After a week of reflecting, I needed to
revisit my
Election Reflection. In my initial reaction I awarded a
minor victory to the President. While a reasonable, but not
exceptional, swing in the House gave Democrats a small majority in
that chamber, Republicans picked up a number of Senate seats, and
Democrats, while flipping some governorships in WI, IL, MI, ME, NV,
and NM (and retained PA), failed to claim the larger prizes of GA,
FL, and OH. Republicans retained control of governorships of key
purple states, while Democrats only reclaimed states which were
already “likely” Democratic. Meanwhile, the failure to hold a
Senate seat in Florida or capture the OH governorship in a blue wave,
makes one wonder if FL or OH are too red for Democrats to compete in.
The brightest spot for Democrats was
the 7% popular vote victory.
A week later, after reading a number of
articles
(and Twitter
threads), my opinion has flipped, and I think it was probably
a minor victory for Democrats. Securing one house of Congress was a
must for Democrats, and their popular vote lead will probably end up
around 7.5%.
Perhaps my biggest misread was the
Senate. When I went to bed around midnight, the Democrats had
secured the House, but the Senate looked like a Republican landslide.
After watching Democratic Senators (who were polled to win), losing
in IN, MO, ND, and FL, it seemed like close, uncalled races in MT,
NV, and AZ would go to the Republicans as well. It would have been 5
seat swing, resulting in a 56-44 Republican Senate, in spite of a
blue wave! Ultimately, NV and AZ resisted the trend and were won by
Democrats, while Tester in Montana defeated his challenger. FL
appears likely to go Republican.
Some governorships were not called by
midnight as well, like Scott Walker in WI, and IA as well as AK.
Democrats failed to win IA, but secured the more important WI.
Using 2016 and 2018, I constructed a
very unscientific and premature electoral college map for 2020. I
made two versions, one leaving some
states undecided, and another map with all
states claimed. In spite of both favoring Democrats, the
President has a significant chance of being reelected. Even though
Democrats won by 7.5% points this year, they won by 4.8% in 2002,
while Republicans won by 7.1% in 1994 and 6.8% in 2010. Each of
those midterms were followed by a Presidential election, in which
the sitting President triumphed, even though their party had suffered
in the prior midterms.
Remember, no President has failed to
secure reelection since George H.W. Bush, and he failed, partially,
because it included a semi-serious third party candidate. In spite
of my electoral maps which award the President a 195-120-223
disadvantage and a narrow 259-279 loss, a strong economy and
Democrats overplaying their hand could be the perfect path to
reelection. The question is, can Trump avoid any egregious truths,
and keep the economy going. Axios
thinks predictions of Trump's reelection are premature. We won't
know for at least a little while.
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