Nary A Single Vote

As the Democratic primary elections kick into high gear before what may well be a decisive month of March, the November 2020 general election looms over the American political landscape. Based on polling, many Democrats are prioritizing the selection of a candidate that can beat Donald Trump (rather than voting their specific ideological/policy interests). Because of the current focus on finding this Democratic standard bearer, identifying President Donald J. Trump’s position with the electorate has actually taken a subservient position in the media discourse.

Of course, where Trump stands with the American voter is probably the most critical piece of the success of the President’s re-election puzzle.  Most elections that involve incumbent Presidents are referenda on that incumbent.  With Donald Trump, who has utterly dominated the political conversation since late 2015, this dynamic seems even more paramount in 2020.

One of the most effective ways for the challenger of an incumbent President to emerge victorious is to make inroads into voting blocs that went in favor of the incumbent in the prior election.  While few incumbent Presidents have lost in recent decades, Ronald Reagan’s victory over Jimmy Carter was powered by the “Reagan Democrat,” depicted as a working class union member who bucked his previous loyalty to the Democrats to pull the lever for the pro-growth optimist who didn’t apologize for his devotion to American greatness (and Reagan himself was a … former Democrat).  In a losing effort, Mitt Romney’s inroads into suburban areas skeptical about Barack Obama’s healthcare policy fostered a much closer 2012 than 2008 race (and Romney’s inability to make the same inroads among working class white Obama voters ultimately sunk his campaign).

Turning to Trump 2020, the Democrats making similar gains among 2016 Trump-voting blocs seems nigh impossible.  For better or worse, Donald J. Trump has delivered for his voters.  First, Trump promised that he was an economic salve for a nation still hurting from the 2008-10 Great Recession.  And under Trump, growth has been strong, unemployment historically low, and wages up – particularly at the lowest end of the economic ladder where wage gains had been lacking in recent years.  Second, Trump promised that he would shake up the immigration consensus in Washington, which had coalesced around an acceptance of at least some illegal immigration via the southern border with Mexico.  While Trump has largely failed to build his wall, his often questioned, sometimes brutal, and occasionally brilliant (the Trump Administration’s “safe third country” agreements with Guatemala and other nations have been exceedingly effective solutions to the asylum crisis) strategy is a dramatic break from recent immigration policy in Washington.  Third, Trump vowed to “drain the swamp” and take on the “Deep State” in DC.  For many of his voters, his unrelenting attacks on his political enemies and a relatively liberal federal bureaucracy constitute exactly this (the effectiveness of this strategy is another matter).  Fourth, as some on the right have taken a special joy in enraging the left, it would be hard to find anyone amongst the 330M or so Americans more effective in achieving this “goal” than Trump.  On the flip side, the obvious warts of President Trump – his Twitter account, his zeal to “punch down,” his thin-skinned response to most attacks and counterattacks, and his distasteful personal behavior – were not hidden prior to the 2016 election; the Trump voter knew what he or she had endorsed.

And even more importantly to the 46.1% of the 2016 electorate who selected Donald J. Trump – a political novice and complete wildcard – as President, three years ago there existed serious doubts about Trump’s loyalty to the Republican Party.  Today, there exists no doubt whatsoever as to the GOP bona fides of President Trump; he is a Republican.  Some may retort that Trump has only become a Republican because the GOP has become the Party of Trump; at best, this is only half right.  The GOP may be far more deferential to a President Trump than it was to candidate Trump, but in obtaining that loyalty, Trump has effectively conceded his less conservative policy positions (with maybe the sole exception of tariffs), has staffed (and then re-staffed) his administration with Republican loyalists, and has relentlessly campaigned for whatever GOP candidates will have him.  President Trump saunters into the 2020 race as the face of Republicanism.

To a considerable degree, President Donald J. Trump has spent four years delivering for his voters.  From policy to personality, Trump is whom he said he would be, and he’s done it as a Republican.  When assessing the Democratic ability to take back the White House, the opposition party should count on winning nary a single vote among Trump 2016 supporters.*

*Because Trump won only 46.1% nationally, a limited ability to flip Trump 2016 voters is hardly fatal to the left.  However, it is instructive in that a winning electoral strategy likely includes retaining Clinton 2016 voters, winning big among the 6% of the electorate that selected “neither of the above” in 2016, and turning out new and non-participant voters from the last election, rather than “converting” prior Trump voters.

Democratic Primary Update: In this blogger’s last piece, he predicted Joe Biden to win the 2020 Democratic nomination, premised on the theory that Biden would turn in respectable finishes in IA, NH, and NV (three good states for Bernie Sanders), and then catapult into the lead with a big performance in SC.  Instead, Biden’s listless efforts in IA and NH have muddled the lane of establishment-type Democrats and provided a huge opening for the Senator Sanders’ insurgency to win a number of primaries via smallish pluralities.  Here’s expecting a Sanders blowout tomorrow in Nevada, a huge Super Tuesday for “The Bern,” and an ultimate battle of the outsiders between Trump and Sanders come November.

Democratic Primary Update #2 (Super Tuesday morning): Disregard the last two-thirds of the sentence in the prior upside and revert back to my original prediction.  The Bernie Nevada blowout has fizzled in one of the great weeks in Democratic primary history (for Joe Biden).  A respectable debate, the Jim Clyburn endorsement in South Carolina, a blowout among African American primary voters in SC and a solid showing among white voters there, Mayor Pete, Amy Klobuchar, Beto (well, Beto doesn’t much matter) … not sure we will ever see a comparably big primary week for anyone.  As projected in January, Biden versus Trump.