It has been an eventful, unsettling year: a deadly virus struck without warning and claimed almost a quarter-million American lives; a lockdown demolished personal routines and left us gasping for normality; a sudden, deep recession snatched new-found prosperity from many families; and now a rocket-like recovery lifts up some but leaves many on the launch pad.
So why not finish out 2020 with a misforecast election as the finale?
Pundits predicted a blue tsunami of historic proportions that would carry Democrats into the White House, flip the US Senate, increase Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s caucus by as many as 20 seats, and transform a basketful of red-state legislatures into blue ones just in time for redistricting in 2021.
Well, the White House changed hands. But none of the rest happened.
The final RealClearPolitics average of polls predicted Joe Biden would win the popular vote by 7.2 percentage points. Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com put Biden’s likely margin at eight points. The Cook Political Report had it at “more like 9 or 10 points”. As of Thursday AEDT, with some ballots yet to be counted in California and New York, President Donald Trump trailed Biden by 3.3 points.
Voter turnout was up. Once everything is counted, the turnout rate will likely reach 66.5 per cent, the highest since 1908’s barnburner between William Howard Taft and William Jennings Bryan.
But the nature of this enthusiasm differed by party. The Fox News voter analysis found 51 per cent of Biden supporters voted more against Trump than for the Democratic candidate, while 79 per cent of Trump’s backers voted more for him than against Biden.
Trump also won 26 per cent of non-white voters, according to NBC’s exit poll, driving commentators on the left crazy. One described these voters as “distracted”. A New York Times columnist found it “personally devastating” that many blacks and gays voted for the President. Californian Democrat congresswoman Maxine Waters warned that black male Trump voters “have a price to pay for years to come”. This is what passes for liberal tolerance.
Still, enough voters wanted change. Biden manoeuvred successfully to make the election a referendum on the President’s personality and his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. For months Trump was content to fight on that turf, trying only fitfully to contrast his agenda with his challenger’s.
Presidents win re-election only in part by heralding their achievements and outlining second-term agendas; much more depends on contrasting their opponent’s values and views with their own. That Biden’s margin of victory was much slimmer than projected can be credited partly to Trump’s emphasis in the closing days on their substantive differences: discussing fracking in Pennsylvania and toleration of socialism in Miami. But it wasn’t enough.
Trump is now pursuing legal challenges in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona and Nevada, and there will be an automatic recount in Georgia, given Biden’s 0.29-point lead there. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is correct that Trump is “100 per cent within his rights” to go to court over concerns about fraud and transparency. But the President’s efforts are unlikely to move a single state from Biden’s column, and certainly they’re not enough to change the final outcome.
There are only three statewide contests in the past half-century in which recounts changed the outcome: the 1974 New Hampshire Senate race, the 2004 Washington governor’s contest, and the 2008 Minnesota Senate election. The candidates in these races were separated, respectively, by 355, 261 and 215 votes after election day.
These margins aren’t much like today’s. Biden leads in Wisconsin by 20,540 votes, Pennsylvania by 51,969, Michigan by 146,123, Arizona by 12,828, Nevada by 36,873 and Georgia by 14,108.
To win, Trump must prove systemic fraud, with illegal votes in the tens of thousands. There is no evidence of that so far. Unless some emerges quickly, the President’s chances in court will decline precipitously when states start certifying results, as Georgia will next Friday (Saturday AEDT), followed by Pennsylvania and Michigan on November 23, Arizona on November 30, and Wisconsin and Nevada on December 1. By seating one candidate’s electors, these certifications will raise the legal bar to overturn state results and make it even more difficult for Trump to prevail before the electoral college meets on December 14.
TV networks showed jubilant crowds in major cities celebrating Biden’s victory; they didn’t show the nearly equal number of people who mourned Trump’s defeat. US politics remains polarised and venomous. Closing out this election will be a hard but necessary step toward restoring some unity and political equilibrium. Once his days in court are over, the president should do his part to unite the country by leading a peaceful transition and letting grievances go.
Karl Rove twice masterminded the election of George W. Bush
The Wall Street Journal
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