I predicted President Trump would lose reelection last January, before the coronavirus pandemic was on the radar screen. When the pandemic exploded in March, I insisted the virus would finish Trump’s presidency. And as the depth of the coronavirus recession became apparent, I thought Democratic challenger Joe Biden wouldn’t just beat Trump, but would wallop him.
I was right about Trump losing, obviously. But I was wrong about voters broadly repudiating Trump, which they didn’t. And if not for the coronavirus, Trump probably would have won, disproving my contention that Trump is fatally out of step with what the majority of Americans want.
Trump, it turned out, overperformed in the election, compared with other incumbents who have run for a second term during or immediately following a recession. A model developed by Alan Abramowitz of Emory University combines GDP growth with a president’s popularity rating to forecast the electoral votes he’s likely to receive, based on historical outcomes. By that measure, Trump should have bombed. Second-quarter GDP fell by 9.5%, while Trump’s net approval rating (approval minus disapproval) at the end of the second quarter was -15. According to the Abramowitz model, Trump should have won just 131 electoral votes. He won 232 instead.
Another model, by Oxford Economics, measured economic conditions in swing states to forecast whether the incumbent or the challenger would win those key voters, based on their economic well-being. That model forecast Trump would lose with just 35% of the popular vote, when in fact he lost with 47%. The Oxford model also predicted that in a high-turnout election—which we had—Trump would lose Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which he did. But the model said he would lose Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio, Iowa and Missouri, which Trump held onto. That high-turnout model predicted just 104 electoral votes for Trump, which was short by 128.
Narrow win
Incoming President Joe Biden won a comfortable electoral victory over Trump, 306-232. When Trump won with the same 306 electoral votes in 2016, he called his own performance a “landslide.” But Biden’s win was deceptively narrow. He won three states—Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin—by less than 1 percentage point, and if Trump had won those three states, the electoral vote would have been tied at 269-269, sending the election into turmoil. Biden won Pennsylvania by just 1.2 points. Had he lost that state plus the other three, Trump would have won without dispute.
There are three possible lessons here. First, Joe Biden is not entering office with the type of “mandate” that might allow him to steamroll new policies voters are demanding. Voters are deeply ambivalent about Biden. He’ll have trouble getting Democratic priorities through Congress, even if his party wins both Georgia runoff races on Jan. 5, gaining a one-vote majority in the Senate. Biden plans to use executive action on issues like climate regulation, immigration and health care. That doesn’t mean voters will automatically approve, and if they don’t they’ll let Biden know in the 2022 midterm elections, when Democrats could lose the House.
The second lesson is that left-wing Democrats are a major problem for the party. Trump’s description of Biden as a left-wing extremist was wrong, but it worked with voters and probably limited the scale of Biden’s victory. Many Trump voters are convinced Biden will force socialism down their throats, and while that’s absurd, the massive wealth distribution favored by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez worries even moderates. This “progressive” wing of the party seems to be gaining strength, which could further fuel the Trumpian populism that’s a comparable counterforce.
Third, there’s a large chunk of the electorate still looking for outside candidates able to shake things up in Washington. Trump captured them for four years, but Trump won’t run for office again, and his stature is rapidly diminishing as his obsession with losing becomes megalomania. Trump did something unexpected in the 2020 race, by enlarging his base of working-class whites—another reason Trump overperformed. Democrats dismiss this group as a diminishing demographic, but it’s not gone yet and it nearly gave Trump another four years in office. Maybe somebody else should start paying attention to them.
Rick Newman is the author of four books, including “Rebounders: How Winners Pivot from Setback to Success.” Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman. Confidential tip line: rickjnewman@yahoo.com. Click here to get Rick’s stories by email.
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