Comparing Trump's election performance in 2020 against 2016, his margins decreased in 43 states.
Meaning that he either won by a smaller point margin (even if he got more raw votes in 2016), lost states he won in 2016 or lost states worse than he lost them in 2016. #TrumpLost
In 22 states, Trump won them in both 2016 and 2020. But he won by a smaller point margin in 2020 than he won them in 2016.
In 5 states, Trump won in 2016 but lost them in 2020. Trump calls these states "stolen."
And in 16 states, Trump lost both times but lost by more in 2020.
This in itself isn't that unusual historically, as we'll see as we go through this. There have been a lot of elections in which the incumbent party does worse than it did before in this many states.
That President or their party just usually doesn't keep the White House.
Let's look at a couple of examples. In Texas, Trump won both times and got about the same percentage of the vote both times. But Biden did better than Clinton and there weren't as many third party candidates. Trump won. But by less in terms of percentage points.
In Arizona, Trump only won the state by 3.54 points in 2016, which was a major dip from Romney's performance in the state in 2012. Like most other states, Trump's margins declined in 2020. But because he only won by a small percentage in 2016, the drop made Arizona flip blue.
And in some states, Trump lost in both 2016 and 2020. But in 2020 he lost by even more than he lost in 2016. Maine is one of a bunch of states where this happened.
And, of course, there are six states where Trump did better in 2020 than he did in 2016. Florida is an example of this.
So how unusual is it for a President or their party to not do as well in this many different states than it did just four years before?
Not unusual at all.
What's unusual is for the President's party to keep the White House when it happens.
In the last 12 Elections (from 1976 until 2020), the incumbent President's Party has had their margins decline in 43 or more states (the number of states in which Trump's margins declined between 2016 and 2020).
The President's party kept the White House only 2 of those 8 times.
In contrast, since 1976, there have been 4 times in which the incumbent President's Party had their margins decline in fewer than 43 states. The President or his party kept the White House in 3 of those 4 times. They kept it every time they did worse in 20 states or fewer.
You can see a pretty clear pattern if we rank the list of incumbent Presidents seeking re-election by the number of states in which their margins declined from what it had been four years earlier.
Obama was the exception here. But his sliding margins only cost him 2 states.
Now losing margins in many states after a massive landslide election, like the elections of 1972 and 1984 are one thing - it's hard to do better when you or your party won almost every state last time.
But, other than that, doing worse in almost every state doesn't seem to help.
And, of course, whenever you're wondering things like "why DID the Former Guy do so much worse in so many places?" you can find some answers by looking at ancillary pieces of data such as the exit polls. It definitely tells a story for anyone willing to take time to read them.
... as do the Gallup Presidential Approval numbers.
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So, my take on the debate. I listened to the audio of all of it but only saw a little of the live video. And so I listened very intently to everything Walz and Vance SAID and not to the visual aspects of their respective deliveries.
I’ve known people like both of these guys all my life.
Listening to Vance’s answers, he sounded like many of the empty suits I’ve met in life. Lots of words. Confident delivery of the words. But he didn’t say much. And that’s not even counting some of his very blatant lies.
Many of Vance’s answers, even the ones which were not attempts to rewrite history, lacked any level of detail. He sounded like a student who read the Cliff’s Notes but never read the book.
Let’s cut to the chase and talk about the REAL reason some of the prominent Republican politicians and pundits who know and even publicly admit that Trump is unfit either still support him or won’t actively vote against him.
Some of them know the cost. And don’t want to pay it.
They saw what happened to brave politicians like @Liz_Cheney and @AdamKinzinger who told the truth about Trump and didn’t later try to unsay it (like @NikkiHaley). It cost them their careers in the GOP.
They see them. And don’t want to be them.
@Liz_Cheney @AdamKinzinger @NikkiHaley The pundits saw how conservative pundits who told the truth about Donald Trump fared. Some of them lost prominent gigs like @WalshFreedom. Some of them lost affiliates like @MedvedSHOW.
Some of the others saw the cost they paid. And simply didn’t want to pay it themselves.
As professing Christians (including some folks who actually are real Christians) spread false and dangerous information about Haitian immigrants and promote other lies from proven chronic liars), remember what the Bible says about lies and lying.
Ephesians 4:25, Amplified:
“Therefore, rejecting all falsehood [whether lying, defrauding, telling half-truths, spreading rumors, any such as these], speak truth each one with his neighbor, for we are all parts of one another [and we are all parts of the body of Christ].”
And there are also some pretty explicit warnings in Scripture about being a liar, whatever exactly that means.
We tend to focus like a laser beam on sexual sins and ignore a lot of other behaviors the Bible associates with condemnation.
A quick question to my white brethren who, even in this current Trump era, continue to vote for Republicans:
Have you ever noticed what a high percentage of the arguments those politicians appeal to you with are based on appealing to fear? Specifically fear of “them?”
They play you the same movie script over and over and over again, with only the villains being cast differently. But you keep buying tickets to watch the movie.
It’s always some variant of “them” coming to take your [FILL IN THE BLANK]. Always.
First they were supposed to take your guns. Many Democratic Presidencies later, you still have your guns. You have more than you ever had before, actually.
Then the pitch was that “woke” teachers were going to take your kids and make them hate themselves.
A good half of society is all but ready to overlook Trump’s:
- 34 felony convictions for fraud covering up an illegal campaign contribution (Michael Cohen was sent to prison for his part of the scheme BY THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION).
…
- A federal indictment for taking, refusing to return documents containing nuclear weapons info, war plans and the vulnerabilities of both the U.S. and our adversaries. And then trying to destroy the evidence.
- A federal indictment for trying to steal an election which he and his advisors knew he lost.
- A state inducement for trying to steal that state’s electoral votes. A case in which the defendant was literally caught on tape asking the Secretary of State to “find” him votes.
The only reason that the election may even be close is because Donald Trump is singularly held to the most generous grading curve ever applied to any politician in U.S. history.
He is held to a different set of rules. The lowest standard ever applied to an elected leader.
Trump can lie, multiple provable lies every minute he speaks, and it’s not considered news. He’s just being Trump.
But if his opponents mess up even minor details in any statement they make - that becomes a matter of concern to the public.
Donald Trump is a man who cheated on his first wife with his second wife and on his third wife with a porn star and a playmate. The porn star testified under oath and the playmate stated on the record he told them they reminded him of his DAUGHTER.