Thread by @YossiGestetner

Here is why Liberals are not fully happy with the 2020 results:

Their writers and pundits spent years yelling that @realDonaldTrump is divisive and racist and that he won 2016 due to middle America whites who are racists. The Leftists also claimed that changing demographics will

be Trump’s undoing and it will take down the whole GOP with him. Trump however increased his 2020 vote total by 15% from 2016 thanks to help from monitories while Biden won due to vote of the aforementioned whites who Libs claimed are racists. Worse, Biden’s electoral margin

will echo Trump’s margin of 2016 or less (depending how GA and AZ end up), and this was during a pandemic; during an economic downturn; with a mass mail-in vote system that massively favors Dems, and despite tech companies choking off conservative voices in ways not done to Libs.

4/ The vibe was so in place for a massive Trump/GOP wipe out that @JohnKingCNN said election night that Texas is a swing state this cycle. Trump won it 5+ points.

Libs were so sure that they have a serious shots against Graham, Collins, @SenJoniErnst and @senatemajldr etc, that

5/ Libs spent 100s of millions on just those races but in the end all those GOPers won easily. A night before the election, Charles Cook said that Dems will pick up anywhere from 3 to 7 Senate seats; however Dems need a double GA runoff win to have won just 3 seats this cycle.

6/ It gets worse for Dems: The @SenateGOP ended the 2014 midterms with 54 seats. After Trump ”dragging the party down” in 2016, 2018 and 2020, and after Dems/their Super PACs outspending the GOP, the GOP is at 52 seats (two of which are up for runoffs in early January).

7/ Now let’s move to @HouseDemocrats: Monday pre-election day, @redistirct of @CookPolitical predicted a net Dem pick up of 10-15 seats. Dems lost at least 6 seats.

Clinton’s first midterm, Dems lost 54 Seats.

Obama, Dems lost 63.

Trump’s midterm, the GOP lost only 41 seats.

8/ “But Yossi. Gerrymandering helps the GOP with House seats.”

True that it matters but in 2018 midterms, Dems won 53.4% of the votes given in House races while in Obama’s 2010 midterm the GOP won 51.7%.

Hardly a massive rejection of Trump in the mid-term compared to Obama.

9/ It gets worse: Cook Political predicted a week out that Dems will gain a net of 6 state legislative houses which would be an amazing win because congressional redistricting are coming up for the 2022 midterms. Dems lost 2 which may be offset in AZ. So at best no gain for Dems.

10/ Whats more, Dems lost state legislative seats including in NY where the drubbing was so bad that @NYGovCuomo blamed @BilldeBlasio for it. This is a sad joke considering that most of the Dem hits in NY were outside of NYC.

11/ None of the above changes the fact that even IF he loses AZ/GA, Biden is on path to be certified as POTUS-elect due to PA and a win is a win. Once in office, Biden runs shop just as JFK, Carter and Bush II did despite their narrow wins. However, the overall results of

12/ the 2020 elections shows that the buzzwords and narratives that were written in the NYT and repeated on @Morning_Joe for the last 5 years are totally disconnected from reality. The 2020 results show that the “great” strategy by @HouseDemocrats @SenateDems and @TeamJoe

13/ regarding minorities did not work because - again - Biden won thanks to middle America whites while minorities moved to the GOP in ways not seen in decades thus keeping Trump’s loss narrow in the electoral count and regarding the margins within swing states.

14/ Don’t expect the Machine Media (who peddled years of anti Trump conspiracies; who fortold a mass GOP wipeout in 2020, and who ran interference for Biden’s anger outbursts, gaffes, racists remarks and contradictory policy proposals) to echo the above facts. They will in large

15/ part continue with their talk of “Trump enablers” despite the fact that millions of voters reelected those “enablers” and gave the GOP a list of wins in a year that they were going to be wiped out and be rebuilt by the Lincoln Project clowns.

16/ The above-listed 2020 outcomes may matter in terms of the legislative agenda the next two years especially if the GOP keeps the Senate and if the elected House/Senate GOPs keep those facts in front of their eyes instead of falling for media propaganda the next 2 years.

17/ What must make the McCain/Romney wing of the GOP sick is to look at the hits the GOP took in 2008/2012 versus what happened now with Trump atop of the ticket.

First off: McCain/Romney never won the WH. 😃

Now compare McCain 2008 and @MittRomney 2012 to Trump 2020

18/

Popular vote margins:

7.2 loss for McCain

3.9 loss for Romney

3.5-4.0 range for Trump 2020 (NY/CA need to offload their ballots).

House:

21 seat loss McCain

8 lost Romney

6 gain (or more) Trump 2020.

GOP ended with 199 seats after McCain 2008; now they are above.

19/

Senate:

8 seats lost in McCain 2008 (after Bush midterms lost 6; not the same seats of course. Senate terms are 6 years).

2 lost in Romney 2012

1-3 lost in Trump 2020.

GOP ended McCain 2008 with 41 Senate seats.

@MittRomney with 45.

Now they have at least 50 seats.

20/ The McCain/Romney GOP was rejected by voters while Trumpism (no wars; lower tax; stronger border controls; America First trade deals and a Conservative judiciary) was embraced in 2016 and reinforced in 2020 with the help of minorities while Biden barely won thanks to whites.

21/ A week before the election, @SenateGOP “rammed through” a SCOTUS nominee which is a “controversial” move. On the flip side, Media Libs threatened to pack the court.

Result? Dems were supposed to win up to 7 Senate seats per polls/presoctions. They netted one on Election Day.

22/ After blocking an Obama nominee in 2016, the GOP lost only 2 Senate seats and they gained seats in 2018. My point is Dems/Lib Pundits created this illusion of mass controversy on everything that Trump/GOP did yet voters were tuned out (while some GOPers fell for it).

23/ Many people in business, politics and government undermined Trump due to media buzzwords of “enabling Trump” and “being complicit.” This dragged down Trump. But in end, the American public gave the Trump GOP a better outcome than they gave Romney 2012 or McCain 2008.

24/ The spin is on that 2020 was the worst for an incumbent since Hoover because Biden’s percent total is bigger than Reagan 1980 against Carter; Clinton 1992 against Bush.

But let’s look at the flip side:

37.4% Bush

39.7% Hoover

41% Carter

47% range Trump

Now let’s look at

25/ the margin between the winner and the incumbent:

17.7 for FDR over Hoover in 1932.

9.7 for Reagan over Carter in ‘80.

5.6 for Clinton over Bush in ‘92.

Trump’s vote loss is in the 3.5 to 4.0 range.

His vote percentage & popular vote margin are better than any one termer.

26/ How the losing party did in the House when an incumbent lost:

101 seat loss for the GOP with Hoover; left with 117 seats.

34 Dem loss with Carter; left with 243 seats.

9 GOP gain with Bush; left with 167 seats

6-9 GOP gain with Trump; left with 205+ seats.

27/ How the losing party did in the Senate when an incumbent lost:

11 seat loss for the GOP with Hoover; left with 37 seats.

12 seat loss for Dems with Carter; left with 46.

No change in 1992 Bush; GOP left with 43 seats.

1-3 seat loss for the GOP with Trump; left with 50-52.

28/ A look at the percent change in votes received in the second round versus the first:

-26.4% Hoover

-13.1% Carter

-20% Bush I

+14.7% Trump.

More Context:

+5.5% Clinton 1996

+22.9% Bush 2004

-5.1% Obama 2012.

Obama had the worst percent change in votes since Bush I.

“suburban voters’ disgust with Mr. Trump — the key to Mr. Biden’s election — did not translate into a wide rebuke of other Republicans, as Democrats had expected.”

“blood bath that the [Dem] party suffered in legislative races in key states”

NYT 11/28/20 nytimes.com/2020/11/28/us/…

More from the Times: “Democrats targeted a dozen state legislative chambers where Republicans held tenuous majorities, including in PA, TX, AZ, NC and MN... But in all cases, Democrats came up short. None of their targeted legislative chambers flipped.”

“‘Trump was sneaky strong—not enough to win, but he was not the albatross that we expected him to be’ for down-ballot Republicans, the GOP communications consultant @LPDonovan told me.” - @RonBrownstein

Amazing how, 5 years later, Never Trumpers still misread Trump.