Message of Election 2020: Trump lost, but Trumpism did not

President Donald Trump lost. But Trumpism did t.It won in parts of country and with voters whom Trump catered to over four years, constantly jabbing hard edges of almost every contentious cultural issue into Red America, on bet that fear and anger were a winning hand. It almost was.

Joe Biden defeated Trump to win presidency, and is on pace to win up to 306 electoral votes, a total that would match what Trump exaggerated as a “landslide” four years ago. In a typical election year, such a victory would mean Biden would have carried or Democrats along with him. Inste, several promising Democratic Senate and House candidates, including incumbents, lost.

For Trump, situation was inverse. His popularity among his base voters helped protect incumbent Republicans but was t eugh to save him. He won more votes for president than any or candidate. Except Biden. rejection of Trump was personal.

election did little to suggest that country was suddenly less polarized. Trump wrung out votes from areas where he alrey h a core of support, in rural and small-town America. Biden did same, only more, in urban and suburban America while also holding down Trump margins in some rural areas. outcome didn’t change fact that much of country is still speaking two different political langus.

“This defied everyone’s expectations. Everyone said if Joe Biden wins, Democrats win Senate. If Trump wins, Republicans win Senate," said Rahm Emanuel, former mayor of Chicago and chief of staff to President Barack Obama. "That’s t what happened. Clearly re was an undertow.

“Life is t binary," Emanuel said. "It’s more complicated. Florida, a state that voted for Trump, voted for minimum w. Illiis, a state that voted for Biden, voted down a progressive income tax. California, cobalt blue, voted against affirmative action in place of employment.”Emanuel said that Democrats may have erred in t offering clearer plans about how y would rebuild ecomy while also gaining control over virus and in t batting back Republican efforts to label m socialists.

“Trump played to people’s fatigue about COVID," he said. "If we h brought same sense of urgency to getting ecomy moving as we did getting COVID under control, it might have been different.”Inste, some Democrats were vocating for expanding Supreme Court and ending filibuster in Senate, proposals that might have prompted fear about one-party control.

“It’s clear re was more voter frustration with Trump than with ideology of Republican Party,” said Mike Murphy, a strategist to several Republican presidential campaigns who broke with his party over Trump. “Clearly presidential race was operating in its own world from congressional race.”

Since Trump campaigned largely on friendly turf, he also helped Republican candidates in those areas.“Trump lifted Republican candidates by vastly boosting turut in areas of Republican strength," said David Axelrod, former senior viser Obama. "In states and districts that favor Republicans, y ran up score.”

Many voters offered a consistent refrain about Trump: y liked his policies but could t abide his anger-fueled personality, his constant use of Twitter as a weapon, and way he ridiculed anyone who dared disagree with him.Biden’s call for a return to decency, and his appeal to be a president for all Americans and t just base of his party, was an important part of his formula.

But closeness of race, even with president’s persistently low approval ratings, was also a testament to inherent power of an incumbent seeking reelection. re’s a reason only three elected incumbents before Trump h lost in nearly a century.

When an incumbent loses, challenger’s party often gains. In 1980, when Ronald Reagan defeated President Jimmy Carter, Republicans took 12 Senate seats from Democrats. In 1992, Bill Clinton’s victory over President George H.W. Bush also came with three Democratic Senate victories over incumbent Republicans. When Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated President Herbert Hoover in 1932, Democrats gained nearly 100 House seats and a dozen in Senate, giving Roosevelt muscular majorities he needed to pass sweeping New Deal legislation.

But president in recent memory h maintained such iron-grip allegiance from his own party as Trump, with only a handful of Republicans in Congress ever willing to cross him, fearing that y were always one presidential tweet away from a primary challenge. y stuck with him during his impeachment, when only Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, voted to convict him, and Trump ostracized him. And several were sticking with him even in defeat, offering up unproven allegations of voter fraud.

Some voters liked Trump's tough talk on tre and getting or nations to pay more for common defense. y gave him credit, right or wrong, for an ecomy that was buoyant before pandemic struck. And Trump played to Americans’ fatigue from all restrictions imposed because of virus by saying warnings of his own ministration’s top public health officials were overblown.

Still, re was a collective limit to how much more of Trump’s always-in-your-face presidency y were willing to take.t eugh, though, to deliver Biden a majority in Senate, at least t until outcome of two ruff elections in Georgia in January.

But some Democrats also ted that y held most seats in swing states, and that Biden won in some competitive districts. “re are also many districts that Biden flipped from 2016, like my district," said Rep. Elaine Luria of Virginia. She said her margin of victory over same opponent more than doubled from 2018.

“ bottom line on Republicans winning in tritionally Republican-held seats was ir unprecedented turut,” Luria said. “Trump was t able to capitalize on that turut himself, because his actions and rhetoric over last four years me him unpalatable to majority of Americans.”

Biden clearly was seen as both a necessary and acceptable alternative. He h pithy slogan like “Hope and Change” when he was Obama’s running mate in 2008. Rar, he tapped into a national desire to stop ise, to turn p from a period so marked by r and hate inspired from White House itself.

(Im Credit: AP) 

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