Election Reaction: Final
/Before we turn entirely away from the election (will that ever really happen?), I wanted to throw out three more final reactions—mostly opinions.
(1) Do you still believe in polling? Of course you don’t. Data scientists typically attribute their “misses” to a few factors: “there was an error in the modeling”; “the media overreacted to what we were saying”; and, “we were really right after all.” Dealing here only with that first one, most people have their own theories, e.g., “Republicans won’t talk to pollsters—or if they do, they lie.” A more concrete example of a modeling problem emerged this year with exit polling—where people are asked question as they walk out of polling places. Since Republican voters were far more likely to vote in person than by mail, it’s not hard to see how questions like, “which issues were most important to you?” tend to create answers skewing to the conservative side. In other words, the sample is contaminated.
But here’s a silver lining with polling. Maybe—just MAYBE—media feeling burned will result in less than wall-to-wall coverage on the horse race aspects of elections, and spend at least a little time explaining how candidates differ in their positions on key issues. Once you distinguish between “single payer” health care and “single payer option”, voters might cast more informed ballots. Wouldn’t that be refreshing?
(2) Here’s why Biden won. Two things. First, Democrats voting in the primaries chose the only candidate who could have beaten Trump. The big swing in this election was in suburban (and to a lesser extent) exurban areas. Many of these were “swing” voters who felt comfortable enough with Biden. They would not have felt that way about Bernie or Warren to the left, or Bloomberg or Steyer from the corporate wing.
Secondly—and disturbingly—COVID-19 elected Biden. It was only Trump’s indifference and ineptitude in fighting the virus that swung enough voters to the Democrat. If Trump were only minimally effective, that would have been enough to win him a second term.
(3) Farewell, Trump? Not a chance. Much air is being expended discussing Trump’s “desperate” attempts to hold on to office here in his dying days. This gets it entirely wrong. This is not a pitiful epilogue; it’s a revealing forward. He knows he’s done this time, so these are just his opening salvos in his 2024 campaign. In the interim, he’ll find cable and digital soapboxes to continue screaming about how he was wronged, and why every single thing the Biden administration does will be ruining the country.
Seventy million people already voted for him. And Trump is a much more attractive candidate when he’s attacking rather than playing defense. Furthermore, because this campaign is already unfolding, Republicans in Congress will continue to cower in fear. There will be no “unity” anytime soon. Biden needs two winners in the Senate races in Georgia to realize actual power. Otherwise, Mitch McConnell will continue to run the country.
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