Although Democrats’ top priority in the 2020 elections has been achieved with President-Elect Biden’s win of the White House, “the most important election of our lifetime” was otherwise a successful night for Republicans.
Conducted amid a sharp spike in COVID-19 cases across the country over nine months into the global pandemic, the 2020 elections attracted the highest turnout percentage of registered voters (66.4%) than any election since 1900. But with both Joe Biden and Donald Trump receiving more votes than any other candidates prior—what is the message to be learned from the results?
Bucking predictions of a Blue Wave this year, similar to what was predicted prior to the 2016 elections, Joe Biden’s seemingly impressive national victory that tallies at least 5 million more votes than the incumbent president reveals a much closer presidential election than the popular vote indicates. In fact, results in eight states with a combined cache of123 electoral votes have closed at a margin of less than 3.5%.
For perspective, this isn’t the first time Americans have experienced a close race in the electoral college.
As a lens into the division that defines the electorate, the 2020 elections also resulted in creating narrow, sharply divided aisles in America’s deliberative bodies. For example, the U.S. Senate majority will be decided in political overtime on Jan. 5, 2021,when two incumbent senators from Georgia will defend their seats against Democrat challengers. Regardless of the winning party, the majority will be among the smallest in recent history—ranging between 50 and 52.
In a similar vein, the Democratic House majority will begin the 117thCongress with the smallest majority since 1944, assuming Republicans hold the net 11 seats gained in 2020.
In addition to President-Elect Biden’s executive win, a clear winner from the 2020 elections are Republicans at the state legislative level, who not only held onto majorities, but also increased their fold in chambers throughout the country.
Biden’s victory was won with a somewhat hollow legislative mandate, given the significant underperformance by Democrats down ballot. Looked at from the other end of the same prism, Republicans’ general overperformance was evident in the success (relative to available public polling) of President Trump’s party, despite his loss, which largely exceeded expectations recognized through a historic level of ticket splitting.
Although Democrats maintained functional control of the House of Representatives, the Republicans’ unexpected gain of seats is seen as a critical victory for the GOP and a blow to Democrats, who had hoped to pad their majority and instead now face infighting among the progressive and moderate wings of the party. With several competitive races across the country still too close to call, House Democrats have fallen short of expectations, claiming only three open seats (two of which appear to be due to court-ordered redistricting) while failing to defeat a single Republican incumbent.
Republicans, on the other hand, aided by the high turnout of their base, made key gains throughout the country, despite negative indicators of the generic ballot before the election. Notably, the new Republican House caucus will be built by women, with more than 33 Republican women being sent to Congress, at least 16 of which will be new members—both of which are records for female representation in the GOP.
With the 2022 midterm elections already on the horizon, Democrats will face an emboldened Republican effort to take back the majority lost in 2018. And if past is prologue, Republicans will be favored to do just that, as the party occupying the White House typically loses seats in the midterms. Since the end of World War II, the party holding the presidency has lost an average of 27 House seats in midterm elections and, more recently, 63 flipped in 2010 and 41 seats in 2018. Republicans will be facing a much more manageable delta in 2022, as they will probably need to win fewer than 10 seats to gain a majority in 2022.
At the state legislature level, the 2020 results are crucial in terms of congressional and state redistricting following the 2020 census. Republicans continued their decade-long dominance of state elections, holding or increasing their majorities in several key chambers, controlling many of the state legislatures that will redraw congressional boundaries—a process that can bolster the chances of success for Congressional Republicans for the next 10 years.
Perhaps the clearest tests of Democrats’ 2020 expectations will bein Georgia, where two U.S. Senate elections will head to runoff elections. Coming into the election, Democrats had lofty hopes of flipping several Senate seats throughout the country—resulting in two (Arizona and Colorado) of the three they needed and losing one in Alabama. And while at the time of the runoff elections the Senate will stand at 50 to 48, in favor of Republicans, Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris’ imminent ascension to Vice President, as well as President of the Senate, would ensure that Democrats would have a working majority in the upper chamber via her tie-breaking powers.
If Democrats (Sens. Ossoff and Warnock) win their runoff elections, Democrats will achieve their promise and control both the Executive and Legislative branches of government. On the contrary, if either sitting incumbent Sen. Perdue or Sen. Loeffler win, the Democrats will have lost another opportunity and will find themselves facing a re-elected Republican Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Should President-Elect Biden take office without control of the U.S. Senate, he would become the first newly elected Democrat president without a Democrat-controlled Senate since 1884. A McConnell-led Senate would force President-Elect Biden into an uphill battle at legislative level—with not only any potential legislation, but the divided government would also apply pressure for the forthcoming administration to appoint moderate officials to executive and judicial posts. This would likely lead to further exploration of executive power, as we have seen since the Obama-McConnell years, which started in 2014 when Republicans picked up 9 seats in the Senate, changing the balance of power.
On balance, the results of all of the elections held on Nov.3, 2020, while headlined by a Democrat President, show a strong message of continued Republican strength across America and, as a result, continued division of the electorate and, therefore, a likely balance of power between both parties.
