November 6, 2024
On Trump's victory and Harris' defeat...
Well, that didn’t take long. I was promised days of election coverage. I got seven hours, the last five of which were mostly, “It’s over but give us a minute.”
I have a lot of thoughts rambling around in my head. I’ll try to distill them to a few points.
Trump’s victory was impressive. He expanded his support enough to win not just the Electoral College, but almost certainly the popular vote. Every swing state is looking to go his way, even the ones that are still too close to call. A Trump win seemed possible, even likely, but one of this magnitude is surprising.
Trump’s win is sizable, but that doesn’t make it a mandate. The new Senate is looking to have 53 or 54 GOP members, which is a comfortable but not expansive majority. We still don’t know who will control the House and won’t for several more days. If I tell you I have a mandate to commandeer your car and then wander around checking my emails until Saturday to see if that’s true, I’m pretty sure the word “mandate” doesn’t apply.
The national Democratic Party has some soul-searching to do. As Jesse Singal wrote, Trump’s win was large enough that the left’s pundits and leadership can’t blame this loss on racism or sexism or misinformation or voter ignorance or basically anyone other than themselves. I don’t know if this race was ever winnable for Harris — it certainly didn’t seem to be for Biden — but the party appears to be shrinking. Where it goes from here is up to them. Whom they turn to is anyone’s guess. I have a suggestion if they’re interested, though: not Gavin Newsom.
We’ll see how the rest of this shakes out over the coming days. In the meantime, here’s a hopeful column on the future of our elections, punctuated by irritation over the rhetoric of the past one. Enjoy.