I had a parody of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” ready for posting on November 4, but I never had the chance to use it. In the end, the election looked a lot like 2016, with Trump’s record making up the difference. Why wasn’t the margin larger?
For these reasons:
- THE ECONOMY ISN’T THAT BAD: The unemployment rate is now below 7 percent, and if you have a 401(k), it is doing very nicely, thank you. Millions of swing voters were undoubtedly influenced by this and didn’t want to risk making changes. I’m guessing these were the shy Trump voters whose views weren’t represented correctly in the polls.
- TRUMP’S PARTISANS DIDN’T BLAME HIM FOR THE PANDEMIC: In truth, he can be blamed for a lot, but not everything. The states have more control over the issue than he does, and the Europeans are struggling, too. The pandemic probably decided the election on the margins, but it didn’t lead to an avalanche.
- CULTURE AND THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE: As usual, the culture war prevailed over economic considerations. That might come as a surprise, given that the right acknowledges that it has lost the war in the eyes of the American public, but right-wing views still prevail in rural states with a disproportionate say in the outcome of an election. It is thus concurrently true that the red side has the unpopular side in the nation as a whole, and that whipping up cultural issues can be a winner for Republicans in red and purple states.
Could the Democrats have won a more convincing victory with a more ideological approach to the campaign? I will address that in my next post.