At the end of election week 2020, the Democratic Party celebrated a big win: they gained the White House from incumbent President Donald Trump and elected Joseph R. Biden to the presidency. While one could easily see the importance of this accomplishment, many pay little attention to the other components of election night 2020. On November 3, 33 Senate seats and all 435 House of Representatives seats were also up for election, and the results of these races paint a much less pretty picture for the Democrats. Democrats were widely expected to gain seats in the House and earn a comfortable majority from the Republicans in the Senate. Once the results came in, however, this dream quickly became a nightmare.
In Kentucky, a race against Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, in which millions of Democratic dollars poured in, led to a resounding 58%-38% victory for McConnell. In South Carolina, millions of dollars were spent to unseat Senator Lindsey Graham, who wound up crushing his Democratic opponent Jaime Harrison by 10 points. Now, these races are in heavily Republican states, where Donald Trump won large majorities, but even states that are not so favorable to the incumbent president sent their Republican senators back to Washington. In Montana, polls indicated incumbent Steve Daines running neck-and-neck with popular governor Steve Bullock. Daines won by 10 points. A similar story occurred in Iowa, where Joni Ernst defeated Theresa Greenfield by a similar margin. In North Carolina, Thom Tillis prevailed with a similar margin as in 2014. Even in Maine, where Donald Trump lost by 10%, Susan Collins won by 8 points, even when not a single poll showed her ahead.
All told, as of this moment, the Senate Republicans only have a net loss of one seat in the Senate, with runoff elections for seats in Georgia. Clearly not the “blue wave” many were predicting. Similar results occurred in the House, with every election rated “tossup” or “lean R” by polling being won by the GOP, along with a few “lean D” seats. Republicans roared back in the suburbs, gaining seats like Utah’s 4th, the suburbs of Salt Lake City, and New York’s 11th, which includes Staten Island. In addition, certain districts that Hillary Clinton won in 2016, like Florida’s 26th and 27th Districts, voted Republican down-ballot, buoyed especially by the outperformance of the GOP among Hispanic voters. Republicans even gained back two seats in California, a Democratic stronghold statewide. In short, it’s clear that while the Democratic Party has good reason to celebrate, losses elsewhere must be examined in order to avoid future losses in 2022 or 2024; the alienation of many constituents in suburban and rural swing districts led to big losses. Many parts of the modern Democratic platform don’t resonate with the people who live outside of big cities, and the voters made that clear. National policy initiatives for the party overshadowed certain representatives, whose attempts to distance themselves from more radical stances such as defunding police or the Green New Deal, as prominent Democrats in safe seats embraced these measures, dooming those in swing seats. Even though voters turned up their noses at Trump and ultimately decided to vote for Biden, they also voted against the policies of the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, while the loss of the White House is no doubt a big hit to the Republicans, the results of the 2020 election in the House and Senate provide a very good roadmap for the future; an increased share in the minority and working class vote combined with a recovery in the suburban vote from 2018 shows that the Republicans can easily gain ground in 2022, and even have a decent shot at the presidency in 2024.
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