Thread by @TheValuesVoter

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.