Don’t get me wrong: this was a brilliant victory for Donald Trump and it should be studied by students of US politics. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
I see no reason to retract anything I wrote in Victory two days ago. In fact, I’m going to amplify on the post’s key themes: turnout, Kamala as a historically bad candidate.
It seems that although turnout was depressed, it wasn’t as depressed as I stated it was and millions of “missing voters” might yet be counted. Twenty million missing voters became downgraded to fifteen, to thirteen (by the time I was writing) and it’s being adjusted yet more. 2024 might match 2020 in turnout. Still, Kamala lost. How — and more important — where?
Here’s a couple of key insights from Stephen MacIntyre (@ClimateAudit):
Harris got (a few) more votes than Biden in battleground states1. In states where it didn't matter, low-propensity D voters couldn't be bothered voting for Kamala. And maybe less ballot harvesting in non-battleground states than 2020.
If Biden got 300,000 more votes in the three Blue Wall states, Democrats would have won.
Whew! I will assume he’s right. (If anyone can disprove his assertion, do so.) MacIntyre is what you might call a “climate skeptic” so presumably would be more pro-Trump, or at least sympathetic to a Trump win (he’s Canadian).
That brought on a cascade of thoughts:
MacIntyre is referring to three categories of states: Battleground, Blue Wall, and “States where it didn’t matter” (i.e. CA, NY, MA).
In the last category the depressed turnout contributed to lower the popular vote total - not important electorally, but in terms of legitimacy, yes. The fight was in the first two: Battleground and Blue Wall.
Losing Blue Wall was both indefensible and humiliating. Let’s figure out why.
Seeing Biden’s appearance post-election, which was pretty good, I thought, “why couldn’t they have done something like that after the debate-debacle? Fixed him up, put him in front of the cameras, and fought back?”
They panicked. They gave into the wolf-pack and dumped Biden as a response to the media frenzy. Meanwhile, the average Dem voter was mystified by their behavior and outraged.
The Powers-That-Be were arrogant and thought they could win with Manchurian Barbie.
Obviously this is conjecture, but I’m positive that at least 300,000 of the 2020 Biden voters would have come out to vote for Good Old Joe Biden in those Blue Wall states just one more time. One more win for the Gipper. Probably more than 300K for three states. He might have won all of them.
Obama-Pelosi literally crapped on the heads of Democrat voters. Took them for granted. So they stayed home and Trump benefited.
Cui Bono?
Think of the alternative history: Biden wins a 2nd term, steps aside in the middle of it, and bequeaths us the first woman president, a black one at that. What could have been a greater legacy for a Democratic president?
One final thought. I was going to ask MacIntyre to explain his numbers about the “Blue Wall” and “Battleground” states more specifically but he blocked me. I was shocked, because he answered my questions yesterday courteously and we’ve had no other interactions than those.
I think I know why. Stay tuned. It’s funny.
Interesting. Let’s keep an eye on that.
Wow... if Biden ran, and won the Blue Wall states... he could have won? And then anointed Kamala as the first black woman president? Well, that would have put the final nail in the coffin of the United States of America, making it the United STATE of America. Seems like maybe God giving us another chance to get it right, helping us over the previous hurdle.
Good one!