In Betsy DeVos for Education, Trump Taps Into Michigan Royalty

President-elect Donald J. Trump has reached into Western Michigan royalty to pick Betsy DeVos as his education secretary and is looking at Ben Carson to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Meantime, Hillary Clinton has widened her lead in the popular vote to 1.5 percentage points, a spread not seen for a losing candidate since the disputed election of 1876.

Trump taps into DeVos family to head education.

Mr. Trump’s choice of Betsy DeVos to be his education secretary brings Western Michigan royalty into the Trump fold, but she was not always a fan. Mrs. DeVos sharply criticized Mr. Trump during the campaign, and spent much of the year raising money for other Republicans on the ballot.

“Until we have a better reason to embrace and support the top of the ticket, and see an agenda that is truly an opportunity agenda, then we have lots of other options in which to invest and spend our time helping,” she said in May.

The DeVos family, heirs to the Amway fortune, has long been a leading source of money for Republicans in Michigan and beyond. Just in the last three elections before 2016, members of the family gave nearly $9.5 million to party committees and candidates.

Mrs. DeVos had money of her own before she married Richard DeVos Jr., the Amway scion. Her father, Edgar Prince, built his own auto parts supplier, in Holland, Mich. Her brother, Erik Prince, founded Blackwater USA, a private security contractor whose guards were convicted of killing 14 civilians in Baghdad in 2007.

Teachers unions are not going to be happy.

The National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union, was quick to voice its opposition to Ms. DeVos.

“Her efforts over the years have done more to undermine public education than support students. She has lobbied for failed schemes, like vouchers — which take away funding and local control from our public schools — to fund private schools at taxpayers’ expense. These schemes do nothing to help our most-vulnerable students while they ignore or exacerbate glaring opportunity gaps. She has consistently pushed a corporate agenda to privatize, de-professionalize and impose cookie-cutter solutions to public education.”

Is Carson up next?

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With nominees chosen for C.I.A., national security adviser, secretary of education and ambassador to the United Nations, the next pick is expected to be the retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development. That could be official as early as Friday.

Mr. Trump posted on Twitter that he was “seriously considering” Mr. Carson, a former rival in the Republican primaries, as housing secretary.

The department is no small corner of the government. Its programs fund public housing, subsidize rent for the poor, promote homeownership and work to revitalize struggling cities. And housing policy has been in a deep freeze since the Great Recession, when the nominally independent mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapsed and fell under federal control.

For nearly a decade, the mortgage industry has basically been government run, with much of its profits going right into the Treasury. Mr. Carson would have a big role in figuring out how to move forward.

Writing in the conservative Washington Times last year, Mr. Carson let it be known that he is no fan of government intervention in the housing market, specifically to force racial integration.

“These government-engineered attempts to legislate racial equality create consequences that often make matters worse. There are reasonable ways to use housing policy to enhance the opportunities available to lower-income citizens, but based on the history of failed socialist experiments in this country, entrusting the government to get it right can prove downright dangerous.”

Clinton’s popular vote lead surpasses two million.

With new votes tallied from New Jersey, Illinois, Maryland and California, Mrs. Clinton’s popular vote lead reached 2,017,563 overnight, prompting new calls for an audit of voting machines in battleground states.

Mrs. Clinton’s lead now exceeds the winning percentages of seven presidents, five of whom also won the Electoral College. And it has given rise to a push from liberal activists to demand audits in three states won narrowly by Mr. Trump: Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. The University of Michigan computer scientist J. Alex Halderman posted an extensive explanation on Wednesday.

Nate Cohn, who wrote of voter projections and analyzed polls for The New York Times, isn’t buying it.

Mainly, it would seem, Mrs. Clinton’s record losing lead is pointing toward a structural disadvantage Democrats have with the Electoral College: Their voters are too concentrated in the bright blue states of the West Coast and Northeast. Democrats have now won the popular vote in six of the last seven presidential elections, but lost two of them (Al Gore in 2000, and Mrs. Clinton) in the Electoral College.

Ivanka Trump steps away from her brand.

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After the hoo-ha created when Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry started hawking a bracelet worn by Ms. Trump during a “60 Minutes” appearance as part of the new first family, Ivanka Trump-the-brand and Ivanka-Trump-the-woman are beginning to disengage.

At least on Instagram, Facebook and elsewhere.

On Monday, a public letter from Ivanka Trump HQ noted (in part):

“Our company’s mission is not political — it never was and it never will be — however, Ivanka, personally, has an increased opportunity to advocate for women and be a positive force for change. As a private citizen, with full awareness of her heightened visibility, she will broaden her efforts to take a stance on issues of critical importance to American women and families. Meanwhile, our team will continue working to inspire and empower women to create the lives they want to live through solution-oriented product and inspiring content on IvankaTrump.com and across social media.

Effective today, you’ll notice a shift in our social channels. Follow @IvankaTrumpHQ on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter to get the latest on #WomenWhoWork, The Skill Set, fashion stories and the rest of the content we’re creating each week. Keep following @IvankaTrump on all channels for Ivanka’s personal feed.”

The separation follows another public letter from the designer Sophie Theallet announcing that she would refrain from dressing Melania Trump and encouraging her fellow designers to do the same. One more such open missive and we will have a new fashion trend.

Well, there’s always Kid Rock.

When Anthony Scaramucci, the hedge fund titan and Trump adviser, floated Elton John as an inauguration performer to The New York Post, the singer’s response was swift: No way.

He did, after all, say in October, “We need a humanitarian in the White House, not a barbarian.”

Pity. Mr. Scaramucci was counting on the diversity statement, telling The Post:

“Having the ‘Rocket Man’ singer perform, he continued, ‘shows our commitment to gay rights.’”

Gov. Nikki Haley is selected to be U.N. ambassador.

President-elect Trump has chosen Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, the daughter of Indian immigrants, to be his ambassador to the United Nations, the transition team announced Wednesday.

Mr. Trump, whose presidential run was buoyed by an uncompromising stance against immigration, has mostly chosen older white men for cabinet posts in assembling his new team.

Her move would eventually elevate South Carolina’s lieutenant governor, Henry McMaster, an early and vocal supporter of Mr. Trump’s. Ms. Haley backed Senator Marco Rubio of Florida during the primaries.

Trump heads to his winter retreat, and business follows.

Mr. Trump arrived on Tuesday night in Florida to celebrate Thanksgiving at his private club, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, a visit intended to give the president-elect some time with his family, and he isn’t planning a packed schedule for Wednesday. But officials familiar with the transition process say that he will be busy deliberating his cabinet selections and may announce a domestic appointment before taking a quick break from work.

The trip is the first time since Mr. Trump was elected president that he has visited his Florida club, which played host to a few primary night victory parties.

Obama makes last turkey pardons.

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President Obama will, for the last time, take part on Wednesday in one of our country’s odder Thanksgiving traditions: the annual pardoning of the turkeys at the White House. Two turkeys, named Tater and Tot, will get the ritual absolution and move on to a nice home at Virginia Tech, even though only one of them will become the official national Thanksgiving turkey.

It will be up to President Trump to do the honors — or not, should he choose otherwise — next year.

Democrats take aim at Trump holdings.

Democrats will try to weigh in legislatively on Mr. Trump’s business holdings next week. Senator Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland, the senior Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, says he will introduce a “sense of Congress” resolution stating that the new president should convert his substantial holdings in a way to avoid entanglements with foreign governments.

If he does not do so, or unless Congress specifically authorizes his conduct, Mr. Trump would be considered in potential violation of the Constitution.

The resolution is unlikely to see the light of day in the Republican-controlled Senate, but it will be part of what is expected to be a longer-term effort by Democrats to shine a light on the president-elect’s business dealings.

Clinton fans aren’t giving up hope of victory.

As Mrs. Clinton’s lead in the popular vote grows, some of her most ardent supporters are clinging to hope that she could still win the election.

A Change.org petition has garnered more than four million signatures urging Electoral College “electors” in some states to ignore the will of the voters and back Mrs. Clinton, reminding them that they could do so without any legal penalty.

The electors will cast their ballots on Dec. 19. On Twitter, the hashtags #auditthevote and #audittheelection have become rallying cries for supporters of Mrs. Clinton who are directing people to flood the Justice Department with telephone calls about voting irregularities. The push is also taking place on Facebook, where calls are growing for a full investigation into Russia’s role in the election.

Even the sister of Huma Abedin, a top aide to Mrs. Clinton, weighed in, noting the tantalizingly slim margin that Mrs. Clinton would need to make up in three swing states — Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — to come out on top in the Electoral College.

“They are starting to recognize there really is something off about the election results as they come in,” Heba Abedin wrote. “Considering everything that is at stake, a vote audit should be done.”