I just don't find it credible. I can believe the intensity of the dislike for Trump among democrats may have been greater in 2020, but no one has convinced be there are more of them. I know democrats who voted for Trump in 2020, they voted for Hillary in 2016.
In 2008, Obama drew large crowds everywhere he went, I
knew he was popular- I could see it.
At least post-civil war, no incumbent president has gained votes in his re-election bid and lost the election. Obama had 5 million fewer votes in 2012 than 2008, but he still won re-election.
Not only did Trump gain votes in 2020, he matched Ronald Reagan's 1984 landslide, when Reagan won every State but one. And Republicans swept the down ballot toss-up races in 2020, so there's your polling...
Yet Biden was able to get almost 20% more votes than Obama in 2008 with 40% fewer counties?
Trump won 18 of 19 Bellweather counties, and the Bellweather States of Ohio and Florida. Ohio is a benchmark, in that Wisconsin and Pennsylvania tend to track with Ohio. Where Ohio goes, they all go. And they were doing just that, right up until the giant middle of the night ballot drops.
If the dislike for Trump is the reason for the record turnout in places like Milwaukee, why didn't we see the same thing in Cleveland? Those cities are geographically and demographically similar, but turnout in Cleveland was down from 2008 and 2016.
From the second world war until Nixon, Americans voted for Washington D.C. insiders for President. After Watergate, that changed. We turned to Governors, and with the exception of Bush 41 (who campaigned as a 3rd term of Reagan), every President after 1972 was a Governor, through Bush 43.
Americans were sick of the partisanship and bickering in 2008. Obama campaigned as an outsider, not just from DC but from politics. He didn't really have a voting record, he was a nobody state rep, who spent a couple years in the Senate avoiding controversial votes. He promised to unite the country, it wasn't about red states and blue states, etc.
America went with the outsider. In 2016, Trump's election was a continuation of that move away from traditional politicians in the White House.
Presidential elections are always popularity contests, and Trump was and is very popular no matter what the haters say. I've never heard a crowd just spontaneously start chanting "We love you" to any politician, ever. When they did that in Florida the first time, he was taken aback. It really touched him.
Trump's rallies dwarfed Obama's, and he was doing it 4 or 5 times a day coming up on Nov 3. A biden rally was old man Joe shouting at an empty parking lot.
So call me skeptical that this guy, the ultimate DC insider, totally got 81 million votes...
View attachment 613383