or the other achieves a decisive advantage with voters that carries them to unchallenged majority status across Washington and deep into the states. Democrats thought this might be the year that happened. Some 67 million Trump votersseveral million less than Biden won but several million more than Trump got four years agosaid not so fast.

When Democrats ask Trump voters What is your problem? it is another way of asking themselves, What is our problem?

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Democrats Look at Trump Voters and Wonder, What the Hell Is Your Problem? - POLITICO

I dont see Democrats putting anything forward as a plan other than orange-man bad, said Vinny Papa, 54, who works as a parts manager at a car dealership in Suffolk County.

Mr. Papa, an independent voter who said he has voted for both Democrats and Republicans, said he is not a big Trump supporter, but voted for Mr. Trump because Republicans are bad, and the Democrats are a hundred times worse.

Dana Gencarelli, 35, a mother of two young children, said that she was happy with Ms. Malliotakiss lead because her top concern was public safety, a priority she said Mr. Rose did not share.

Do I always feel Republicans are doing the right thing? No, she said, as she had pizza with family outside of Leos in Bay Ridge. But right now the Democrats arent doing the right thing.

Still others, including Cameron Lory Faulds, a Bay Ridge resident who has voted for both parties in the past, voted for the entire Democratic ticket, including Joseph R. Biden Jr. as did her husband, who is a registered Republican. Her social views, she said, were key in her choice of candidates.

Im not voting for Trumps enablers, she said standing by a yard sign outside her home that read: Im a Republican but not a fool! Biden 2020.

In many cases, however, voters appeared jaded by an election cycle that devolved into one of the most bruising and divisive in recent memory. With the outcome of the election still uncertain, some voters preferred not to express their political views or say who they had voted for.

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How Defund the Police Roiled Competitive Races in New York - The New York Times