Important gains

While our eyes have been glued to the electoral vagaries of the presidential race and deciphering the results and implications of this unprecedented election, we should not forget about what is happening in Congressional races. While the Democrats have retained control of the House of Representatives, Republicans have made important gains there. Moreover, while control of the US Senate officially remains undecided, current results suggest Republicans could maintain their control there.

In other words, even with a Biden win, Republicans defied expectations. Trump performed much better than polls and most pundits predicted, and some of the hardest-fought Senate and House races just didn’t deliver for Democrats. In a time of Covid-19, economic woes, and charged political divisions, how are the Republicans managing to hang on, even if by a thread?

There is no denying that Donald Trump has changed the Republican party, and even if he loses this election, he isn’t going anywhere. He and his following are a huge political force in America.

Trump has won at least 68 million votes as of the current tally. He won the crucial swing state of Florida by a greater margin than in 2016, in part, by increasing his support among Cuban-Americans, and many of the undecided races are a question of a few thousand votes.

In the last few days before the election, Trump rallied his base with a blitz of 17 rallies held across Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Michigan, Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. His closing arguments were dripping with conspiracy theories about doctors inflating the number of Covid-19 deaths for monetary gain, threats to fire the nation’s leading infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci, and attacks on Fox News host Laura Ingraham for wearing a mask. In the final days of the election, the name of the game is less about persuasion and more about voter turnout, and this strategy of galvanising his base seems to have worked.

Moreover, many of us assumed that the record-shattering turnout would be the key to a blue wave. This also proved to be untrue. For sure, high turnout and mail-in voting look likely to secure the White House for Democrats, but it did not translate into bigger wins in the Senate or the House.

In fact, data on voter registration in key states like Florida, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina showed that more people were registering as Republican than Democrat. It is unclear how big an impact this may have had, after all, both North Carolina and Pennsylvania are still undecided, but Trump’s comfortable win in Florida might suggest that the surge in Republican voter registration was key to blocking the Democrat’s blue wave.

Excerpted: ‘Trumpism is here to stay’

Aljazeera.com