2020 election: key findings
While the official certification of the election result is still days ahead until the sixth of January. Joe Biden is the winner of this year’s presidential election. Barring any scandals and legal challenges, let’s talk about what’s new in the election of 2020.
1. Trump managed to pick up new voters
Most people assumed Trump’s careers were gone after his mishandling of the Coronavirus pandemic and the racial injustice protests of this year. But even when he lost in this election, he still managed to win more votes than he did in 2016, increasing to 74 million from 62 million votes four years ago. Part of this can be attributed to the gains among Latino voters in Florida and those who are living along the Texas border. Cubans and Tejanos, previously lean or often swing voters to Democrats, have largely jumped ship to the GOP this year and widening the margins of winning in states like Florida. The most visible example of this is in Miami-Dade county, where Biden still won the place but Trump’s share of votes has increased, leaving the margin of victory to only 7%. This is way less than in 2016 or 2012, when both Clinton and Obama managed to win larger margins of nearly 30%. There has been a lot of talks of Cubans swinging towards Trump because of “socialism” scare tactics carried out by the Republicans. But if we look at the historical analogy, it’s more likely that these Latinos voted for Trump because they see themselves as white people, not Hispanics or Latinos. This is similar to how the Scotch-Irish, or Irish Protestants, also viewed themselves as whites in contrast to the Catholics in the 19th century. The same can be said for Mexicans living along the Texas border who we often call “Tejanos”. Like the Cubans, these people also view themselves as whites more likely than recent Mexican immigrants. Perhaps if there’s one thing this election has taught us, it’s that identity is more important than ideologies or issues.
2. House Democrats underperformed severely in this election
One of the most shocking findings in this election is that even though Biden won the election with a record number of votes, the Democrats lost seats in the House of Representatives even though polling data had indicated that they could manage to gain more in another “blue wave”. Instead, the Democrats’ share of seats in the House is, currently, at the smallest since 1942. Worse yet, Republicans seem to play into the identity politics as well. 19 Republican freshmen women will serve in the House during the next term. A record. The Democrats will have to rethink their strategy and leadership after this.
3. Maine’s Senate election result was the most surprising
Susan Collins, one of the last New England Republicans, was regarded as being in a vulnerable position. Her approval rating had slipped off in recent months and her opponent had spent hundreds of millions of dollars to challenge her. Maine had also approved a new voting system called ranked-choice voting that could potentially improve the Democrats’ chance of winning the seat. Instead, Collins was reelected by an 8.6% margin, with 51% of the vote to Gideon’s 42.4%. Collins outperformed President Trump by 7.1%, who lost the state to Democratic nominee Joe Biden by 9.1%. Gideon underperformed Biden by 10.6%. An examples of this disparity is Wells, a coastal town in the state’s liberal southeast corner, where Biden won by 14% and Collins by 9%. With the Republicans barely hold on to the Senate or the Democrats can gain control of the chamber depends on the results of Georgia Senate runoffs, Collins may become a kingmaker in future legislations.
