astro
January 10, 2017, 7:12pm
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National Review is not normally my go to for analysis but this article is quite interesting. It gives a long view historical perspective I have not seen in other articles.
The Real Reason Trump Won: Part 1 of 4
He was the weakest post-incumbent challenger in 200 years.
The year 2016 was the 17th “post-incumbent” presidential election in U.S. history: an election with no incumbent on the ballot following the reelection of an incumbent. For more than two centuries, the overwhelming trend in those elections — in the popular and electoral vote, nationally and in the battleground states — has been a sharp snap back toward the party out of power. While Donald Trump’s accomplishment in breaking the “blue wall” of the Midwest after two consecutive Democratic victories might look impressive, he actually had — by a key measurement — the worst performance by a challenger in a post-incumbent election in 200 years. The only one worse was by a party that ceased to exist after the election.
Trump has a political opportunity: He won without a significant number of voters who were open to conventional Republicans, and he could fuse a strong coalition for reelection if he wins them over by his performance in office. But the historic weakness of his victory should be a humbling reminder that he has not yet remade the American electorate. He owes his presidency primarily to external historic trends and the failure of the Democrats to build a lasting coalition.
Over this four-part series, I will examine the evidence, measuring Trump’s performance against historical benchmarks at the national and state level, looking at the share of eligible voters who turned out, and assessing county-level vote splits between Trump and down-ticket Republicans. The evidence strongly suggests that the enduring, cyclical patterns of behavior by American voters still matter more than candidates, campaigns, or demographics. But they also point to the weaknesses of Trump as a candidate, weaknesses he will have no choice but to remedy in office if he wants a second term.