2020 Election: Biden Won and the Democratic Party Lost

“A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen.”
-Winston Churchill

That President Trump was going to lose this election was a foregone conclusion in my mind because he lost his one and only advantage - a strong economy. The historically unprecedented job and wage growth, especially among women and minorities, was wrecked by a global pandemic. This coupled with Trump’s inept leadership and lack of national strategy to manage the spread of the virus doomed his re-election bid. In addition to a struggling economy, Trump had a historically low approval rating, with which no incumbent, other than Harry Truman, has ever won re-election.

Going into the election, the Democrat’s also had an unprecedented fundraising advantage at every level. Biden’s campaign raised $809 million; more than any candidate in history, and entered the last month of the race with a three to one advantage over Trump. In Senate races, Democrats raised $716 million, to Republicans' $435 million, giving them an advantage of more than $280 million.

In Maine, Sara Gideon raised $69 million compared to Senator Susan Collins's paltry $26 million. In South Carolina Jaime Harrison raised $57 million in a bid to unseat Senator Lindsey Graham, achieving the highest quarterly fund-raising total for any Senate candidate in U.S. history. In Kentucky too, Amy McGrath consistently outraised and outspent Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. History tells us that candidates who spend more in Senate races overwhelmingly win their races; Democrats were confident they would retake the Senate.

For four years the media and the left have painted Trump supporters as bigots. Liberal coastal elites in newsrooms across the country had convinced themselves that once the vast majority of the country saw Trump’s true colours, thanks to their efforts to unmask him, the majority of Americans, apart from a small and shrinking rural, uneducated white base, would come to their senses.

For this reason Democrats and the mainstream media assured us that we would witness a historic Blue wave that would result in Democrats winning the White House, retaking the Senate, growing their majority in the House, winning back Governorships, flipping state and local legislators. They were even confident of turning deep red states like Texas, blue, thanks to the growing number of Latino voters; even though Texas has been reliably Republican since 1980.

Along with an unprecedented campaign war chest, in 2020 Democrats also had a likeable candidate and America was facing an out of control pandemic, a struggling economy, historic unemployment and a President with a dismal approval rating – how did it go so wrong for Democrats, again?

The story on election night turned out far different from the confident narrative we heard going into the 2020 election and far from seeing a blue wave, the opposite transpired. 

Not only did Democrats fail to unseat Susan Collins and Lindsey Graham, but in Kentucky, Amy McGrath lost to Mitch McConnell by 20 points, making it the worst loss in that race since 2002. Republican Senators Joni Ernst, Dan Sullivan, John Cornyn, Steve Daines and Thom Tillis are all still standing. In races where Democrats outspent their opponents, they won 13 and lost 9. In races where Republicans outspent them, they won 8 races and lost zero.

 

(Data: FEC, Edison Research for the National Election Pool. Graphic: Reuters)

The story in the House is no better. Democrats lost their 35 seat advantage, with a Republican gain of 10-15 seats, and are now left with the smallest House majority in more than two decades.

At the local level where Democrats expected to chip away at the three-fifths majority of the 98 local legislative chambers that Republicans controlled, not only did they fail to flip even one, but they lost New Hampshire. The same story was repeated in Governor’s races. Republicans not only successfully defended all seven seats but flipped a Democratic one; giving them a 27 to 23 state advantage as new terms begin.

Yes, Biden won the White House but this too happened after five nerve wracking days, with far too many races too close to call for many days after the election. His victory is less than resounding or convincing and this should concern us all. Consider that if just 44,000 more votes had gone Trump’s way in Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin, we would have a tie.

The truth is that the election felt more like a red surge. The Democrats' claim that Trump’s surprise 2016 win was in large part due to Hillary Clinton being a flawed and polarising candidate herself does not hold true when we see that the President earned nearly 10 million more votes than in 2016, gaining six million more votes than Mrs. Clinton.

Latinos are the fastest growing group in the United States and this year for the first time in a presidential election, they numbered more than eligible African-American voters. Far from losing ground, the man who put immigrant children in cages actually increased his support winning a 32 percent share of Latino voters. 

Latino voters powered Trump to a convincing win in Florida. A state that Democrats had expected to win going into the election. In Miami-Dade, which is 70 percent Latino, Trump picked up 200,000 more votes and closed a 30 point gap to 9 points. While it is true that about a quarter of Miami-Dade residents are Cuban-born, this group has historically supported Republicans, so their support alone cannot explain the gains Trump made here.

In Texas, counties with Latino majorities favoured Trump, marking a massive swing from just four years ago when Democrats dominated all these counties. Zapata County in Texas, which is 95 percent Latino, and one Mrs. Clinton won by 33 points in 2016 - Trump flipped in 2020, winning it by 6 points. A Wall Street Journal analysis shows that Mr. Trump improved his performance in every Texas County with a Latino population over 75 percent.

Even in the neighboring state of New Mexico, which is nearly half Latino, Mr. Trump picked up many more votes from four years ago. Counties like San Juan in the Northwest and Otero County in the Southeast with heavy Latino populations all moved closer to Trump.

Mr. Trump also measurably increased his vote share among Black, gay and Asian Americans. It is pretty remarkable for a man who has been labelled a white supremacist to grow his support to 12 percent of Black people, including over 18 percent of Black men, not to mention 34 percent of Asians and 28 percent of the gay, lesbian and transgender community. Amazingly, the President’s LGBTQ vote share doubled from 2016.

If all these facts were not damning enough, in dozens of interviews with the New York Times, African-American voters who chose Biden say they voted for the Democratic Party with great trepidation and a longstanding concern of feeling underappreciated by the party they have stood by for decades. One voter summed up what many African-Americans are feeling about Democrats, saying that they have not “earned his vote — or his loyalty.” He added that “my vote is open for bid — what will you do for me and my kind now that the election is over?”

Even in California, one of the most liberal states in the country, while Biden trounced Trump as was expected, what came as a shock is that Democrats lost many down ballot races. Republicans are now expected to win back at least four of seven seats they lost in 2018. The last time Republicans managed to defeat an incumbent Democrat in California was in 1994. In this election they have already done it three times with a few races still too close to call.

Californian voters also handily rejected progressive ballot measures around raising business taxes, instituting rent controls, protecting gig workers and reinstating affirmative action. They also helped the GOP regain their status as the second largest party in the state after falling behind “no party preference” registration in 2018. With the 2020 election results, Republicans in California can claim their best year in more than a decade.

The 2020 election map also shows a more entrenched and divided electorate compared to 2016, with fewer counties flipping from one party to the other. In the last election 237 counties changed allegiances from Obama to Trump, in this election only 77 counties flipped, with Biden winning 59 of them.

The bottom line is that the election results show that Mr. Trump’s appeal is more resonant and broader than most people understood. Not only did he manage to grow his base, but he actually found new voters. This reality contradicts the Democrat’s claim about Trump’s 2016 win was a fluke and that the 2020 result would be a total rebuke of this President and his policies – Trump has expanded his appeal by bringing in new and non-white voters.

Rather than try to spin the results as a victory, the Democratic Party should view them as a warning sign that their message is not connecting with many working class voters; white and non-white.

In addition to figuring out how they will tangibly deliver on promises to Black voters, which will not be easy, they should be extremely alarmed by the fact that so many Latino voters chose Trump. This is the fastest growing demographic in the country and if the Democratic Party were to lose their support, it would cost them elections for years to come.

 

Democrats Have Nothing to Fear, but Themselves

(Image: Saul Loeb/Getty Images)

“Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted”
-Aldous Huxley

When Mr. Trump completed his hostile takeover of the Republican Party and claimed the 2016 nomination, it became Mrs. Clinton's election to lose. Her senior aides had secretly been hoping she would face Mr. Trump because they were convinced that “a race against Trump would be a dream for Clinton”. A few months before the election it became clear to me that Mrs. Clinton’s hubris might cost her the election. She did not feel the need to make a case for why voters should choose her, and instead came across more like a Queen expecting a political coronation.

Fast forward to the 2020 Democratic primary, once again my views were out of sync with the majority media, political pundits and progressive party base. From the outset it was clear to me that Joe Biden would win the nomination. Not because I believed Mr. Biden was the strongest or most qualified candidate, but reading between the lines of a fractured and deeply divided party it was evident that of the frontrunners, he was the only one who had support among Black voters; without whom no Democrat can win the White House.

In February this year, I would have put Mr. Trump’s chances of re-election at about 90% because the economy was going great guns, and Democrats seemed too divided to form a cohesive front. Covid-19 changed everything. With the economy in freefall, small businesses shuttering in record numbers and the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression, the picture now is very different.

In addition, the President’s handling of the crisis has been nothing short of a disaster and his repeated refusal to follow the guidance of his top scientists or develop a coordinated federal response has led to a patchwork of disparate actions at the state level, leading to a dangerous resurgence of coronavirus cases and deaths all over the US.

As a result, polls show Mr. Biden’s lead growing to double digits nationally.  He is widening the gap in swing states and even leading in states that Mr. Trump won with double digits in 2016. There is growing consensus in the media and within the Republican ranks that Mr. Trump is hurtling toward a massive defeat, one that could see Democrats win not just the White House, but also gain majorities in both chambers of congress.

Like 2016, it would seem that the 2020 election is fast becoming Mr. Biden’s to lose. Especially since Mr. Trump continues to administer self-inflicted wounds almost daily. His latest approval has dipped below 40%. Other than Harry Truman no incumbent President has won reelection with such an abysmal job rating. However, if there is one thing Democrats excel at, it is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. There are six things I would caution them about:

Don’t take Black (and Latino) voters for granted: Since 1968 no Republican presidential candidate has received more than 13% of the Black vote, so it is no surprise that Democrats have come to take the Black vote for granted. In 2020 they do so at their own peril. A recent survey by BlackPAC of registered African American voters found that a significant number are disillusioned with the Democratic Party and more than half feel that the party is not paying close enough attention to the black community.

The Democratic Party’s overly simplistic view of African Americans as a monolithic voting bloc is out of touch with the reality. Blacks in America comprise multiple ethnicities and nationalities, with immigrants representing almost 10% and 24% of Latinos also identify as Black. Similarly, Black voters do not hold the same views across the board. As the Bernie wing of the party pushes the party farther leftwards, they are in danger of disillusioning 25% of Black Democrats who called themselves conservative and 43% who called themselves moderate.

Worryingly, polls show that Mr. Biden’s support among young Black voters, who are leading movements like Black Lives Matter and spearheading calls for systemic change, significantly trails the levels of support he enjoys among older Black voters. Also, Mr. Trump’s support among Black and Latino voters has increased in the past year from 8 to 10 percent and 28 to 30 percent, respectively, this despite his best efforts to the contrary. What should worry Democrats is not the level of support Mr. Trump has, which remains low, but that displeasure with the President has not translated into more support for them.

It’s (still) the economy, stupid: In the second quarter US GDP shrank 32.9% on an annualized basis, making it the worst contraction since record-keeping began in 1947. If the current trajectory continues then Mr. Trump will lose the only arrow in his tiny quiver. But we are still almost 100 days away from the election, and we have seen that the moment the country begins re-opening, as it did in May, there is an economic rebound. In May and June alone a record-breaking 7.5 million jobs were added and there was evidence of pent-up consumer demand with retail brick and mortar sales rising 7.5% in June, following a record jump of 18.5% in May.

If we are able to get the current coronavirus surge under control and start re-opening businesses once again across the country, it is possible that we might see the start of an economic recovery just in time for the election. This would unquestionably be a boost for Mr. Trump because the economy is the only issue he is still trusted on, more than Mr. Biden. In fact, a sizable majority of swing state voters approves of Mr. Trump’s handling of the economy, and trusts him more than Mr. Biden to lead America out of this economic crisis.

Biden’s enthusiasm gap: A recent national survey conducted by SSRS for CNN finds that there is a gap in enthusiasm among Biden versus Trump’s supporters. 70% of Trump voters say they support the President and are voting to reelect him, with only 27% stating they are voting against Biden. On the flipside Biden voters claim the opposite with 60% saying they are voting against Trump, and only 37% casting a vote in support of Biden.

We also know that the Democratic Party is deeply divided with various factions within it jockeying for position. Earlier this year an Emerson College poll found that 50% of Bernie voters would not support a candidate in November if Mr. Sanders was not the nominee. The vitriol and divisiveness was laid bare during the recent primaries, and while one has seen some degree of coalescing between the Bernie and Biden wings of the party, there is still more that divides them than unites.

More recently Nina Turner, a co-chair of Mr. Sander’s campaign, described the choice in November to a reporter at the Atlantic as, “It’s like saying to somebody, ‘You have a bowl of shit in front of you, and all you’ve got to do is eat half of it instead of the whole thing.’ It’s still shit.”

Harvard professor and Bernie supporter Cornell West added in the same article that, “We have to be true to ourselves and acknowledge that Biden is a mediocre, milquetoast, neoliberal centrist that we’ve been fighting against in the Democratic establishment.”

In polls we trust: In 2016 national pollsters consistently predicted that Mrs. Clinton’s likelihood of winning the presidency was around 90 percent. Two weeks before the 2016 general election multiple polls showed her leading in the key swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, with leads of anywhere from 4 to 9 points. Mr. Trump won all three states.

One big difference between 2016 and 2020 is that Mr. Biden’s lead has been larger and more consistent at both the national and state levels. Also, we should note that the issue is not so much accuracy of polling, because studies show that they have been historically accurate within the margins of error, but that the country has become so divided that the winning or losing can lie within these margins of error of +/- 4 points.

Also, remember that winning the popular vote does not mean winning the Electoral College. In 2016 Mr. Trump lost the popular vote by around 2.5 million votes, but won the Electoral College thanks to 79,646 voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Democrats must not grow complacent based on current polling numbers. We know that Mr. Biden faces a serious gap in enthusiasm with his voters and he also must not repeat Mrs. Clinton’s mistake, and assume people will turn up simply because they dislike the sitting President. Mr. Biden must continue to outline his kinder and more inclusive vision for America, and contrast it with the President’s divisive one, giving voters a reason to come out for him.

Biden’s fitness for office: A Rasmussen poll conducted at the end of June found that nearly four out of 10 voters believe Joe Biden has dementia. It is true that a higher percentage of Republican voters (66%) think this, but 30% of independents and 20% of Democrats also believe it. The same poll finds that over fifty percent of Democrat voters feel it is an important issue, and one that Mr. Biden should publicly address. Another poll by Zogby found that 60% voters aged 18-29 thought it likely that Biden is suffering early-onset dementia, along with 61% of Hispanics and 43% of Blacks.

To be fair, unlike Obama’s birth certificate, this lingering doubt is not a figment of the fringe right-wing’s imagination. Through the primary debates Mr. Biden’s performance was viewed as uneven, with him often losing his train of thought, forgetting words and sometimes the question he was answering. He would routinely cede time back to the moderators, when every other candidate was fighting for more time to speak. Julian Castro brought up the issue of Mr. Biden’s memory lapses during one debate, and was backed up by Cory Booker, who said in a post-debate interview on CNN that it was a legitimate question based on Biden’s “fumbling”.

It is worth pointing out that there is a double standard in the mainstream media on this issue. They have openly debated and discussed President Trump’s cognitive faculties but seem to stay away from questioning Mr. Biden’s. In the end, it will likely come down to Mr. Biden’s debate performances against Mr. Trump, which will lead the American people to decide for themselves.

Covid-19 and vote by mail; fail: New York has a Democratic Governor and the party holds majorities in the state senate and assembly. The Mayor of New York City is a Democrat, and the city council has a super majority with only 3 Republicans serving in its 51 member body. For our local primary election on 23^rd June this year, every official from the Governor down vowed to expand voting by mail and other options.

So far, around 100,000 absentee ballots have been invalidated, which is about one in five, and a number of races are still waiting for results at the end of July. To say it was an unmitigated disaster would be an understatement. What is scary is that, in a state committed to getting this right, and completely controlled by Democrats, the official preparation and infrastructure was clearly not capable of handling the influx of mail-in ballots.

Every facet of the system seems to have failed in New York. There were not enough ballots printed, the postal service faced delays in sending and receiving forms, people were unable to understand the mail-in ballot instructions and now officials are struggling to count them. Furious candidates are still waiting for results more than a month after the election and many are filing lawsuits claiming voter disenfranchisement.

Consider that a major factor in Biden’s ability to win rests with 65+ voters showing up to the polls, and Democrats are more fearful of contracting coronavirus than Republicans. So with Covid-19 at large, one could conjecture that older Democrats are more likely to opt for absentee ballots, than Republicans, which would give Mr. Trump a major advantage.

The bottom line is that if a solidly Blue state, one that made a concerted effort to expand voting rights, could not get any aspect of a small local election right, what will happen during a massive national election, and in far more contentious swing states?

Why Hillary Clinton and Democrats Lost the White House, Senate, Congress, Governorships and State Legislatures

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” 

Barack Obama

Anyone who believes Mrs. Clinton lost because she is a woman needs to wake up. There is no question that misogyny played a role, but she needed to win in spite of this because she was attempting to break a glass ceiling in what is, for now, still a man’s world. The facts clearly show that women did not unite against Mr. Trump because of his lewd and misogynistic comments, just to vote for a woman. “Instead, they voted more or less as they always have: along party lines.” (NYTimes).

Also, consider that Trump won white working class voters in “many of the areas where Mr. Obama fared best in 2008 and 2012. In the end, the linchpin of Mr. Obama’s winning coalition broke hard to the Republicans." (Source: NYTimes).

He also won almost 30% of Hispanics (more than Romney or McCain did); and overall did “…better than Romney among blacks, Latinos and Asian Americans, making it more difficult to claim that racial resentment was the dominant factor explaining Trump’s support nationally.” (Source: Washington Post).

Let’s be clear that people don’t suddenly wake up one morning, turn on a racist switch and vote for hate. If that is true then we may as well pack our bags and abandon this great experiment called democracy. If we can get past the media’s hysteria and selective narrative, we will see that simply dismissing Mr. Trump’s victory as racism and misogyny (there was absolutely an element of it) is not just an over-simplification but dangerously naïve.

The next step is trying to understand, and fix, why Democrats and Mrs. Clinton lost, despite the fact that Mr. Obama had a higher approval rating than Mr. Reagan did at end of in his second term; another fact that makes it hard to blame racism. So, why did Mrs. Clinton lose?

She lost because the Democratic Party showed it had been taken over by a mafia and they were willing to use brute force to propel her candidacy, even though the base was clearly screaming for a different voice to represent them.

She lost because she came across like a Queen seeking a political coronation and someone who had become a member of the special interests and wealthy elites she promised to fight.

She lost because the majority of the world has lost faith in politicians of all stripes, and they are looking for outsiders who will use brute force to break the system, not politely try to navigate it.

She lost because she was complacent and took for granted that changing demographics would work in her favour. She simply assumed that minorities, women upset with Trump’s irresponsible and bombastic statements, and left-leaning millennials would carry the day for Democrats.

She lost because she changed her position numerous times on the minimum wage, on TPP and on trade; issues that most mattered to her voters.

She lost because she was completely tone deaf to the screams of the wider electorate, an electorate screaming for economic dignity. The kind of dignity that only a well-paying job can provide, and a sense of self-worth that comes from being able to provide for your family and promise your children a good education and a bright future.

The reason she lost is because she did not offer a vision for how she would help create decent jobs for all Americans; she forgot that it’s still “the economy, stupid”.

Her campaign was entirely rooted in trying to convince voters that Trump was an evil demagogue who is unfit to govern. But people needed to know how she would help them put food on the table, afford healthcare, find a job, get an education and lift themselves and their children from economic indignity; Mrs. Clinton failed to provide this narrative.

Instead, Mrs. Clinton and Democrats chose to stay in their bubble and ignore the growing working class cries for help. As a result the Democrats not only lost the White House, Senate and the House, but were also decimated across the board in Governor and state legislative races. Voters clearly and soundly rejected current party policies at every level of government; Democrats would be wise to take heed.

Democrats now have a clear choice to make. They can waste time and energy filing futile petitions, funding protests and calling for vote recounts. They can continue to scream and cry about Trump being racist and misogynist and refuse to accept that he is the President-elect and they can also refuse to work with him once he takes office. By doing this, they will once more bury their heads in the sand and, like the GOP has done, become a party with no vision, no rallying cause and end up with an internal civil war of their own, led by various extreme factions within the party.

Or they can come out of their bubble and spend time trying to understand why so many blue collar voters and minorities, who have historically been a guaranteed part of their base, felt so excluded and isolated that they needed to find such an extreme alternative.

They can work with President Trump to further the economic cause of all Americans while ensuring that hate never permeates the mainstream arteries of our democracy, and they can champion an alternative vision to his, one that must be more economically inclusive of all voters in 2020.

NOTE: Title changed on 12/5 from "2016 US Election: Why Democrats Lost and the Choice They Need to Make".