Key takeaways from the 2020 General Election

As the glow from Joe Biden’s delayed, but euphoric victory over Donald Trump is beginning to fade, I’ve been thinking a lot about what we learned from this 2020 election about politics and America.

Turnout can go up — We had the highest turnout (close to 67%) since the turn of the century. This was great but it proved a myth that higher turnout directly favors Democrats. In fact, Trump got the 2nd highest votes of any presidential candidate in history and in aggregate we should feel good about the overall representativeness of the process. The biggest issue with turnout we now face may reside in the system itself. We saw turnout in the 70’s in the Upper Midwest where the election was most hotly contested, but turnout was weak in areas of the country that were not most competitive. Turnout was under 50% in NY, just 55% in California and about the same in safe red states like Oklahoma & Mississippi. I’m very concerned about the lack of voter participation in these extreme red & blue areas and what it means for civic engagement moving forward.

Our election systems have improved dramatically — Despite all of the noise around 50 states, 50 systems, as unfair as it is that each state has a different system, what’s clear is that each state’s Secretary of State ran a professional and fair process under the bounds of their laws. In a sense, 2020 served as a fitting bookend to 2000, when for the first time I realized how dirty the balloting process could be, how deceptive it was and how a crooked Secretary of State (Katherine Harris) could have an unfair and outsized influence on the direction of the country. If 2000 was a painful one month examination into the ills of how ballots are created, counted and recounted (or not), 2020 was a three and a half day examination of the systems in Georgia, Nevada, Arizona & Pennsylvania and I was impressed with all of them except for perhaps Nevada, whose count was inexplicably slow. I was especially impressed by the respective Secretaries of State and local election officials of both parties when they appeared on TV; they were capable, professional, well-prepared and poised when the attention was on them. We’ve come a long was as a country and it’s sad given Trump’s rhetoric that the state of our voting should make every American feel proud about the integrity of at least the voting & counting parts of the process. There is much to be done to harmonize rules, access and in some states like NY, fix the overall process, but I came away highly impressed.

The lines of our politics have changed - If you told any political pundit 20 years ago that someone could win the presidency despite losing Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania they would be stunned. Due to lower cost of living, ample inexpensive housing, education and a shift to high-tech jobs, major population shifts are diversifying formerly Republican hotbeds and politics are moderating in the Sub Belt. Meanwhile, as the Upper Midwest’s population ages, remains predominantly white and remains stagnant as manufacturing continues it’s slow death, it is getting redder and redder. I have a mains feeling in order to hold onto the Presidency, Democrats may not be able to count on the “Great Blue Wall” and more inroads in the Sun Belt will need to be made to have a winning coalition in the future. We are likely to see NC, GA, TX & AZ emerge as the new battleground fulcrums in American politics. The front lines are likely to fall along racial & social grounds, whereas issues of class seem to divide & bedevil each party. This was not an election where immigration was a major issue and I think that was intentional as I don’t think the issue is good for either party at this point.

Don’t expect big things to change for the next 2 years with divided congress - With democrats needing to win two runoffs - and I don’t expect them to win either — it’s likely Republicans will continue to control the Senate. Though Biden & Harris can do a lot with executive actions to reverse Trump’s executive actions, aside from a lame-duck compromise for COVID-19 stimulus, I don’t think much can be done legislatively. Biden will be forced to have a centrist cabinet, he won’t be able to restock the courts with liberals, hopes of a comprehensive fix to Obamacare, a repeal of the Trump tax cuts & comprehensive immigration reform are off the table. Legislatively we can expect battles over the deficit and tax policy as the Trump Tax cuts had some provisions that will expire to help for scoring that each party will want to fix and will result in quite a bit of hanging.

Trump will not go away quietly - This election result and the aftermath was far from a repudiation from him and his grip on the party. He has shown no regard for precedent and without the trappings of office, he has even less incentive to censor himself. Without a permanent staff and the carrot of re-election, he will have fewer people around him to take away his phone when he is at his worst. Given that he could run again in four years, it’s possible even we could see another rematch. At his advanced age and what may be a lot of negative press over the next 3 years (an eternity in politics), I question whether the it’ll still be there for him but he’s likely to be a king maker, whether for one of his children, Mike Pence or (perish the thought) Rudy Giuliani. This election may be the worst news for those like Ted Cruz & Niki Haley, viable and compelling Republican alternatives outside of Trump’s orbit who are unlikely

The politics were what we thought it was - Often the big picture tells more than the tactics. Four years ago there was a feeling that any Republican could win the White House until Trump showed up. This year, the feeling was that the Democrats had to run a centrist or else the candidate would alienate moderates the way that Clinton did and Trump would win easily. That was until Trump so badly bungled his coronavirus response that the feeling was that he had no chance. Though the polls signaled there could be a landslide, the race ended up like we thought it would in the spring with a tight race principally decided in the Upper Midwest and where Biden focused his energies. The polls were remarkably close on the electoral college, perhaps only missing North Carolina as a state where pundits thought Biden was almost certain would win and did not. The real question that we will never know was whether Biden was the right candidate to beat Trump. Clearly he did, but the central thesis to his candidacy was that he was the right candidate to hold the Blue Wall in the Midwest and he did. But progressives will point to the fact that Biden did little to win over “Reagan Democrat” areas and instead won the states by intense turnout in the cities and a wave of support in the Pittsburgh & Philadelphia suburbs. So would a more dynamic progressive candidate like Warren or Sanders drive even more intense urban turnout? My concern is doing so could have caused a large swath of suburban voters to at minimum sit on their hands and hand the election to Trump but you won’t hear that from many in the party.

Fear works — Going back many years it seems voting against something or someone seems to be the most compelling factor in American politics. This year it was a fear of Trump, four years ago it was a fear of immigrants (and to a lessor extent the Clintons). This is what in many ways was so inspiring about the ‘08 election because it felt like we were really voting for something with Obama’s rhetoric. It’s clear that it’s going to be quite difficult to move the needle in the future. Politics will center on enthusiasm and fear — on both sides — for quite some time.