Why the GOP is sticking with Trump’s election deceit
Opinion by
Columnist
November 18, 2020 at 4:23 p.m. CST
The
refusal of most Republicans to stand against President Trump’s unconscionable
campaign to discredit a free election is one of the lowest points in the
history of our republic — and a threat to democracy itself.
But
understanding the motivation behind their irresponsibility requires a close
look at what happened in the election itself.
At one
level, the result was a solid defeat of Trump and Trumpism. President-elect Joe
Biden’s projected electoral
college vote matches Trump’s from
four years ago, which back then the president called a “landslide.” Biden’s
popular vote margin is approaching 6 million votes, more than double
Hillary Clinton’s edge four years ago.
The
long-term problem for the country, however, is that the outcome marks the near
complete Trumpification of the GOP, and a far deeper partisan divide than existed
even two years ago. A look at the election data from 2018 and 2020 shows that the alignment
between the Trump vote and support for down-ballot Republicans, particularly in
races for the House of Representatives, is closer than ever.
Democrats
are tearing each other apart because they not only failed to advance in the
House; they actually lost seats. According to the Cook Political Report
vote tracker,
Republicans have netted 11 seats in the House with
five races left to be decided.
What
occurred is less mysterious than the polemics between the party’s wings would
suggest.
The
Democratic victory in House elections in 2018 was sweeping. The party flipped 43 seats and
lost only three for a net gain of 40. More importantly, the Democrats achieved
an unprecedented turnout of
their supporters. Democratic House candidates won 60.7 million votes,
compared with 51 million for the Republicans. Republicans got
10 million more votes than they won in the 2014 midterms, but
the Democrats won an astonishing 25 million more.
When
you look at where the big 2018 turnout increase came from, it’s obvious that
Democratic-leaning constituencies intent on punishing Trump far outperformed
Trump’s core constituencies, perhaps because Trump himself was not on the
ballot.
The Census Bureau found
that turnout among those with college backgrounds, who tend to be Trump
critics, rose significantly more than it did among those who didn’t attend
college. Turnout in metro areas was up 12.2 points; in non-metros — Trump
territory — it rose just 7.7 points.
But in
2020, Trump voters came out in droves and thus boosted down-ballot Republicans.
Trump won over 10 million more votes in 2020 than in 2016 — exit polls
suggest that 6.5 million of his ballots came from first-time voters —
which means he brought new supporters into the electorate who were important to
this year’s House GOP victories.
As one
Democratic strategist noted, “2018 was a wave year because our people showed up
and theirs didn’t. 2020 was like a reversion to the mean because both sides
showed up and right now we’re feeling the whiplash because no public or private
data saw it coming.”
Nothing
is clearer in the outcome than how closely the presidential vote matched the
vote in House races. The latest count in the presidential race shows Biden
with 51 percent of
the popular vote. Cook’s tracker shows Democratic House candidates with 50.4 percent of
the vote.
Democrats
still managed to hold on in more than two-thirds of the 30 districts that went
to Trump in 2016. But this achievement has a telling backstory: On the current
count, it appears that at least 11 of the 30 Trump districts in question
switched to Biden, and several more may eventually move Biden’s way. In these
places, the Democrats’ strong showing in 2018 House races was a leading
indicator of what was to come. So far, Republicans have picked up House seats
in only four 2016 Clinton districts, with two others on the edge.
Going
forward, figuring out how Trump won an additional 10 million votes is one
of the most important questions in politics. Here’s a plausible and
discouraging theory: Given Trump’s intemperate and often wild ranting in the
campaign’s final weeks and the growing public role in GOP politics of QAnon
conspiracists, the Proud Boys and other previously marginal extremist groups,
these voters may well be more radical than the party as a whole. This means
that Republicans looking to the future may be more focused on keeping such
Trump loyalists in the electorate than on backing away from his abuses.
Trump’s
bitterest harvest could thus be a Republican Party with absolutely no interest
in a more moderate course and every reason to keep its supporters angry and on
edge. Ignoring reality and denying Trump’s defeat are part of that effort.
