Both parties have lessons to learn from 2020
2020 was a wild year politically but it’s clear that it was just the beginning.
The 2020 Presidential election, and the Congressional races, turned out to be just as unpredictable as we all thought they would be. My prediction of a Biden victory in the Presidential race came true, but the impact mail-ins had on the race I admit to totally underestimating; they handed President-elect Biden a larger victory in the electoral college than I thought he would manage to achieve.
States are still to be called, votes are still being counted and seats are still being filled but the outcome is now clear. No doubt legal challenges will drag on and the US is now a country where at least half the population believes their process is fraudulent, but these battles will not change the overall picture that President Trump lost his bid for re-election.
What then can both parties learn from the race(s)? For the Republicans, it was a positive night in many regards. They held onto many states including Florida, Ohio, Iowa and North Carolina and their losses in other states were quite narrow; an increase in the Republican vote share being seen nationwide. Seventy-two million votes stand at the highest for any Republican ticket, so the party certainly has successes to build upon and a real shot at the next election. Their Senate and House races defied the polls, the standout wins being in Iowa, South Carolina, and Maine. It’s clear, even if the Georgia runoffs go the way of the Democrats, that Biden will have a challenge ahead of him in when it comes to moving his agenda through Congress.
Yet it’s not all good for the Republican Party. They still lost all three rust belt states and failed to run up the vote share enough in states they were gunning to flip such as Nevada and Minnesota. Trump’s campaign failed to see that merely attacking Biden was not going to help, people were voting Biden because they despised the way the President acted and not because they believed in Biden as a candidate or his policy platform. Therefore, the President should have been more unifying in his message so he could speak to enough suburban and even some urban voters in order to hold onto the states we all know have fallen through his grasp.
If the Republican Party wants to win in the future, they have a fine line to walk. If they continue to stand by Trump and pick him, or one of his family, as the 2024 candidate then they will almost certainly lose. The President created new energy for the Republicans and pulled off the best performance he could as a candidate, but to go further they need to shift away from Trump’s character. His policy platform appealed to minorities and LGBT people, improving on his 2016 vote share, but his divisive rhetoric drove record Democrat turnout. Going for Trump again would be one of the worst moves the party could make.
By that same token, rejecting his blue-collar and vibrant vision altogether would hurt the party in a different way, and fail to maintain the energy they have achieved across the board at this election. It’s time for someone new to take up the helm and work out a long-term strategy as early as they can, because the Democrats will no doubt be ten steps ahead. Forget Trump, the Democratic agenda of adding new states, scrapping filibuster and the possiblity of them packing the Supreme Court should terrify real conservatives. It is essential for the survival of their system, and the constitution, that the party succeeds into the future.
Turning to the Democrats, they have a lot to celebrate too. Their voter registration drives have put so many red states entirely into play, putting the aging Republicans on the defence. Joe Biden was the right candidate to build the broad coalition of voters needed to win the Presidential race, and I could see early on that he was going to defeat President Trump unless there was fundamental change – which never materialised. They did not get everything they wanted, but they too improved their performance in almost every race they took part in with a base just as energised as the Republicans. Yet their poor performance in the House and their failure to pick up essential Senate seats coupled with their disappointing performance in Florida should worry them.
For the Democrats, Hispanics, African Americans, and LGBT Americans all shifted slightly towards the Republican Party in a race that was centred so much on racial justice. This illustrates the fact that attacking law enforcement and ‘defunding the police’ is a poison pill to so many Democrats trying to make headway into Republican territory. Ultra-Progressivism helps them in some races, true, but it hurts them hugely in so many others. Joe Biden is very unlikely to run again so picking the right candidate for the Presidential and Congressional races of the future is just as essential for Democrats as it is for Republicans. Once Trump is out the picture, half of the reason they drove voters will evaporate so finding a platform that can really deliver for people is crucial to the party.
Finally, both parties must begin to heal divisions. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris may talk of unity, but the other side did not forget how their party had acted in the last four years. On the other hand, the way Mitch McConnell spends more time blocking proposals than passing them is testament to how both parties must reach out to the other side, or voters are going to become increasingly angry, putting their institutions and the very heart of the nation in danger. 2020 was a wild year politically but it’s clear that it was just the beginning.
