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I would first like to apologize to anyone I had assured Biden would get a decisive, blowout victory. I was wrong. Barring some massive turnaround, Biden will still be the next president, flipping key swing-states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona giving him an inverse electoral victory to Trump’s in 2016—306 to 232 (ignoring faithless electors). Yet it wasn’t the victory many, myself included expected, nor the victory the polls indicated. RealClearPolitics’ polling average had a 6.7% Biden lead in Wisconsin, which Biden will end up winning by less than a point. Similarly, they polled an average of 0.9% for Biden in Florida, and 1.0% for Trump in Ohio, both of which were won by Trump with margins of 3.3% and 8.1% respectively. Biden is on-track to win by about three points, a far miss from RCP’s national average of 7.2%.
The polls for the senate races were significantly more off-base. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) kept his seat by a margin of 1.8%, from a polled deficit of 2.6%. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) each kept their seats as well, outperforming their polling averages by over five points. Most surprisingly, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME)—despite not having a single poll this entire election cycle which placed her ahead, or even tied, with her opponent Sara Gideon—won with a resounding 7.9% in a state that Biden carried by ten points. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) were easily re-elected despite a total of $200 million donated to their Democratic opponents, with McConnell defeating opponent Amy McGrath by a larger margin than Biden defeated Trump in New York state.
In the House, most pundits predicted Democrats to gain five to fifteen seats, but will end up losing about ten, resulting in a narrow House majority for Democrats. In an election year that saw massive voter turnout, and close to 80 million votes cast for Joe Biden, Trump still won multiple swing states, while remaining competitive in most others, the Republicans will in all likelihood keep the Senate, and will gain seats in the House. For an election that will result in a President Joe Biden, this was a surprisingly good election for the Republican Party and the conservative movement in an outcome that was a repudiation of both Donald Trump and socialism.
If told before election night that there would be a record-smashing turnout and that Joe Biden would total nearly 80 million votes, most pundits would likely have said a landslide victory for Biden had occurred, one so significant it would be closer to the 1984 election than the 2008 election. However, that isn’t what happened. Trump was able to add four million additional votes to his total from 2016, holding onto the swing-states of Ohio, Iowa, North Carolina, and Florida. Despite Biden’s massive total vote tally, he received less than half the votes in every swing-state except Michigan and Nevada. Republicans tallied more Congressional votes over Democrats in all states won by Trump, as well as Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, and possibly Pennsylvania. Had these down-ballot votes been turned up-ballot, Trump would have won re-election. Voters largely voted in favor of Republican policies but voted against President Trump’s personality and character.
In the 2018 midterm elections, the Republicans lost forty-one seats in the House, in what many deemed a “blue wave.” However, based on the results of the 2020 election, it seems less like a “blue wave” and more of an “anti-Trump” wave. In 2018, voters disgruntled at President Trump’s volatile personality could only voice discontent by voting against Republicans down-ballot. However, with Trump on top of the ticket, voters could vote their conscience against Trump, while voting for a Republican senator or congressman down-ballot who supports the policies they like. Down-ballot Republican outperformance of Trump was exemplified nationwide, from the previously mentioned blue-state of Maine where Republican Sen. Susan Collins outperformed President Trump by 7.1%, to red states such as Nebraska, where Republican Sen. Ben Sasse outperformed Trump by 6.2%.
On a post-election House Democrats conference call, Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) lashed out against the Democratic Party’s socialist wing. After narrowly winning re-election by less than seven-thousand votes in a district RCP categorized as “Lean-Democrat,” Spanberger asserted that “The number one concern in things people brought to me in my (district) that I barely re-won, was defunding the police. And I’ve heard from colleagues who have said ‘Oh, it’s the language of the streets. We should respect that.’ We’re in Congress. We are professionals. We are supposed to talk about things in the way where we mean what we’re talking about. If we don’t mean we should defund the police, we shouldn’t say that.” Spanberger went on to broaden her attack to similarly unpopular policy proposals as to defund the police, such as the elimination of private health insurance and the Green New Deal, to the broader ideology of socialism, “we need to not ever use the words ‘socialist’ or ‘socialism’ ever again.” Spanberger ended on the need for strategic reform within the Democratic Party, stating “if we run this race again we will get f*cking torn apart again in 2022.” Similarly, entrepreneur and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, Andrew Yang, summarized the disappointing election for Democrats as “the Democratic Party, unfortunately, has taken on this role of the coastal urban elites who are more concerned about policing various cultural issues than improving their way of life”.
Spanberger and Yang are correct that the Democratic Party had confused anti-Trump enthusiasm, as support for a far-left agenda. Despite the Republican Party’s unpopularity in regards to their defense and support for President Trump, they won down-ballot against the Democrats support and/or refusal to denounce policies such as defund the police, Green New Deal, court-packing, private insurance elimination, and repealing the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act of 2017 (which provided tax cuts for all tax brackets, not just the rich). For Republicans and conservatives, this is a great repudiation of socialist policies. However, that brings us to the follow-up question: why did Trump still lose?
The 2020 presidential election was very winnable for the Republicans. As previously stated, Biden received less than 50% of the vote in every swing-state except Michigan and Nevada. Had Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) been the Democratic nominee, Trump likely could have won. Had the coronavirus pandemic not occurred, Trump likely could have won from a booming economy. Had Trump governed in a more libertarian, free-market way, he could have gained enough votes from Libertarian nominee Jo Jorgensen to win. Even if Trump had limited the worst of his instincts, such as public resentment towards Dr. Anthony Fauci or tweeting that NBC’s Joe Scarborough is a murderer, Trump could have won re-election. Of course, we can play the what-if game forever, but where does the Republican Party go from here? Currently, Trump has not conceded the election, instead promising legal action and recklessly claiming that the election was stolen from him. While Trump is likely to go through legal review and continue denying the results, Republicans are already distancing themselves from the president, and even calling him out on it. Former President George W. Bush and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) congratulated Joe Biden on his victory. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX), and Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) have urged the President to accept the results of the election. Notable conservative commentator and Editor-In-Chief of The Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro, responded to Trump’s claims of victory due to voter fraud in certain states as “deeply irresponsible.”
The Republican Party, with the exception of Never-Trump Republicans, have defended much of the Trump presidency because he was a winner, and was the best route to pass conservative policy. However, now that Trump lost in an election that was extremely winnable, expect the Republican Party to abandon much of Trumpism, in terms of the obnoxious populist rhetoric and nationalist policy. Republicans are finally in reach of their multicultural coalition they had sought since the defeat of Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election, with the exceptional Latino turnout for Republicans, from Cubans and Venezuelans in Florida, and Mexicans and other Hispanics in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. As a result, the Republicans are likely to aim to build upon that support within the next four years, with a prospective 2024 Republican presidential nominee looking like a Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) or Nikki Haley, as opposed to more Trumpian candidates like Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO).•
