To understand where we are as a country, you have to appreciate what happened in the last election, Amy Walter, national editor, Cook Political Report, said. Elections always have an ending, she said. You get a sense where the country wants to go. This election gave a lot of mixed messages. We are an incredibly closely — but deeply — divided country.
Biden’s election wasn’t as dramatic as it seems. Move just 90,000 votes and Trump would have been re-elected — while losing the popular vote. Biden has 51% of the popular vote, Democrats have 50% in the House and the Senate. “You can’t get even closer than that.”
“What we’re seeing is a country as polarized as ever. It didn’t get worse, but it did get deeper. The dividing lines are as much about density as much as anything else. There’s also an economic divide, a cultural divide and a trust divide,” she said.
One way to look at it is to look at the nation’s 3,000-plus counties. In 2012, Obama only won 23% of all counties, four years later, he won only 21%. Biden won 16%. Metropolitan areas are booming, both in population and economically. Those 16% of counties Biden won account for 70% of GDP. “The priorities the two parties have are different because they are representing two entirely different economies and priorities,” she explained.
Pew Research found that 20 years ago top issues of Rs and Ds were almost the same. Today, there’s zero overlap. The problem is, we don’t agree on priorities. The Democrats’ top issue is gun violence. The Republicans’, illegal immigration.
Turning to the “Trust divide”, she said Pew found that 90% of Democratic voters and Republican voters said if the other party won, they would do lasting damage to the country. Only 20% believe the other party represents the country’s norms and traditions. “How do you govern with this sort of divide?” she asked.
All politics has gotten much more nationalized, she said, adding that’s partly because of the collapse of local media. “The agenda is being set by media in New York, Washington, Los Angeles.” And it’s gotten more parliamentary. In the 1990s, there were 100 members of Congress who represented districts that voted differently for president and congress. This year, just 16.
“Having diversity within your party is important because it helps prevent the parties from going to the extremes. During Biden’s first week in office, Gallup found he was the most polarizing of any president[ 98% of Rs thought they couldn’t support him.
When it comes to actual governing, Biden has been pretty partisan, Walter said, adding he’s signed more executive orders than any other president, including Trump.
It looks like there isn’t enough support for Biden’s big programs, like infrastructure, she added.
Biden has a 54% approval rating. “That’s better than Trump, but not as good as other presidents. Sixty percent approve of his handling of Covid. But it remains to be seen how voters will view him after he gets into other policy areas,” she said.
With a 50-50 Senate majority, you have to get as much done as you can as quickly as you can. It’s almost like smash-and-grab politics. Get as much done as you can. Historically, the party in power loses seats in a mid-term election.
With redistricting coming up this year, it’s important to note Democrats didn’t win at the state legislative level, so Republicans have the opportunity to draw new seats to take the Democrat’s Senate majority — and perhaps their House majority — away.
Biden has to be happy as he watches the stock market and the economy, she said. But even a good economy doesn’t have the same heft as 20 or 30 years ago. It doesn’t matter what the data tell you, the out-of-office party thinks the economy is doing terribly.
Expect a big drop-off in turnout because Trump isn’t in office or on the ballot anymore.
Walter’s bottom line: No party should feel particularly comfortable in the majority. “We live in particularly volatile years. When I first came to Washington, it was assumed Democrats would control the House, the Senate could flip and Republicans ran the White House. That’s not the way it works anymore. No party should think about getting to the place where they will have a 60% majority.
Biden has turned down the heat, but he hasn’t been able to turn down the polarization. It doesn’t mean however that Congress is broken. We have a culture that has an incentive structure that isn’t helpful to compromise or long-term thinking. We have entire media models built on one thing: outrage.
Still, she said, not all is doom and gloom. Congress can still deliver when it’s really needed; the response to Covid is proof of that. We’re a country that is incredibly resistant and optimistic. Jon Meachum in Soul of a Nation said, “For all of our darker impulses, shortcomings and dreams denied and deferred, the struggle began so long ago is worth the struggle.”
NBWA President Craig Purser observed the 2017 tax bill was “a smash-and-grab tax package. For our members, publicly traded companies got a permanent 21% tax rate, but our members will get an automatic tax increase in 2026.”
Walter noted that because one party tends to control an area, “The incentive is for people to win primary elections. If you’re a Republican and you don’t have the endorsement of Trump, you’re not going to win. On the Democratic side, progressives haven’t been as successful in knocking off the more moderate people.”
Walter: REapportionment will move the electoral college by three votes. Biden would have lost 3 votes. Republicans are drawing twice as many lines as Ds.
