Why, then, did Joe Biden win and Hillary Clinton lose? Our exploration of YouGov/CBS polling provides an answer to that question. We find that in the decisive states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin), Biden exceeded his national performance among pure independents (the small fraction of voters that eschew all partisan leanings) and substantially bested Clinton’s 2016 showing among that group. He also managed to convert more former Trump voters than Trump did ex-Clinton voters. Ultimately, however, Biden’s improvement on Clinton’s effort was small, reflecting the extraordinary difficulty of winning a contemporary presidential election by a dominant margin in the Electoral College. Moreover, Biden’s win was in large part a repudiation of Trump, which did not carry over to House and Senate races, where Democrats did not meet expectations......

However, it was in the decisive states that Biden’s true advantage over Clinton became apparent. He did better among Republicans and slightly worse among Democrats than he did nationally; among independents, though, he managed to outperform his national vote share by nearly 3 percent. While that difference may appear small, remember that nearly 24 million votes were cast in the five states Biden flipped, and that his combined margin was only 279,000 (a 3 percent difference translates to 720,000 votes). Biden’s performance among Democrats — about 96 percent nationally and in the flipped states — also substantially improved on Clinton, who received slightly less than 90 percent of Democratic votes. The updated national exit poll supports our analysis — Biden benefited more from partisan loyalty than Trump, won the independents, and captured a higher percentage of Republicans than Trump did Democrats.

Biden’s coalition in the battleground states also included significant numbers of 2016 nonvoters and Trump voters. In the five states he flipped, as well as Florida, Iowa, North Carolina and Ohio, Biden received about 20 percent of his votes from 2016 nonvoters and about 6 percent from 2016 Trump voters. By contrast, Trump received only 13 percent of his vote from the former group and about 3 percent from 2016 Clinton voters. Indeed, our analysis of the battleground state polls shows that Biden won vote-switchers by a decisive 2-to-1 margin. These Trump-to-Biden voters were overwhelmingly concerned about covid-19, with about 82 percent rating it as a “major factor” in their presidential pick. By contrast, Clinton-to-Trump voters were considerably more worried about the economy (about 85 percent rated it a major factor).

The trending news of this Wednesday night was Lucasfilm firing actress Gina Carano from not only The Mandalorian but also effectively ending the chances of her appearance in future Star Wars projects. The step was taken after she posted several controversial social media posts that garnered a severe backlash, prompting Lucasfilm to severe ties with her as they found them "abhorrent and unacceptable". But as per a recent report, Carano didn't just lose her role as Cara Dune in the hit Disney+ series but also the opportunity to lead a Star Wars series, most likely the recently announced Rangers of the New Republic, which was in the pipeline before she got all tangled in controversies.

Since November 2020, former MMA fighter Gina Carano has been attracting social media ire through her controversial posts that started with her mocking the need for wearing masks amidst the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, transphobic tweets, followed by her spreading the false news that voter fraud has occurred during the recently held presidential elections. #FireGinaCarano has been trending for a long time as fans of The Mandalorian constantly sought her removal from the series as her contentious posts continued.