It was not the romp Democrats predicted, to put it mildly. Nevertheless, the nightmare of 2016 has not returned. At this point in 2016, Hillary Clinton had lost and the country was reeling at the prospect of four years of President Trump. As of early Wednesday, former vice president Joe Biden's route to the presidency runs through Arizona, Wisconsin and Michigan. The country, rather than reeling, is recoiling at the sight of an American president demanding the vote-counting be stopped and vowing to go to the Supreme Court to make it so.
First, let's look at what did not happen. Biden did not score the landslide victory that national polling, and even some state polling, suggested. The pollsters will return to their offices, and perhaps simply acknowledge that a Ouija board might be just as useful in prognosticating elections.
Second, Biden did not score hoped-for breakthroughs in Texas, Iowa or Florida. Underperformance in Miami-Dade is the culprit, for now, suggesting that the Cuban American community in Florida is more enamored with Trump than ever. Texas's blue shift remains, once more, an aspiration and not a reality. Biden narrowed the nine-point margin from 2016, but there is work left to do. By contrast, Arizona will send a second Democratic senator to Washington and, with a big assist from Cindy McCain's endorsement of Biden, voted Democratic for president for the first time since 1996.
Third, the crop of Democratic Senate candidates could not get the job done in red states such as North Carolina, Iowa, Texas or Montana. Ticket-splitters are indeed an endangered species.
What does appear to be in the works is a small but decisive win for Biden that recaptures critical states behind the blue wall (Wisconsin, Michigan) and makes small breakthroughs into red states such as Arizona and, perhaps, Georgia. If he succeeds, it will be thanks to his ability to reunite Black and White working-class voters and his gains in the suburbs. Biden still may achieve a popular-vote majority more akin to 2004, when President George W. Bush won with 286 electoral votes and a 2-point popular-vote margin.
On a positive note, the mechanics of voting and the level of turnout defied predictions of chaos and violence. Trump's middle-of-the-night invitation to short-circuit democracy was widely rebuked on all news outlets, including by Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, conservative CNN pundit Rick Santorum and ABC commentator and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie. The vote-counting will continue. There is no mechanism for the Supreme Court to decree Trump president.
Sadly, for those who hoped 2016 was a total aberration, America remains deeply and more evenly divided than Democrats and the mainstream media imagined. Trump's racism and know-nothingism seem to be a feature and not a bug for tens of millions of Americans. The parallel universe of right-wing media is not evaporating anytime soon. If the electoral map is shifting with a more diverse population, it is occurring at a snail's pace. Tribal loyalties remain strong, with a disturbing and vivid racial fault line. Plainly, Democrats did not achieve a breakthrough with Latino voters in Texas and Florida; whether this is a function of Trump's bravado, shortcomings in Democratic outreach or a set of traditional social issues remains to be seen.
With the Senate majority very much up for grabs, Senate Republicans will have very little reason to jettison their anti-government venom or their aversion to fact-based politics. That will prove to be an immense challenge to Biden, should he eventually win the presidency. Years more of dysfunction and gridlock, rather than an era of progressive reform, could be in the offing. It will take all his skill at reconciliation and his experience in operating the levers of government to conquer the pandemic and return the nation to economic prosperity.
Republicans will no doubt decline to engage in any self-reflection. Many will tell themselves that a smarter, more disciplined version of Trump is the key to the party's future. That's a tragedy for the country and for a once-great party.
Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post, November 4, 2020
###
November 4, 2020
Voices4America Post Script. Jennifer Rubin wrote this and tweeted,“It was not the romp Democrats predicted, to put it mildly. Nevertheless, the nightmare of 2016 has not returned."
It is terrible so many of our fellow citizens did not repudiate Trump's cruelty, incompetence, racism and him.
But when all the votes are counted, Joe will win. #CountTheVotes #JoeBiden46
My own best case predictive electoral map is here.
Even if Joe loses PA (which I doubt he will), he still reaches 270 with Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and NE2.
Susan Collins may yet lose, and Kamala as the tie-breaker in the Senate may let Joe pass legislation that will matter to the American people.
And Kamala in her own person will represent some of the change we fight for.
Hey, you want to talk popular vote.
When every vote is counted, Joe will be the biggest voter getter in history.
Yes, a blue night, but January 20 will be a #BlueInaugurationDay.
...
Joe Biden is expected to address the American people today, according to his campaign manager.
