The 2020 Election in Retrospect

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In the end, it wasn’t the election result any partisan hoped for, but it may be the election result that the nation needed.

A record 158 million Americans voted in 2020 and their individual choices painted a national canvass at the national, state, and local levels that is far more nuanced and deliberate than any analysis you’ll see on cable TV. The election was not one of fraud, but one of purpose.

The Presidency:

On January 20, 2021, Joe Biden will be sworn in as the 46th president of the United States. After a tumultuous four years, Donald Trump becomes only the third president in half a century to lose a bid for re-election. Having gambled on Trump in 2016, voters ended a presidency defined by impulsiveness, opportunism, and an unprecedented lack of seriousness, and rendered a verdict on Trump’s handling of a global pandemic that has claimed 270,000 American lives and counting.

Biden won the Electoral College 306-232, ironically the same margin that Trump secured in 2016. Unlike Trump however, Biden won the popular vote in 2020 by 6.2 million, securing a convincing 51%-47% win over the President. Still, in the battleground states that decided the race, Biden’s margin was 1/10th of a percent; more than Trump’s fractional win in 2016, but still very close. Despite governing chaos, impeachment, economic collapse, and a global pandemic that the Administration did little to coherently to address, 74 million Americans voted for the President.

Beneath the topline numbers, it is clear that America’s political map is changing. Ohio and Iowa, perennial battleground states since the turn of the century, have become reliably Republican states, with Trump winning both – twice – by more than eight points. Florida too appears to be turning just a shade more red, delivering small but convincing wins for Trump in two elections.

At the same time, Biden broke the Red Wall in the South and West, winning Georgia (first time in 28 years) and Arizona (first time in 24 years). The Upper Midwest, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania are the new battlegrounds. Trump made history winning the three in 2016 (by 77,000 votes), and Biden made history in winning them back in 2020 (by 257,000 votes). In 2024, Minnesota, North Carolina and Texas will join those five states as the battlegrounds for next presidential race.

Opponents of the President, hoping for a blow out win for Team Biden in order to discredit GOP governance over the past four years, were sorely disappointed. While Trump was defeated, narratives that Trump advanced clearly had resonance with a broad swath of the country, which was seen in other parts of the nation on Election Day.

The Senate:

2020 was supposed to be a Democrat year in the Senate. With a 53-47 Republican majority, Democrats needed to net three seats (with a Biden win) or four seats (with a Trump win) to take back the chamber. With unprecedented cash, and a slate of credible candidates, Democrats targeted Susan Collins in Maine, Thom Tillis in North Carolina, Joni Ernst in Iowa, and Martha McSally in Arizona. This autumn, both of Georgia’s senators, Kelly Loeffler and Dave Perdue were also put on the list. At the same time, Democrats and Republicans alike recognized that Democrat Doug Jones would lose in Alabama, while Republican Cory Gardner was doomed in Colorado, effectively canceling each other out.

But the anticipated sweep did not materialize. While McSally did lose, Ernst and Collins cruised to re-election, and in hard fought North Carolina, Tillis emerged the winner. With the two Georgia senate races going to a run off on January 5th, the best the Democrats can hope for is a 50-50 split, where Vice President Kamala Harris would break the tie. If the Democrats fail to take either GA race, Mitch McConnell will remain Majority Leader, significantly complicating elements of the Biden governing blueprint.

The House of Representatives:

As with the Senate, Democrats had expected to take 5-15 seats in the House, to pad their existing majority. But on Election Day, it did not pan out. The GOP won three seats in California, two a piece on Florida and Ohio and a number of single seat turnovers in different states to emerge with an 11 seat gain. One seat, NY-22, remains uncalled, with the Democrat leading by 13 votes out of 317,000 votes cast. In January, Speaker Pelosi’s majority will be a mere five seats; a decidedly narrow margin from which to govern.

Come 2021, Pelosi will be taxed to get house-keeping legislation through the chamber, let alone pass a progressive wish list. Indeed, having to deal with both a militant caucus of moderates and an unrepentant crew of young progressives, Pelosi will be seeing ghosts of John Boehner as he tried to reconcile a fractured caucus with a narrow majority.

Governors & State Legislatures:

Ahead of critical redistricting as a result of the 2020 Census, Republicans maintained their dominance in state government. In 2021, the GOP will have a “trifecta” (control of the governors office and both legislative chambers) in 23 states; a gain of two as a result of of changes New Hampshire and Montana. Importantly, the GOP will hold trifectas in four of the six states expected to add seats as a result of the Census: Montana +1, Arizona +1, Florida +1, Texas +2.

Further, the Republicans will have unified control of state legislatures in North Carolina +1, as well as states slated to maintain or lose seats, including Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Kentucky Louisiana and Kansas.

This puts the GOP in the driver’s seat for creating the legislative maps that will inform elections until 2030.

Conclusion:

The 2020 election was a deliberate rejection of Donald Trump and the chaos presidency over which he presided. A troubled leader in relatively calm times, Trump was overwhelmed and out matched when real crisis struck America. He was fundamentally unable to adapt.

But in rejecting Trump, voters did not embrace the most extreme elements of the Democrat platform. Indeed, Biden’s winning campaign narrative was moderate and sober, with promises to address critical problems, embrace competence, and restore governing norms. To restore honor and decency to the Oval Office.

America took Biden at his word, but put in place an effective political insurance policy by depriving both the House and Senate of stable working majorities by either party. The result of the congressional elections serve as guard rails for the Biden presidency to keep it from veering too far to the left.

In sum, in 2021, with legislative majorities so narrow, Biden, Pelosi, and McConnell/Schumer are going to have to do what Americans have been insisting upon for years – work together. With COVID spreading out of control, and the very real possibility of a double dip in the economy as a result, the stakes for the country could not be higher. Success will not be weighed in terms of ideological purity, but tangible results.

In 2020, America voted for competence, moderation and normalcy. Governance by Twitter will end. Political appointees will be hired based on their knowledge and expertise, not on their slavishness to presidential whim. The institutions of government will no longer serve as a backdrop to a presidential reality show. Responsibility and consequence will again matter. Ideological policy choices will be circumscribed as Federal leaders address the biggest domestic crises in generations, and retool for a very different global landscape.

It’s not the result that any partisan would wish for, but it is the result that the we as Americans need.