Even in the remotest parts of the globe, it seemed unlikely that one could avoid news about the elections in the United States. The drama and uncertainty are still ongoing, even as the voting process is now complete. Like we do often do after every large operation, we should take stock of wins and losses.
Wins
Small “d” Democracy.
This is small and tentative progress, but an important step forward.
The turnout was high (unusually high for the US, which has not seen such turnouts that have happened in other modern democracies). The results from the high-turnout election shattered some deep myths about such elections becoming one-sided (e.g., high turnout will turn states blue). In fact, we learned that more votes ≠ wave. Political Science research studies (for example, see here, $) have argued that higher turnout has often led to an increase in party mobilization and therefore resulted in close elections between parties that are well-organized.
Incumbency.
While party activists and politicians are praising or blaming the “split-ticket” voting, depending on the outcome they desired, I noticed that ticket-splitting is continuing its diminishing slide to oblivion. Of course, given the knife-edge Senate balance, and the length of senate terms, the ticket-splitting turned out to be consequential in this election.
Most incumbents got re-elected in tough local and state-level races. Thom Tillis and Conor Lamb scraped through despite potent challenges. The challengers who won had atypical and substantial popularity (e.g., Kelly, Hickenlooper). That the presidential candidates also racked up the highest number of votes in the country’s electoral history only cemented strong incumbency effects.
More Swing States.
Under the electoral college system, the states (except Maine and Nebraska) award “all” their electoral votes to the winner in the state count. It sounds bizarre and remains inscrutable to many of the international readers, as it did to me when I arrived here. Electoral College remains one of the many peculiarities of the US political system.
I am not a fan of the electoral college system, as the Senate is already a robust institution as the voice of interest for thinly populated states. Because of the electoral college system, many presidential elections have come down to contests in a handful of “swing” states, which has dissuaded participation in democracy and voter apathy in many “non-swing” states in the United States. States like Georgia have not been a swing state because of many voting impediments. Texas is an example of a non-voting state, because of the perceived low influence on national outcomes.
Because of a complicated political realignment going on in the United States, more states have become swing states: I would count the midwestern states — Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and maybe Iowa, some coastal states (Pennsylvania, North Carolina), swaths of the South West (Arizona, Nevada), and the South Atlantic states (Florida, Georgia). Besides, states like Texas, Maine, and Nebraska seem competitive in spots either due to urban/rural demographics or electoral college splitting. It is not clear if the increased number of swing states now is a temporary phase due to the realignment of the parties, but it augurs increased voting participation in the short run.
Current SCOTUS and Federal Judiciary.
An increasingly partisan federal judiciary has accidentally saved itself. Recently, some judges who have been accused of tax evasion and workplace misconduct (e.g., Judge Alex Kozinski) have retired with benefits instead of facing disciplinary action. We would have punted the much-required ethics reform of the judiciary down the road. I hope the judiciary will embark on a long road to regain the decaying trust.
Losses
Senate, as we have known it.
Gravely departing from its history, Senate has now transformed itself into a parliament with party-line voting on every issue: from taxes to COVID relief bills. Any mention of “the greatest deliberative body on earth” almost seems like a joke, as the Senate now avoids complex issues with intricate resolutions.
As everyone knows, the current party line whipping is remarkably against the design of the senate to represent the interests of the states while cooperating on a common national interest. Instead, the parties have become more powerful. Senators elected on razor-thin margins have embraced the tactics of their party over the interest of the denizens of their state. The few remaining senate institutionalists retiring and are not widely admired. Hence, we will witness the senate’s accelerated descent into a parliament.
I speculate the Senate will
(1) soon abolish the filibuster which serves no purpose except promoting inaction.
(2) as a matter of regular practice, block all presidential appointments from the senate minority party, and accept all appointments of the majority party. Hence, future presidents will increasingly either ignore the senate or take it for granted, diluting its power further.
Party Coalitions.
I correctly suspected that regardless of the outcome, the progressives vs. neoliberals coalition fight is going to break out in the open. I think it will happen often and it will happen unimpeded, resulting in a major breakdown of the Democratic party and a potential electoral loss.
The Republican presidential hopefuls are going to find it is harder to secure the coalition garnered by President Trump’s popularity while ignoring Trump. They mistake personal success for policy success and underestimate the personal nature of President Trump’s persuasive politics.
Despite all the party upheaval, I still doubt that we will see a Bull Moose type third party movement.
Polling.
By some measures, election polling did poorer than it did in 2016. No, I am not criticizing polling as a simple “prediction” that went wrong (as in, Candidate A did not win by 4% as predicted). Polling is a useful exercise. As Jessica Hullman argues here, polling can be a useful way to learn about the dynamics of elections and how people make their choices. I think it is useful for candidates to focus their election efforts and energy.
Retail firms often generate forecasts for customer demand for their designs — which could be a remarkably imprecise but useful signal of future possibilities to take actions. Within firms, there is usually a recourse action to take if the forecasts go awry. Unfortunately, with elections, there is no recourse to action after disastrous polling.
Polling has also become an expensive process. It has become harder to reach sections of the voting population through polls (e.g., Hispanics and other immigrants). An additional concern is the response bias in who responds (politically mobilized people are eager to over-respond to surveys). Many pollsters have tried fixing these issues through over-sampling and over-fitting weights assigned. This seems to be a futile statistical catch-up exercise chasing a fast-changing political alignment.
Federalism.
Federalism is losing. Local-level and state-level elections are going to be increasingly nationalized. Added to the incumbency factor, outcomes will remarkably favor incumbents and the holders of prominent positions in national politics. It will become increasingly harder for local politicians to build a coalition of governance. Those who manage such accomplishments will invariably aspire for higher roles in national politics.
Political analysts who have derided money did not help win races are awfully mistaken about election financing. The financial escalation that we are seeing in many races is an arms race in asymmetric warfare between incumbency and challengers. National-level politicians have easier access to money and can build massive drift banks to weather a snowstorm. The results only show that it will, in fact, take increasing amounts of money, political charisma, and a national-level tailwind to dislodge incumbents in American Politics.
This brings me back to the first point. The small “d” democratic progress still looks tentative.