3 Democratic delusions: Michael Medved
Trends in the popular vote signal trouble for Hillary Clinton's party
As Democrats try to regroup after their recent presidential defeat, they tend to delude themselves on three crucial points.
First, they seek comfort in Hillary Clinton’s popular vote margin of more than two million, marking the sixth election of the last seven in which a Democrat won more raw votes than his or her Republican rival. But this meaningless “winning streak” masks a far more serious losing streak: in the last 50 years, over the course of thirteen presidential elections, Barack Obama is the only Democratic nominee to reach a solid popular vote majority of 51% or more — and he did it twice. Going beyond Lyndon Johnson’s landslide against Barry Goldwater in 1964, you’d need to reach all the way back to Franklin D. Roosevelt to find another Democratic nominee who connected with an unmistakable majority of his fellow citizens. In the intervening 72 years since FDR’s last race in 1944, Republicans won decisive, majority victories seven times.
This overview not only undermines Democrat claims to majority party status, but argues against the notion that they can blame November’s loss on an especially unpopular candidate. In fact, Hillary Clinton’s percentage of the popular vote (48%) was typical of other recent Democratic candidates like John Kerry in 2004 (48.3%), Al Gore in 2000 (48.4%) and even her husband, Bill Clinton, in his successful 1996 re-election bid (49.2%). Hillary actually won a much larger proportion of the electorate than Bill did in his first presidential win, where he commanded only 43% against George H. W. Bush and Ross Perot.
In other words, most recent Democrats seem to have a ceiling when it comes to a percentage of the popular vote. Barack Obama alone broke through that barrier when he shattered an even more important boundary and inspired unique excitement as the first non-white major party nominee in US history.
The second Democratic delusion involves the ability to field another Obama to generate similar enthusiasm that would assure victory in 2020 and thereafter. This groundless faith ignores the weak nature of the depleted Democratic bench: Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden will both be close to 80, while Elizabeth Warren (71 if she runs in 2020) is a leftist ideologue with limited appeal to the party’s moderate wing. Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey or former Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts might hope to replicate Obama’s success in mobilizing massive black turnout, but a second potential black president stands scant chance of provoking the same energy as the historic, first time effort of the young Illinois senator who electrified the landscape in 2008.
The third Democratic mistake in explaining their 2016 collapse could prove the most fatal to the party’s prospects: Ascribing that defeat to President-elect Trump’s unique reality-show appeal and unconventional, nuke-the-establishment campaign, rather than acknowledging the party’s long-term alienation from the American mainstream.
The vision of Trump as a distinctive, one-off phenomenon ignores the unmistakable fact that conventional, establishment Republicans actually out-performed him in race after race across the country. In the two most crucial swing states, Florida and Ohio, Senators Marco Rubio and Rob Portman both doubled Trump’s margin of victory with their electorates.
Results nearly everywhere showed a Republican wave, not just a magical Donald Trump appeal. Republicans won at least 21 Senate seats to the Democrats’ 12, cemented control of at least 33governorships to the Democrats’ 15, and captured at least 240House sets to 194 for the opposition. These are crushing numbers, and the GOP has now won House control four elections in a row — prevailing in the House of Representatives in 10 of the last 12 election cycles, regardless of the fate of their presidential nominees.
The Donkey Party, in other words, faces a deeper dilemma than a single lackluster candidate. They may try to reassure themselves with polls showing show more Americans identifying as Democrats than as Republicans, but they should remember that self-described “independents” tend to vote GOP in election after election, while the recent contest casts serious doubt on reliability of “scientific” polling.
In the polls that count most — tallies of actual votes on election day — Republicans have been winning with unacknowledged consistency. Democrats can continue to ignore that pattern only at their extreme peril.
Trends in the popular vote signal trouble for Hillary Clinton's party
As Democrats try to regroup after their recent presidential defeat, they tend to delude themselves on three crucial points.
First, they seek comfort in Hillary Clinton’s popular vote margin of more than two million, marking the sixth election of the last seven in which a Democrat won more raw votes than his or her Republican rival. But this meaningless “winning streak” masks a far more serious losing streak: in the last 50 years, over the course of thirteen presidential elections, Barack Obama is the only Democratic nominee to reach a solid popular vote majority of 51% or more — and he did it twice. Going beyond Lyndon Johnson’s landslide against Barry Goldwater in 1964, you’d need to reach all the way back to Franklin D. Roosevelt to find another Democratic nominee who connected with an unmistakable majority of his fellow citizens. In the intervening 72 years since FDR’s last race in 1944, Republicans won decisive, majority victories seven times.
This overview not only undermines Democrat claims to majority party status, but argues against the notion that they can blame November’s loss on an especially unpopular candidate. In fact, Hillary Clinton’s percentage of the popular vote (48%) was typical of other recent Democratic candidates like John Kerry in 2004 (48.3%), Al Gore in 2000 (48.4%) and even her husband, Bill Clinton, in his successful 1996 re-election bid (49.2%). Hillary actually won a much larger proportion of the electorate than Bill did in his first presidential win, where he commanded only 43% against George H. W. Bush and Ross Perot.
In other words, most recent Democrats seem to have a ceiling when it comes to a percentage of the popular vote. Barack Obama alone broke through that barrier when he shattered an even more important boundary and inspired unique excitement as the first non-white major party nominee in US history.
The second Democratic delusion involves the ability to field another Obama to generate similar enthusiasm that would assure victory in 2020 and thereafter. This groundless faith ignores the weak nature of the depleted Democratic bench: Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden will both be close to 80, while Elizabeth Warren (71 if she runs in 2020) is a leftist ideologue with limited appeal to the party’s moderate wing. Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey or former Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts might hope to replicate Obama’s success in mobilizing massive black turnout, but a second potential black president stands scant chance of provoking the same energy as the historic, first time effort of the young Illinois senator who electrified the landscape in 2008.
The third Democratic mistake in explaining their 2016 collapse could prove the most fatal to the party’s prospects: Ascribing that defeat to President-elect Trump’s unique reality-show appeal and unconventional, nuke-the-establishment campaign, rather than acknowledging the party’s long-term alienation from the American mainstream.
The vision of Trump as a distinctive, one-off phenomenon ignores the unmistakable fact that conventional, establishment Republicans actually out-performed him in race after race across the country. In the two most crucial swing states, Florida and Ohio, Senators Marco Rubio and Rob Portman both doubled Trump’s margin of victory with their electorates.
Results nearly everywhere showed a Republican wave, not just a magical Donald Trump appeal. Republicans won at least 21 Senate seats to the Democrats’ 12, cemented control of at least 33governorships to the Democrats’ 15, and captured at least 240House sets to 194 for the opposition. These are crushing numbers, and the GOP has now won House control four elections in a row — prevailing in the House of Representatives in 10 of the last 12 election cycles, regardless of the fate of their presidential nominees.
The Donkey Party, in other words, faces a deeper dilemma than a single lackluster candidate. They may try to reassure themselves with polls showing show more Americans identifying as Democrats than as Republicans, but they should remember that self-described “independents” tend to vote GOP in election after election, while the recent contest casts serious doubt on reliability of “scientific” polling.
In the polls that count most — tallies of actual votes on election day — Republicans have been winning with unacknowledged consistency. Democrats can continue to ignore that pattern only at their extreme peril.
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