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Assuming Biden +5: No, Dems didn’t blow it & a big repudiation was probably never realistic. Partisanship, patriarchy, & white Christian nationalism don’t leave much room for change in presidential vote choice in 4 years. Doesn’t matter to them what’s going on beyond their power.
From the slides. Blue bracket is the full range of presidential vote share in the last century. If you’re a major candidate, you’ll be in there. Electoral context voter coalitions (minus retro) limit possible effects of candidates & campaigns to the red bracket (approx), at most.
Awkward to tell students majoring in *political communication*, but they need to know what is & isn’t possible, and how to get there.
And, in particular, nothing indicated an electorate that would swing decisively against Trump, rather than a marginal shift.
And, in particular, nothing indicated an electorate that would swing decisively against Trump, rather than a marginal shift.
And the small marginal shifts possible are more a function of good turnout mobilization rather than persuasion, the latter of which has zero effects (Kalla & Broockman) or tiny effects (Vavreck, Hill, & Coppock). https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/9/28/16367580/campaigning-doesnt-work-general-election-study-kalla-broockman https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/36/eabc4046.full
Odd, didn’t let me post the 1st link: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/9/28/16367580/campaigning-doesnt-work-general-election-study-kalla-broockman
I guess I have nothing better to do than keep this thread lurching along, so here’s how the Civil War affected Republican vote share in loyal states—basically not at all (from my book). We’re basically in that same polarized coalition state now. Like the pandemic, but even worse.
tl;dr
The flip side of this is that, NO, Trump *wouldn't* be winning in a landslide except for covid-19 and the wrecked economy. It'd be pretty much the same. There's no evidence that Trump's handling mattered at all at the national level, & only tiny local virus shifts at most.
The counterargument is that there are lots of forces at work, many potent, and they all happen to cancel out at all times. I don't buy it. Seems like an epicycles argument to me, when the simpler explanation is no net effects.
A different version of counterargument is that he wasn't on track for reelection before but *would've* had a big rise if he'd managed the virus well. It's true some world leaders & some govs saw that kind of effect, but evaluating a president in our polarized state is different.
