GOP and Dems are Each Drawing Erroneous Conclusions from 2024
My take on the takes.
Since election day, a little over a week ago, there has been a slew of political takes posturing on why Harris lost or why Trump won, on what happened to the Democrats in this election, and on the trajectory of the Republicans.
One of the things I have learned having worked on or covered nearly every election year since 1980, is most of the time people analyze things from a place of confirmation bias and thus project onto the election results a position they previously retained or annunciated. This often leads to takes that aren’t based in reality and propel candidates and election advisers astray. I am going to take on just a few of these takes, and in a “myth buster” fashion, try to shed some light and maybe settle on what possibly may be the truth.
Most Democrats and nearly all Republicans are drawing wrong conclusions about the results of this election. As I have stated in the aftermath of the election, the biggest predictor of the election results nationally and by state and demographic group was President Biden’s job approval rating.
Biden’s job approval rating was 40% on election day according to exit polls, and in every previous election where an incumbent President or Vice-President ran, what the President’s approval was is what was garnered percentage of the vote-wise on election day. For example, Barack Obama and George W. Bush each had 51% approval on election day, and that is the percentage of the vote they received. It is true of all President’s in the last 50 years, as well as incumbent vice-presidents running for President. In 1988, Reagan had a 55% job approval, and Bush received 53% of the vote in the general election.
So with all this in mind, Vice-president Harris getting north of 48% is a major over-performance, and had never been accomplished before. And Trump being under 50%, as he is likely to end up, is a mammoth under-performance. This all leads to the first myth I want to extinguish.
No matter what Republicans (and media commentators) are saying, Trump has no real mandate in this election and won despite himself not because of himself. It looks as if Trump will win the popular vote by less than 1.5%: which in a historical perspective is one of the smallest margins of victory of any President elected.
Republicans after election day will make a big mistake in thinking copying Trump in either style, tone or substance is a path to victory. On election day, a majority of voters agreed with Harris on most policy, and a majority disliked, distrusted and thought Trump was too extreme. In 2022, many Republicans copied Trump and were soundly beaten in swing states. Trump won because Biden’s job approval was at a dismal low. And even then as mentioned above, Trump under-performed the normal expected result significantly.
Another myth I would like to blow up is that Democrats suffered a significant defeat and need to go back to the drawing board and make major alterations in course. As I said above, Harris over-performed in this election with the anchor of Biden dragging her along the way. And the Democrats won a number of key races, statewide or legislative, on election day in key states like North Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Arizona. As well as passing abortion rights and increased minimum wage referenda in a number of places including red states.
Yes, Democrats should reassess and learn from this election and make adjustments especially in how they communicate with non-college voters, but they are not far off target of where they need to be in order to win at the state and national level.
A further myth related to the above is that somehow identity politics or the woke movement or being too progressive is doing serious damage to the prospects of Democrats winning. This just isn’t born out by election results or polls. On election day, progressive candidates won Senate races in Arizona, Wisconsin, and Nevada. And we don’t have to look back further than two years in 2022 to see many successful progressives winning across all the swing states.
I will give further evidence of this: a poll was done immediately after election day to test the effects of the campaign against the transgender population and attempts to hurt Democrats by association. This polling showed no statistical effects of the ad campaign in jurisdictions where this was launched by right wing forces.
According to this large poll done in swing states by Change Research, there was no persuasion or motivation effects uncovered among voters who recalled seeing these anti-transgender ads versus voters who didn’t see these ads. Specifically, when comparing voters who saw anti-transgender ads and places these ads ran there was no discernible persuasion or motivation effects.
There are so many more myths but I just wanted to take on a few because too often winners and losers take away the wrong lessons from what happens in campaigns and elections. And in this particular election it seems that both Republicans and Democrats are both taking away the wrong lessons. And if you want to win going forward, it is best to understand exactly what happened, not some mythic take pushed by too many.
