ONE TERM
There is not even a long-odds chance that Donald Trump will gain a second term. Nor is this wishful thinking. Compelling evidence abounds that anyone the Democrats nominate will win the popular vote, and by a margin to easily carry the Electoral College. Republicans down the ballot will suffer a similar demise, losing even more House seats, and very likely the Senate.
The chapters that follow, based on reliable facts and figures, will show how this upheaval is inevitable. Here are some signposts, to show how the book will unfold.
• In a shrouded symbiosis, Donald Trump and the Republican Party have been fueling their dual downfall. Both have become willfully insensible to how the bulk of their fellow citizens see themselves and feel about the world. A distinctive electorate is emerging, reflecting their own evolution and social trends, with new outlooks and attributes altering the political scene.
• Needless to say, the catalyst is the president himself. For more than four years, we have heard about the fervor and loyalty of his putative “base.” What has more recently emerged is that this cadre (“Lock Her Up!”) is dwindling rather than gaining new recruits. Attention will also be paid to his party, which is more than ever estranged from the rest of the country.
• It’s not enough to record that most Americans “disapprove” of Donald Trump. True, they’ve been saying that to pollsters even before he took the oath. Subsequent voting has revealed something deeper. Our forty-fifth president evokes a revulsion unmatched in living memory. It’s what is impelling the electoral surge aimed at his unseating.
• A recurring source for this book will be how Americans have been voting. Polls and interviews have their place, and will be used when they add to our understanding. But voting is special. It is a physical act, even if filling out a form and putting an envelope in the mail. Or it can call for planning out a day, waiting on line, possibly in the rain. When citizens take the effort to vote, it shows they’re serious. We’ll be listening.
• Donald Trump placed second in 2016, running 2,984,757 votes behind Hillary Clinton. As the world knows, he won via the Electoral College, by being 77,744 ahead in three key states. The odds against such a permutation occurring again are too high to fit on this page. His only hope for reelection is to enhance his total to win the popular count.
• This isn’t going to happen. A welter of sources will be cited. Most compelling were the 2018 midterms, especially the races for the House of Representatives. On paper, ballots were cast for candidates for its 435 seats. In fact, the reason people showed up was to vent their feelings about the president. Here’s how an eminent political scientist, Alan Abramowitz of Emory University, put it. “The 2018 midterm election was, to an extraordinary degree, a referendum on the presidency of Donald Trump.”1 Those supporting him did so by voting for whatever Republicans were on the card. Similarly, those who sought to oust him went straight to the Democratic column, often without reading the name of the candidate.
• Not only did the GOP lose the House. More arresting, 2018 saw a 12,225,230-vote plunge from Trump’s 2016 showing. Even if all those absentees return in 2020, they won’t be enough to swing the presidency for him.
• The pool of Americans primed to vote Democratic is its broadest and deepest since Barack Obama battered John McCain. In 2016, all too many of them weren’t roused by Hillary Clinton and sat it out. But in 2018, enough of them emerged to make it the party’s highest midterm showing since 1932. Their antipathy to the president will be just as fervid in 2020.
• Old rules don’t apply. Like the mantra that material prosperity favors the party in power. (In fact, fewer people are thriving; wages lag behind executive bonuses and capital gains.) In 2018, candidates touched expected bases, like health costs, immigration, and mass shootings. But, as noted, it was primarily a plebiscite on a president and an early act of repudiation.
• True, a president can lose the House of Representatives at midterm and recover two years later. Obama did in 2010 and 2012, as Bill Clinton had in 1994 and 1996. Trump’s problem is that his party has a hard time mustering presidential majorities. (They last did in 2004, against a hapless John Kerry.)
• Voting tells a larger story. Ballots are expressive of who we are and where our lives are going. Each year sees the nation mutating at an accelerating pace.2 We know what’s in the mix. There’s more racial diversity and less identifying as heterosexual. College degrees are up, and birth rates are down.3 So any forecast for 2020 must factor in how the parties are addressing a changing population.
• All indications are that Republicans are both unwilling and unable to see what’s happening, let alone adapt to a shifting social scene. They have a lengthy platform, with avowals on abortion and firearms and military hegemony, plus veiled disquiet about the changing racial demographics of the country. But despite its details, it speaks inwardly, to a contracting following.
• Governors’ races in 2018 and 2019 found Democrats winning, especially in unusual contests. In Kansas and Kentucky, the Republican entrants emulated Donald Trump in doctrine and demeanor. After all, he had carried those states by 20 percent and 30 percent. Their defeats attested that even stalwart Republicans were opening their minds. Louisiana’s Democratic governor was reelected, boding that even the Deep South isn’t safe for the GOP.
• Will money matter? It does in the primaries, for gaining recognition in a crowded field. It helps with chartering planes to waft you across Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. But not in general elections.4 Hillary Clinton spent $768 million in 2016, while Donald Trump made do with $398 million, scarcely half as much. (Their per-vote quotients were $11.69 and $6.35.)5 If money brings out votes, it should have yielded her either of Barack Obama’s totals. Either of his edges would have precluded any problems with the Electoral College.
• Might the existence of this book undercut its forecast? In theory, some people might not take the trouble to vote if they believe the result is preordained. In fact, it doesn’t happen that way. Citizens residing on the West Coast often hear how the rest of the country has tilted, but it doesn’t diminish their turnout. This year, more than any in most memories, people will line up to record their hopes and fears, if not forebodings of peril.