There are very few times in which I have found myself at a loss for words.
I typed that first sentence 20 minutes ago, and very little has come to mind since then. I awakened today to the election results and while I wasn’t all that surprised by the result, I was stunned by the numbers.
Of the seven states considered swing states, Donald Trump either won or is leading in every one of them. He is leading in the popular vote by 5 million, the first Republican in 20 years to win in both popular and electoral votes.
Republicans won control of the Senate with at least 52 seats and probably one or two more depending on the final totals in Pennsylvania and Nevada. Two prominent Republicans thought to be vulnerable — Ted Cruz in Texas and Rick Scott in Florida — both won landslide victories.
The GOP probably will retain control of the House of Representatives, although that is far from certain at this point.
Sadly, a deeper glance at the numbers would seem to show this was an election that the Democrats lost rather than one that Trump won. The totals will change some, but Trump actually got about 3 million fewer votes this time than he did in 2020.
That’s right, fewer votes.
But the truly shocking number is that Kamala Harris got about 15 million fewer votes this time than Joe Biden got in 2020.
That’s right, 15 million.
So in the year of a global pandemic, 18 million more people voted than voted four years later. Those are people who voted Trump out in 2020 who didn’t think it mattered enough to keep him out in 2024.
Is there a villain in this story, at least for the Democrats? Sadly ,yes.
It’s Joe Biden, who stayed too long at the fair. He saved America from a second Trump term in 2020, but made it almost impossible for his party to field the best ticket in 2024. Biden was the oldest man ever elected president and the first octogenarian ever to serve in the White House.
He should have said no later than the 2022 midterms that he would not seek re-election. Not only would he have received credit for the accomplishments of his first two years, he would have been praised for putting his country over himself.
Maybe most important, he would have given Democrats the chance to go through the entire process of finding the best nominee to follow him. This is not to say that Harris was a bad nominee, but I doubt she would have been the first choice of Democrats voting in primaries.
But doing it the way he did, essentially being dragged out of the race kicking and screaming, Biden essentially left his party in a very difficult position. Harris had never faced voters outside California except as the 2020 vice presidential nominee. In 2020, she withdrew before the first primary and this tear she entered the race after the last primary.
There were at least three or four governors who would have made attractive candidates against Trump — Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Gavin Newsom of California. Even if Harris had won the nomination, she would have been a stronger candidate for beating them.
Instead, Trump was able to attack her as an illegitimate candidate who received no votes in primary elections.
Despite what all the pundits are saying, this election was not about America loving Donald Trump/ Once again, he got fewer votes this time than he did when he lost four years ago.
This was America rejecting a Democratic Party that has gone too far in emphasizing fringe issues and ignoring what really matters to voters.
As James Carville said in 1992, it’s the economy, stupid.