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It will take some time before the full picture of this election, Trump’s and Biden’s respective failures and successes become known. On thing that is clear, to me at least, is that a fair amount of conventional wisdom that looked very sensible over the past weeks and months has been debunked.

Failure of the #NeverTrumpers

Perhaps the most important piece of conventional wisdom was that moderate Republicans, who reluctantly voted Trump in 2016, would be fed up with the chaos, incompetence and corruption in the White House and would therefore side with the other side this time around. ‘Biden may want to repeal those sweet, sweet Trump tax cuts but at least he didn’t cosy up to foreign dictators and throw US political norms out of the window. There are, after all, more important things than money.’

Republicans criticising the President reinforced what many wanted to hear. But they wanted to hear it so much that their prominence became outsized relative to their share of voters.

This conventional thinking has been reinforced by the prominence of #NeverTrumpers in the media at least in Dutch media. These traditional Republicans, who had often worked for George W. Bush, John McCain or Mitt Romney, bemoaned what Trump did to their Grand Old Party and served as proof that ‘real’, competent, modest and fair Republicans repudiated Trump’s nativism and general nastiness.

The fact that the Neo-conservatives for whom they worked were widely branded as near-fascists for their support of the war in Iraq or pro-business policies a mere ten years ago, did not matter. We applauded the Lincoln Project for their videos taking down Donald Trump and his allies, even though they were made by the same people who we indignantly criticised for throwing mud at John Kerry and Al Gore. Interviews with and books written by people such David Frum and Rick Wilson confirmed what we wanted to hear: ‘You see? Even their own side is against them It can’t be long now before they take back the reins.’

Although I am not sure whether we have a full picture of the vote as of yet, I don’t think we can comfortably say the moderate Republicans turned their backs on the president when he received more votes than four years ago. Suburban Karens may have been persuaded by Trump’s law and order message. Florida retirees liked the direction their stock portfolios were going. It seems likely these demographics stayed with the President.

Principled Republicans criticising the President reinforced what many wanted to hear. But they wanted to hear it so much that their prominence became outsized relative to their share of voters.

Failure of data

As in 2016, it may very well be that reports of the death of polling and how wrong they were are entirely premature. When all the votes are in, they may very well be within the margin of error. But the fact remains that many were once again blind sided by polls favouring the Democratic candidate. The polls seem to have been especially wrong in senate races, for example Susan Collins’s.

The 2020 race showed that a gut instinct of voters is at least as important as data and modelling.

Before the pandemic hit, I remember watching a series of interviews with four or so traditionally Democratic voters, who voted for Trump in 2016. They spent most of the interviews talking about how much they disliked Trump’s character and behaviour as President. They ended, however, by saying that they would certainly vote for Trump again. No matter how much they disliked him, only he championed their interests. Many probably spent too little time watching interviews such as these. For all the poverty safari’s in rust belt America, the media did not sufficiently give the qualitative insight that may have given a better sense of where this was going to go.

Whether the fault of the polls themselves or how audiences and media interpreted them, the 2020 race showed that a gut instinct of voters is at least as important as data and modelling.

Failure of the ‘diminishing demographic thesis’

The Republican Party has only once won the popular vote since 1988, namely when George W Bush defeated John Kerry in 2004. This is usually brought up as evidence for the thesis that the traditional Republican base of middle-aged white people is shrinking and giving way to a more diverse, multi-ethnic America that automatically favoured the Democratic Party. With that demographic transition, the thinking goes, the Republican Party is destined for the dust bin.

The record share of the vote among minorities, especially Latinos, calls this piece of conventional wisdom into doubt. In an interesting interview with Dutch daily Het Financieele Dagblad, political scientist Patrick Deneen thinks that the Republican Party has the best cards to form a new multi-racial, working class party. The Republican Party, for now at least, is the party of economic nationalism and protectionism of blue collar jobs.

Although time will tell how the two major parties are going to evolve and realign, I think Prof. Deneen may be on to something. Either way, the Democrats would be foolish to take any vote, let alone that of large demographic groups, for granted.

The reason Biden won, by the thinnest of margins in swing states, is that he managed to bring out and excite his base to an extent that Hillary Clinton could not.

Getting out the vote still drives electoral succes

One piece of conventional wisdom has survived this election cycle: you have to focus on getting your own base excited enough to vote, rather than convincing the other side to vote for you. As written above, Trump received significantly more votes than in 2016. I don’t think the Democrats managed to bring back a lot of voters that went from Obama in 2008 and 2012 to Trump in 2016.

The reason Biden won, by the thinnest of margins in swing states, is that he managed to bring out and excite his base to an extent that Hillary Clinton could not. Elections in the US are not so much a matter of convincing the other side as much as a race who can excite their own the most. Looking forward to the future of the Democratic Party in 2024 and beyond, this suggests they will veer toward the more hard left wing.

What’s next?

Even FOX News has called the race in favour of Joe Biden and disavowed Trump’s claims of fraud. Members of the Trump family are looking at each other who should break the news to pops. Trump allies in Congress so far have mostly refuse to support Trump. This suggests that Trump will at some point concede in one way or another – albeit in a Trumpian fashion. But images of him being dragged out of the White House seem far-fetched.

Nevertheless, it seems highly likely to me that Trump will remain a force in US politics for the time being. Eric Trump’s thinly veiled threat on Twitter that prominent Republicans better start speaking out in favour of his father’s fraud allegations ‘if they want to have a chance of election in 2024’ suggests that Trump sees himself as a Kingmaker for the GOP and an oracle for MAGA and the America First movement.

Be prepared for more, even cruder comments being broadcast from Trump Tower, leading to the usual, repetitive responses of indignation and offence from the left. In other words: more of the same.