Win or lose, Trump has once again left the elites flabbergasted

By Gary Abernathy,

CLERMONT COUNTY, Ohio — Once again, it was fascinating on Tuesday night to watch and listen to election analysts of all stripes express their surprise that the Democratic nominee not only wasn’t running away with the election, but that President Trump actually had a chance to win it.

To be surprised by how the night unfolded is to have believed, without evidence, that pollsters had corrected their 2016 errors and that former vice president Joe Biden’s victory was assured. Regardless of the final outcome, polling itself was possibly Tuesday’s biggest loser.

Nationally, so many questions were awaiting answers. Would the aggressive get-out-the-vote ground game of the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee — touted as superior to the Democrats’ — overcome being vastly outspent on traditional television advertising? Were “shy” Trump voters a real phenomenon that pollsters failed to measure? Did the enthusiastic multitudes who turned out for Trump’s final swing-state barnstorming tour reflect growing momentum? Tuesday’s returns seemed to answer each question: Yes.

While much was made about the substantial early votes cast this year, voting in ways other than showing up on Election Day has been increasingly common in many states, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Just four years ago, 16 states saw early, mail and absentee voting exceed in-person Election Day voting, including 75 percent of Arizona voters, 68 percent in Florida and 65 percent in North Carolina.

Still, the expansion of such activity across the nation as a whole, driven by pandemic concerns, was unprecedented. That Democrats were much more likely to vote early than Republicans gave Trump an opening to cast doubt on the reliability of the early vote process. But playing that card seemed increasingly unnecessary thanks to the magnitude and fervency of Trump supporters who flooded polling places on Election Day. When the returns started coming, states that had tabulated early votes first seemed to back up claims of an easy path for Biden. But when the votes cast on Tuesday were added, Trump roared back.

In Ohio, votes in presidential elections are usually counted efficiently and without much drama. Like many states, all 88 counties tabulate the early votes first — which favored Biden and made Ohio look like it might flip — and then count Election Day votes, which swung it back to Trump.

The president’s apparent ability to hang on to the Buckeye State on Tuesday didn’t signal nationwide victory, but it did mean a Biden landslide was unlikely. Would Trump’s Ohio success mean the state would find itself on the wrong side of a presidential race for the first time since 1960, or would it foreshadow an upset electoral win? That answer wasn’t clear as of this writing, but Trump helped his cause by apparently retaining Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas.

The youth vote, #NeverTrump GOP defectors, social media’s anti-conservative biases, the liberal media, being outspent on TV in the closing weeks — by late Tuesday, it looked as though Trump was overcoming all of it. That might turn out to be mistaken, but even if it does, the broad repudiation hoped for by his enemies clearly did not come to pass.

After his unexpected victory in 2016, many Republicans predicted — or wished — that Trump would moderate the P.T. Barnum aspect of his persona in favor of a more serious, more presidential identity that would appeal to a broader cross section of voters. Instead, Trump doubled down, playing only to his base, rolling the dice that his core supporters’ enthusiasm and dedication would be enough to again carry him over the finish line.

The only indication of a broadening of Trump’s appeal on Tuesday was his performance with Hispanic and African American voters, who apparently moved toward the president in surprising numbers — not because he changed his message, but because he directed his message, especially on economic issues, directly at them.

The strategy of sticking with such a narrow appeal looked as though it was shockingly successful, but it comes at a cost. Trump will almost certainly again lose the popular vote. If so, it could mean that in three of the past four elections won by a Republican, the victory came despite losing the popular vote.

A longtime friend who is a former Republican official opined to me recently that the nation could not be expected to tolerate such outcomes forever. The answer, he said, is not to eliminate the electoral college, but to find a way to broaden Republicans’ appeal. One could just as easily wonder why Democrats find it so difficult to win the states they need to build an electoral victory.

Those are debates for another day. For Trump, a more inclusive message has never been the objective, and, as Tuesday gave way to Wednesday, it looked as though it might not need to be.

Read more: The Post’s View: What’s more important than a timely election result: Counting all the votes Dana Milbank: Trump and the GOP tried everything to stop the voters. But turnout has been off the charts. Michele L. Norris: Will this election permanently change how we vote? Let’s hope so. David Byler: The election has actually been the most normal thing about 2020 Kathleen Parker: This election has nearly broken us. It’s time to get the old America back.