How Brunch Liberals Won Back the White House by Sacrificing Everything Else
By: Sung Kim
Tags: Democratic Party, Biden, Trump, Kamala Harris, Election 2020

If Biden Won, How Did Liberals Lose?

Biden won the White House, but Democratic leaders made deliberate choices in election year 2020 that lead to heavy down-ballot losses and all but guaranteeing that the party will lose power in 2022 and 2024.

The Silencing of Progressives

Back in March, during the chaotic early days of the 2020 Democratic Primary, when anything seemed possible, the sudden overnight surrender & coalescing of the Buttegieg and Klobuchar campaigns behind Joe Biden, signaled the end of the Sanders campaign, which would concede weeks later.

The Democratic establishment at this time made the choice that the 1/3 of the party that had been galvanized under the Sanders platform of populism would be left out of the Big Tent. The Biden campaign actively shut out progressives, silencing their policy demands in favor of an outreach program to suburban Republicans.

The welcoming of Republicans from John Kasich, to Lincoln Project chodes, Cindy McCain and Ana Navarro into key leadership positions inside the Biden/Harris campaign signaled the corporate, centrist direction of the Biden campaign. The choice of the utterly unqualified Ana Navarro to lead Democratic Latino outreach over Chuck Rocha (or literally anyone else remotely capable) proved to be nearly catastrophic to the campaign, as Biden 2020, and down-ballot Democratic candidates lost the Latino vote by double-digit margins compared to Hillary 2016.

The Lincoln Project

One of the weirdest plot twists of election year 2020 was Democratic leaders and their liberal supporters glomming on to a grifting agency called the Lincoln Project, made up of Republican operatives, who called themselves “Never Trumpers” and convinced party leaders that they would be able to rally other Republican voters against Trump. Liberals ended up donating $69M to this Trojan Horse operation, in the hopes that they would deliver suburban Republican votes to Biden. In the end, Trump outperformed his 2016 numbers among registered Republicans, while Republicans retained control of the Senate and made gains in House and State Legislatures across the country. All they got for that $69M price tag was Democratic Party leaders conceding influence inside the party to a group of newly minted Republican multi-millionaires. The Lincoln Party was one of the most profitable grifts in American political history, so if you’re a Democratic voter, you may want to stop sharing their content.

Failure to Take Control of Senate

Democrats were projected to win back the Senate, but ended up falling short. There are still 2 run-off elections scheduled for January 5, 2021, and while the path is narrow, Dems do have a shot at the Senate majority if they win both runoffs seats. I predict a split, with Warnock (D) defeating Loeffler (R), and Perdue (R) beating Ossoff (D). I will update this paragraph if Dems pull off the unlikely double victory. However, without a Senate majority, the outlook for passing legislation does not look good for the Biden/Harris administration.

Hemorrhage in House Races

House Republicans outperformed polls and are projected to win back 7–12 seats with eight races still in play and leaning Republican. This was again projected to be a hold +5–7 for Democrats. What we’ve learned so far is that polling data in 2020 was even further off than in 2016. At this rate, by 2024, I predict we’ll be relying on betting markets entirely.

Disaster in State Legislature Elections

The biggest electoral disaster for Democrats was felt in State Legislature races. While these results were missed by headlines, they are critical to mid-term odds, as State Legislatures decide which party leads redistricting in 2021. Democrats, after spending $500 million on down-ballot State Legislature races, were unable to flip a single state legislative chamber (source as of 11/9/2020). Republicans on the other hand were able to obtain 2 new State Legislature trifectas in New Hampshire and Montana.

Loss of Minority Voters

Despite losing the White House, it must be mentioned that Trump, despite a historically chaotic year full of abject failure, outperformed his 2016 results across every demographic except white men (source). Trump won the highest GOP total share of non-white voters for a Republican presidential candidate since 1960 (source). It should be noted that these demographic numbers are mostly based on exit polling data, and should change over time as we get cleaner data that includes demographic information from voters who submitted absentee ballots.

The loss of working class Hispanic voters should be especially troubling to party leaders, as it signals that the message of “we’re not Trump” led to the loss of another formerly loyal segment of the voter base (along with white working class which the party lost in 2016).

This year, Biden lost a catastrophic share of the Hispanic vote from Clinton in 2016. Look no further for evidence of the 2020 Democratic Party’s disconnect with Latino voters than Zapata County, TX, which Trump won 52-to-47 over Joe Biden. Trump lost Zapata County, a 90% Latino working-class border town, in 2016 by a 32-to-65 margin.

The Outlook for 2022 and 2024

As mid-term odds overwhelmingly favor the losing party, Democrats who lack a clear policy vision, have little reason for a positive outlook in 2022. Without a Senate majority, McConnell and the Republican Senate will go into full austerity mode, blocking any and all spending measures at a time when the working class so desperately needs assistance. The one potential positive I can think of for Biden/Harris is their timing, and they are inheriting a country at the peak of a health & economic crisis, which means even without doing anything substantial, conditions in the country will improve over the next four years.

Biden’s pick of Kamala Harris, an experienced, but unpopular figure in national politics was short-sighted and unstrategic. (I did a deep dive on Kamala here, so I won’t get into her in depth in this article.) While Kamala checks off diversity boxes, she did not appeal to minority voters and failed to win over a single demographic segment of the electorate during her primary bid. In my opinion, her selection has set the party up for failure in 2024. Kamala’s broad national appeal is a known quantity. She is deeply unpopular with every segment except the donor class, and finished 5th in polls in her home state during primaries before dropping out.