About Last Night
The unexpected landslide and why it happened
Trump Landslide. Here we are a day after the election, preparing to usher Donald J. Trump back into the White House after a four-year hiatus. Trump exceeded virtually everyone’s expectations. Very few people projected that Pennsylvania would be called for him by the end of the night, much less Wisconsin. And I never heard anyone claim he would win the popular vote, too, yet he did so by nearly five million votes.
The Underperformer. As remarkable as Trump’s bounce back is Kamala Harris’ implosion. She underperformed Joe Biden in almost every location and among almost every voting bloc. My first takeaway from her failed bid is that she never solidified who she was among the American people. In addition to an ever-evolving position on some key issues, she mistakenly thought that people were generally attuned to who the vice president of the United States is and what he or she stands for. That opened the door for the Trump campaign to define her more than she defined herself.
Second, and more importantly, identity politics doesn’t work. Her “Opportunity for Black Men” not only fell flat but probably contributed to her loss among the demographic. She got 80% of the African-American vote, down from the 90% that Biden received. She also lost a considerable number of Latinos to Trump versus four years ago, likely a result of oversimplifying and misunderstanding where they stand on issues like illegal immigration.
Despite the narrative Harris and her allies tried to drive around a “Handmaid’s Tale” dystopian future under Trump, and are still complaining about it being a “man’s man’s man’s world” now, Harris actually lost white women, a critical target audience for her. Ouch.
Humans are not prototypes. They are complicated beings with nuanced views. This election proves that putting them in a box and demanding their vote because of their race, gender, or other stereotype isn’t the way to win an election.
Trump will now control the executive branch, and with a GOP Senate majority, he will also have considerable influence over the future of the federal courts. Whether he can get other policies passed is still TBD until we know whether Republicans hold onto the House, and if so by how much.
State Races. Not only was last night a big election nationally, but all 99 state House seats and half the state Senate were also on the ballot. There will be no change in the makeup of the state legislature, with Republicans holding onto all their seats. This is a blow for Democrats, who spent heavily in a handful of districts that they believed had turned purple enough to take. Not only did they fail to win any of those seats, they barely held onto one of their own. Incumbent Rep. Ronnie Glynn (D-Clarksville) clung to victory by just 131 votes.
Choices. In almost all these races, the Democrats attacked one type of choice while hyping the other. They ran against school choice and heavily talked about what they see as draconian abortion restrictions imposed by the GOP supermajority. Thing is, these messages didn’t work.
Democrats just cannot fathom that people—even their own voters—support school choice and limits on abortion. And the Democratic challengers’ unabashed attempts to prioritize these issues in competitive races with no win to show for it proves it.
Turning Purple. I have been of the mind that a few areas of the state are starting to turn from red to blue, making them more competitive seats and potential pickups for Democrats. A few of these areas include Shelby County east of Memphis, wider swaths of Montgomery County outside of the already-blue Clarksville city center, and parts of Rutherford County. While it’s hard to compare mid-term election years versus presidential elections due to roughly twice the turnout in the latter, it’s still instructive.
Indeed, Rep. John Gillespie (R-Memphis) won by a much tighter margin in what is the most competitive House district in the state. In 2022, he won by more than 10 points but won by just over three this year. And that’s after running what most observers say was the best-run campaign of the cycle.
In Rutherford County, both competitive House races were also held by the Republican incumbent by a smaller margin than the last cycle. Both Rep. Robert Stevens’ and Rep. Mike Sparks’ margins were two percentage points less than they were in 2022. These aren’t groundbreaking shifts, but Trump drove a heavy GOP turnout this year, which might have masked how marginal these districts are becoming. It will be important to watch how they continue to trend in future elections and what impact that could have on the state legislature’s makeup.