Lots of takes on this throughout the late fall, but I keep coming back to five things I think are critical.
One: Partisanship creates a very high floor. There were people who were going to vote for the Republican because he was a Republican and there were people who were going to vote for the Republican because he wasn't the Democrat. Which leads to...
Two: Incumbency is a burden from 2022-today. Covid fucked us up and we haven't recovered our equilibrium. We also have no one to blame, so we blame those in power. This has been true across the globe.
There are specific things to this race though:
Three: Trump wins over women and loses to men. OK, it's a tiny sample size, but everything about Trump stands in opposition to women in positions of authority. The young men who voted for him? Even some women? They just don't trust women in leadership roles. There's a million things to be said about why that is, but it seems pretty clear that it is true.
Four: Butler mattered. When Trump stopped as he was being rushed off stage and shouted "Fight" that was the only moment in my observation of the man that he displayed anything that might be considered a virtue. It was on camera and it was real, unlike so many of his stunts.
Five: The media still does not know how to cover a compulsive liar. Project 2025 was unpopular then and it is unpopular now. TPM is keeping a running tally of GOP congressfolk who are being ripped to pieces by constituents who are furious that Trump is doing exactly what we knew he would do if we were paying attention to Project 2025. The problem is, that Trump said he had nothing to do with it...and everyone dropped it. Remarkable.
Some of this is the willful ignorance of huge swaths of the American electorate, but the media knows he lies, but after he said he had nothing to do with the plans that he is now implementing everyone shrugged and moved on.
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