According to Georgia SoS Raffensperger, Trump suppressed Republican mail vote which cost him that state. There were about 24,000 Republicans who voted absentee in the June primary who did not vote at all in November. That’s a lot more than Biden’s margin of victory. I wonder if the same happened in other swing states.
[Someone may have posted this in the continuing election thread, but I stopped reading that about 5000 posts ago. So apologies if you’ve discussed this news to death already.]
My theory is that attacking John Lewis cost him Georgia, attacking John McCain cost him Arizona, attacking Gretchen Whitmer cost him Michigan…
After the current occupant of the Oval Office told his flock (“flock” because he fleeces them) to vote twice, by mail and in person, I’m actually surprised there was not a flood of votes for republicans in Georgia.
Michigan may have already slipped out of his tiny grasp by the time he went after the Gov but I must agree with you about AZ and GA. Certainly didn’t do him any favors.
Shorter version: Being an asshole cost him the election.
Being an even worse asshole now will hopefully and mercifully put him out of the public spotlight for good.
Didn’t Stacey Abrams basically dedicate all this time after gubernatorial loss to registering new voters or making sure people were properly registered? That likely made a big difference.
wishful thinking! Unfortunately, his MAGA followers will continue to drag us down even after he leaves, esp since he will continue to wield his evil influence
I’m sure it did make a big difference. And so did his attack of Lewis. But the two may not have been enough by themselves. And for that matter, the suppression of mail voters was not enough by itself. There’s lots factors that go into who and how many vote in any election. This thread is just bringing up a factor people may not have been aware of.
As I recall, a couple months ago, other Republicans were trying to get Trump to stop suppressing mail voting because of this possibility. What he did was change his line (at least for a while) to say absentee voting was OK but mail-in voting wasn’t. No one understood this, because absentee voting is done via mail. Anyway, the fears of those Republicans turned out to be accurate.
It’s interesting, however does that explain the senate race, it may there IDK. It seems like what you said is a possibility for at least part of it.
My assumption is those who have been generationally discouraged to vote and have dropped out of politics altogether were so motivated by patriotic duty to not let Trump rule for a second term that they had to vote. These are people who couldn’t tell the difference between a senator and a post man. So thye only voted against Trump. They are not going to vote for someone they don’t know of.
I also suspect mass fraud on the red side. Lots of those red counties are in remote areas and things are hard to monitor. Trump talking about mass voter fraud seems to indicate that he was for him. I would like to see a general recount after Biden is president in those areas. Though Trump voters are hard core, they are not that numerous.
Biden’s vote #'s are logical, Trump’s #'s are not.
Nah, it’ll take some time, but they’ll wind down. You know how, 4-5 years ago, people were saying things like ‘he says out loud what we’re all thinking’, usually in reference to something racist to or ‘he’s giving people permission to act like this’, again, usually when it comes to something racist. Well, know he’ll be gone, right along with their reasons. It might take some time, but eventually more and more of these people will realize that all this chanting in streets and inciting riots isn’t accomplishing anything and only wrecking their city and hurting their own side. It’s going to end up in a sort of ‘where’s your god now’ situation.
How? He’ll have, at most, as much influence as he did before he was president and probably less because more people have learned not to trust him and may not even want to be associated with him.
If he had managed to show even one-quarter of the competence and/or empathy regarding COVID that any average person would have shown, he would have won re-election.
True. If he had not actually gotten in the way, and actually prevented medical experts from doing their job and saving American lives, he would have won.
Trump lost because he actually killed citizens with his incompetence and narcissism.
(ETA) and yes, as Trump himself predicted, his “base” stuck with him, even though he killed people (on 5th Ave and elsewhere)
I think COVID really hurt him more than people will acknowledge. On one hand, it became a rallying cry for his most ardent supporters, but he repeatedly checked the ‘dumbass’ box. He attacked Fauci who has enjoyed mostly bipartisan support. In an election that was close, I think how he handled COVID was his undoing.
I think both of these are correct in that COVID was (and is) a son-of-a-bitch and people generally want to respect a person given a horribly difficult task. If Trump had just done the minimum level of responsible action I think he would have won re-election. He failed to do that.
We will see when other leaders that have tried to navigate their country through the pandemic are up for re-election, but know that locally even leaders that have made horribly unpopular and difficult choices have largely been given the benefit of the doubt and won re-election (I’m thinking County Executive-level positions here).
When Trump actually began his pressers and actually appeared to be doing something constructive about the pandemic, he was at his strongest. He blew it. He succeeded in creating a cult, but he they helped him self-destruct.
Not nationally, but Provincially in British Columbia, the Premier was hanging onto power by a single seat. During the pandemic, he mostly got out of the way and looked after policy decisions, yielding the medical decisions to the Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry (who proved to be VERY popular). The premier effectively de-politicized the provincial medical response to Covid.
Then he called an election in the middle of the pandemic. Not a popular idea. But his decision to stay out of the medical side, and listen to experts was part of the reason for the subsequent overwhelming win for his party (swing of +16 seats), and the eventual resignation of the opposition leader.
I think Trump is incapable of this kind of thing. That is, getting out of the way and letting someone else get the spotlight.
True. This is why everything he touches turns to shit.
He has the Sadim Touch.
I originally read this as “Bonnie Officer Henry” (a la Bonnie Prince Charlie), got very confused about this guy Henry, and finally looked (her) up to verify. For those wondering, Bonnie Officer Henry in Google, does, in fact, return the good doctor. She seems like a peach.
As a side note, Bonnie Officer Henry would be a great band name for a local band in BC.