November 5, 2020 at 12:37 p.m.
Another close election leaves America still divided
Biden poised to win, but Blue Wave never materialized for Democrats
Another close election leaves America still divided
When Americans awoke Wednesday morning, they still did not know for sure who the next president of the United States was going to be or which party would control the U.S. Senate, but one thing was for sure: The Democratic landslide predicted by most pollsters never unfolded, and another nail-biter of an election underscored just how politically divided Americans are.
However, the situation as of Wednesday morning unquestionably put former Vice President Joe Biden in a strong if not absolutely certain position to become the next president of the United States.
The final tallies might not be known and a clear winner determined before next week, if then, but Biden led Trump 238 electoral votes to 213 Wednesday morning, held a slender lead in Nevada and Wisconsin, and was poised to win Michigan as hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots from that state's largest cities were being counted, which would give him the 270 electoral votes needed to win.
Wisconsin underscored and mirrored the nation's continuing political divide, as Trump underperformed in the suburbs in the state's metropolitan areas, compared to his 2016 totals, but ran better than he did four years ago in more rural areas of northern and central Wisconsin.
For his part Wednesday morning, President Donald Trump led tenuously in North Carolina and Georgia, and was up by more than 600,000 votes and 11% in Pennsylvania, but winning those states would push him only to 264 electoral votes, leaving him in need of Wisconsin or Michigan.
And North Carolina, Georgia, and Pennsylvania were hardly guaranteed. Trump led by 100,000 votes in Georgia, but almost 150,000 votes were still untallied from primarily mail-in ballots in Democratic leaning suburbs around Atlanta. The president led Biden 50-49 in North Carolina with 95% of the ballots counted. However, significant numbers of votes had not been counted in Wake and Mecklenburg counties, where Biden was winning by 26% and 35%, respectively.
Finally, in Pennsylvania, Trump led by 620,000 votes, but more than 1.7 million ballots were outstanding. Biden thus needed about 67% of the outstanding ballots and that might have seemed a tall order, but registered Democrats made up 65% of all mail-in ballots in the state, putting Biden within striking distance.
The race to control the U.S. Senate was still undecided as of Wednesday morning, though Republicans appeared better positioned to keep control of that chamber than Trump did of staying in the White House. Going into Tuesday, the GOP held a 53-47 seat majority (including two independents that caucus with Democrats). Assuming Biden ascends to the presidency, the Democrats needed a pick up of three to control the Senate.
That turned to just two after Republican Tommy Tuberville unseated Democrat Doug Jones in Alabama, while the Democrats flipped a seat each in Colorado and Arizona.
So, as of Wednesday morning, with six seats still uncalled, Democrats needed two seats.
Of those, Alaska incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan was leading Democrat Al Gross with more than 60% of the votes. Though only 35% of the votes had been tallied, his prospects remained strong.
Republicans Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Susan Collins of Maine led their races and seemed likely to win, while Democrats seemed on the brink of retaining their seat in Michigan.
In Georgia, GOP Sen. David Perdue led Democrat Jon Ossoff by 50.8 to 46.9% with 94% of the votes counted. That race would head to a January runoff if Perdue fell below 50%. Already in Georgia, Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler will face Democrat Raphael Warnock on Jan. 5 for the remaining Senate seat.
The bottom line is, if Perdue, Tillis, and Collins hold, as they appear likely to do, the GOP will hold the Senate, no matter what happens in the January Georgia election.
Observations
The election does point to some obvious trends.
The first is that Democrats did not win a realigning election. No Blue Wave occurred. Pandemic politics did not sweep Trump out of office in a landslide, and certainly did not turn the Senate over to Democrats, though the issue may have given the Democrats just the slight shift they needed in key battleground states to win the White House.
That small and decisive shift (for this election) notwithstanding, the long-term trends in voting patterns that had begun to emerge in 2016 were evident in 2020.
First, Democrats no longer have a Midwestern fire wall with blue-collar workers in their pockets. Broadly speaking, the movement of working class voters to the Republican Party has continued, and tight victories in Michigan, Wisconsin, and perhaps even Pennsylvania hardly give the Democrats any certainty for the future. Trump's blue-collar totals in those states in both 2016 and 2020 put the Republicans in play for the working class vote.
On the other hand, suburban voters, particularly suburban women, are continuing their march to the Democratic Party. Those voters actually appear to have propelled Biden in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, and they are putting southern states in play for the Democrats, too.
Finally, though Trump may have fallen short, he managed to disrupt at least one more narrative of the Democratic Party, namely, that there is an "emerging Democratic majority" propelled by the growing demographic diversity of the nation's population.
But in some states, Trump was recording higher than normal numbers of Latino and black voters. For example, as the political website 538 reported, in Starr County, Texas, whose population is 96% Hispanic or Latino, Trump lost by only 5 points; he lost by 60 points in 2016.
And a stronger Latino vote for Trump in Miami-Dade County almost certainly doomed Biden's chances in Florida.
The election also seemed to record another milestone. Preliminary projections show that almost 67% of eligible voters cast ballots in the election, the highest turn out since the election of 1900.
Richard Moore is the author of the forthcoming "Storyfinding: From the Journey to the Story" and can be reached at richardmoorebooks.com.
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