Counterpoint: have they won as much as you would expect with the opposition party being effectively controlled by Trump during that time period? Nope. I mean sure they have improved. But there's still a lot of amateur hour stuff.
Counterpoint: have they won as much as you would expect with the opposition party being effectively controlled by Trump during that time period? Nope. I mean sure they have improved. But there's still a lot of amateur hour stuff.
That doesn't work as an explanation at all. There are a bunch of voters in several states that can be persuaded to vote for a candidate from either party. Sure, gains are limited by opportunities which are affected by partisanship. But it's not just partisanship. Especially not the presidential elections, which were won by not-hilary and then by not-trump.
Kevin, apologies, I didn’t mean there isn’t a very very small amount of people that aren’t pure partisans. I’m saying that polarization has made it impossible to have anything close to blowouts in national elections. Look at the difference between obama’s vote share in 2008 in probably the best environment imaginable and Biden’s win in 2020. It’s marginal and polarization has only gotten worse (also the media environment has fractured even more…100m cable subs in 2007 compared to 70m now).
I am not saying that there aren’t non-partisan voters, they are just vanishingly small. That’s all.
You could run satan versus Jesus and it would be a 53-47 election (honestly 55-45 probably).
Remember how decimated the Democratic party was in 2012? (state legislatures) They were in awfully bad shape then. Since 2020, they have made a pretty good comeback largely due to the extremeness of Trump supported candidates.
Yes this is a good point. They realized they neglected state and local stuff. They restocked their bench in recent mid term cycles. It took an overly long time though. I don't understand how they've let the their electoral appeal die on the vine for so many years. Though that's what's happening in the GOP right now, I think..
Counterpoint: have they won as much as you would expect with the opposition party being effectively controlled by Trump during that time period? Nope. I mean sure they have improved. But there's still a lot of amateur hour stuff.
No they haven’t but that’s because voters don’t care much for anything other than partisanship. That’s the issue. It’s nothing to do with candidates
That doesn't work as an explanation at all. There are a bunch of voters in several states that can be persuaded to vote for a candidate from either party. Sure, gains are limited by opportunities which are affected by partisanship. But it's not just partisanship. Especially not the presidential elections, which were won by not-hilary and then by not-trump.
Kevin, apologies, I didn’t mean there isn’t a very very small amount of people that aren’t pure partisans. I’m saying that polarization has made it impossible to have anything close to blowouts in national elections. Look at the difference between obama’s vote share in 2008 in probably the best environment imaginable and Biden’s win in 2020. It’s marginal and polarization has only gotten worse (also the media environment has fractured even more…100m cable subs in 2007 compared to 70m now).
I am not saying that there aren’t non-partisan voters, they are just vanishingly small. That’s all.
You could run satan versus Jesus and it would be a 53-47 election (honestly 55-45 probably).
Remember how decimated the Democratic party was in 2012? (state legislatures) They were in awfully bad shape then. Since 2020, they have made a pretty good comeback largely due to the extremeness of Trump supported candidates.
Yes this is a good point. They realized they neglected state and local stuff. They restocked their bench in recent mid term cycles. It took an overly long time though. I don't understand how they've let the their electoral appeal die on the vine for so many years. Though that's what's happening in the GOP right now, I think..
So much of those losses were the result of passing Obama care. But now it is very popular.