Writing about the 2020 presidential election feels as timely as writing about the Treaty of Ghent. So much has happened since then-a 5 day delay to find out the official winner, a two month long period of denial and attempted theft by the loser, a literal riot that almost derailed the certification process and did cause an impeachment trial. But accountability is a part what we do here, so let's take one final look back at my predictions.
I. I Was (Mostly) Right.
"Well, I was wrong and I was wrong loud. I'm the Dick Morris of 2016."
Your correspondent, the day after the 2016 election.
The night I posted my final prediction, a Twitter follower who really knows the numbers said that if I was right, Biden might get 80 million votes. Well, he got over 81 million, despite underperforming my estimated percentage by about a point and a half. So the real surprise of the 2020 election was not the winner or the margin but the turn out. A LOT of people voted this time around.
November 3rd and 4th, 2020 may be the first time that being an uber-election nerd actually improved my life. Yes, I was concerned when I saw the terrible numbers in Florida. But I didn't panic. And I have the screen shots to prove it:
It wound up being 306. And it wound up being seven million. Ten million would have been nice. But seven million votes is a pretty clear message to the loser-we don't like you.
Of course, Trump did turn out his people. That's what kept the race closer than it should have been. There are a few conclusions we can draw from his performance in November.
II. The Biggest Lessons Learned.
1. Jared figured out Florida.
For the 2nd straight election, Donald Trump performed better than the polls and pundits expected. For all his cartoonish behavior and general incompetence, he twice pulled off campaigns that held together and functioned as well as could be expected. His clown show did not come off the rails enough to earn him the humiliation that he deserved to suffer.
Trump won Florida in 2016 by just over one point with 4.61 million votes. The early voting data seems to suggest a very close race and a lot of prognosticators thought it pointed toward a Democratic victory. Indeed, a lot of Democrats did turn out in 2020. Joe Biden got 5.297 million votes, almost 800K more than Hillary Clinton did in 2016. But Biden lost by almost three points.
Jared Kushner figured out how to keep the Cuban-American voters in the Trump camp. The moment Miami-Dade numbers came in was the only time that I seriously wondered if Trump was going to win again. But Trump also did well among Venezuelan and Puerto Rican voters in other parts of the state. Their ground game for early voting was excellent. Governor DeSantis probably deserves some of the credit for this, but the simple fact is that Florida moved from a true toss-up state to leans-Republican for the next cycle.
2. Trump made advances with non-white voters.
Trump won white men by 23 points and with women by 11. Joe Biden won black and latin voters of both genders by tremendous margins. This is not surprising, but the trend between 2016 and 2020 migh surprise you.
Joe Biden made a significant advance among white men. He lost them by 23 points, four years after Hillary Clinton lost them by 31 points. Trump made gains among every other gender/ethnicity group.
Trump's gains among minority voters probably reflect the normal boost that an incumbent gets when running for a second term. Among Latino votes, the gains can be attributed to his track record. In 2016 Trump ran as the guy who was going to build a wall on the Mexican border and end NAFTA. Four years later he was the guy who did not build that wall and who merely renamed NAFTA. (His gains in southern Texas are largely explained by this.)
Trump also benefitted electorally by at least making a play for black votes. Most recent Republican nominees have assumed they were going to get very few black votes but Trump made a genuine effort to get some black votes. He bragged about his modest attempts at prison reform and he used the pardon power to show that he was willing to take some baby steps towards ending mass incarceration. He also chose not to follow the anti-drug zeal of his first Attorney General. I hope that Republicans see these numbers and continue to pursue at least some time of criminal justice reform.
Trump also did better among Asian voters. They are a smaller demographic, so exit poll date is less reliable but the few places where he made relative gains from 2016 tended to be states with large Asian populations. His best performance relative to 2016 was Hawaii, where narrowed the gap by almost three points. His anti-Chinese rhetoric seems to have helped, especially among Japanese-Americans.
3. Trump Did Worse Almost Everywhere.
Incumbents usually win, and by a wider margin than their first election. Barack Obama was a recent exception because his win in 2008 happened at the exact nadir of the Republican brand. By 2012, the party had regrouped rallied enough to staunch the bleeding.
Incumbents who lose, usually, to borrow a phrase, get schlonged. Jimmy Carter was trounced. George H..W. Bush managed just 38 percent of the vote. Trump made it competitive, at least in terms of the Electoral College. If you slide the result one percent to the right, Trump probably wins after a 269-269 tie. Go another quarter point, and Trump wins clean by taking Pennsylvania.
But he did not repeat the miracle of 2016. He lost every really close state except North Carolina. Nationally the vote margin moved to the left by two and a half points. Trump only improved his performance in a handful of states-the aforementioned Hawaii (2.7%) and Florida (2.2%) are the only places where he improved by more than one percent. California (0.9%) and Arkansas (0.7%) are the only other states where he improved by even half a point. (Nice to know the Clinton name still means something in Arkansas.)
4. Americans Still Think Republicans Are Better for the Economy, Despite All Contrary Evidence.
Polling on issues showed that voters favored Democrats on almost every issue except for the Economy. These voters simply gave Trump a pass on the recession and job losses of 2020. They blamed COVID and ignored the fact that Trump's response to COVID made those economic losses so much worse.
The American economy has consistently done better during Democratic presidencies than Republican presidencies. This has been true for decades. There is nary a stitch of data on the other side. It's comical.
I'll just put up one data point to support this absurdly solid argument-job creation by every presidential term that started while I was alive:
Notice anything about the color distribution there? The only blue block in the lower half was Obama's first term, and that was because America was still losing massive amounts of jobs his first year in office because of the Great Bush Recession of 2007-8.
But the American faith in "business" and particularly of the acumen of "business men" is unshakable. Even putting one in charge and that leading to an economic disaster has not changed it. Hopefully Biden will put up good numbers and win re-election. But in 2028, the GOP will still run on the bullshit lie that their dumb, failed policies are just what the economy needs.
II. What Does This Tell Us About 2024.
1, Not Much.
2020's turnout is unlikely to be repeated in 2024. If COVID-19 is still raging, then Joe Biden will lose. If (as is more likely), COVID-19 is gone or largely under control, the election will be fought on different terms. A lot of states will rescind or limit access to early and absentee voting. (States will Republican legislatures are salivating to do this already.)
COVID's biggest impact on the 2020 election might be that one party unilaterally decided not to knock on doors. The Democrats completely skipped the most elemental part of voter turnout-going to talk to voters in person. Republicans did not. That monopoly of in-face interaction probably explains why Trump's turnout game exceeded expectations. That will not be repeated next time.
And the Democratic base may not be as united in 2024 as they were this time by animus toward Donald Trump. Biden may face a primary challenge from a leftist, which will distract and depress him in the same way that Jimmy Carter (Ted Kennedy) and George H. W. Bush (Pat Buchanan) were by challenges from candidates with committed followers further away from the political center.
2. The Scoreboard is probably 302-236.
We don't know exactly what the Electoral Vote distribution will be for 2024, but the Republicans are likely to net a few votes. The best projection has the 2020 map shifting from 306-232 to 302-236.
Texas and Florida will probably gain 5 votes. California, New York and Illinois will each lose one. Most of the other changes cancel each other out- Colorado gains, but West Virginia loses. Oregon gains, but Alabama loses. Ohio and Iowa lose but Rhode Island and New Jersey do too.
Several traditional battlegrounds will lose a vote- Pennsylvania, and Michigan. Two others will gain-North Carolina and Arizona. The country is slowly moving south. If you look at the states that were very close in 2020, it's pretty much a wash. Biden gains a vote in AZ but loses one each in MI and PA. Trump gains one in NC.
Keep an eye also on Nebraska. The Republican legislature might try to make NE-2 a little more red, although their state law limits their options, because they have to used county boundaries when drawing the lines.
3. We're Going to Do This Again, People.
A lot of voters seem to assume that Joe Biden will not run for a second term. These voters must have not met many politicians. Politicians at this level are not normal people. They have tremendous ambition and a healthy ego, even relatively nice guys like Joe Biden. Joe Biden is old. He's also fit and trim and healthy. His father lived to be 86 and his mother 92. Joe is not going anywhere. If he is alive in 2024, he will be the Democratic nominee.
Donald Trump also ain't going anywhere. Tomorrow Donald Trump will close CPAC with a rousing speech that the crowd will lap up. He will tell them they were robbed in 2020. He will tell them that Joe Biden is already a disaster. He will tell them, implicitly or explicitly, that he is the only person who can defeat the man who just defeated him. They will roar with approval.
Donald Trump loves running for president more than anything except the adoration that comes with being president. If he is alive, he will run for the 2024 Republican nomination. There is no one in the Republican feed who can compete with him for that prize. Most of them have prostrated themselves before his altar, and they simply can't run against his record after having followed him so doggedly. Some, like Ted Cruz will try. They will be destroyed. There will also be a Never Trump candidate or two, the too will be destroyed. Someone will emerge as a bridge between Trump world and the Republican establishment. He or she (Nikki Haley) will also be destroyed.
The 2024 Republican primary will be another go-round of outrageous lies and insane circus-like appearances at minor league hockey arenas by the only man who that base really loves. After he wins the nomination, he will face Joe Biden again. And the race will be a referendum on whether Biden's boring, conventional style has done well enough to satisfy the American electorate.
In three years and eight months I will spend part of my 51st birthday telling you who I think will win the Electoral College the next day. Right now I think it will be Joe Biden. My best guess is Biden 318, Trump 220. God help us all.
