It turns out the election wasn’t rigged after all. Apparently Democrats can’t do anything right.
Looking at the popular vote, Trump improved from 47 percent in 2020 to (when California finishes counting), 50 percent. Three people out of 100 changed from a blue shirt to a red shirt because, apparently in most cases, their economic situation is worse than they would like and worse than they remember from Trump One. (Plus a hundred other reasons.) And in Washington everything changes.
I’m trying to look on the bright side here:
President Biden got 51 percent in 2020 and that didn’t stick in 2024. In Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Georgia, Trump won by just one or two percent. Democratic Senate candidates won in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nevada, and Pennsylvania will get a Republican Senator by only half a percent. These states are not insurmountable next time. Sometime soon someone will figure out that if something like 300,000 people in the right states had voted the other way, Harris would have won. It’s really only a landslide in the Electoral College.
I think James Carville is still mostly right that “It’s the economy, stupid!” but now we need a clarification: “It’s feelings about the economy, stupid!” According to people like the Wall Street Journal, the economy can’t get much better. So in two years when the midterm elections come around and then in four years, the people who vote on their economic situation are reasonably likely to be disappointed that President Trump and the Republicans didn’t make things better and help them out.
In this election Democrats had to defend 24 Senate seats and Republicans had 10. In 2026 it’s the opposite; Democrats have 13 to defend and Republicans have 20. The House majority will be razor thin again. And the incumbent party always has problems in midterm elections.
The top Senators running to replace Mitch McConnell as majority leader have said they will keep the filibuster, which is huge for keeping bad legislation from getting through Congress. But there will be huge pressure to change that position.
That’s about it for the bright side. Trump and his allies will have many opportunities to stock the courts, including the Supreme Court, with conservative judges sympathetic to Christians feeling persecuted. They will pass tax cuts for the rich. They will cut spending on domestic programs. Deport immigrants. Turn the federal agencies into a loyalty machine. Ignore climate change. Set up J.D. Vance to run next time. It’s going to be a bleak four years.
Oh, there is one other bright spot:
Voters with no religious affiliation bucked the national trend, supporting Harris by a 45-point margin, up from Biden’s 34-point advantage four years ago. (Washington Post) I’m putting that on my business cards. (The ones for meetings with Democrats.)
The twenty SCA member organizations are already planning how to expand our efforts to mobilize and organize secular voters. We have a meeting next week of all the executive directors that we don’t normally have this time of year to strategize.
Next year on Capitol Hill we will be telling members on both sides of the aisle why bills we expect to see are harmful to the 30 percent of voters with no religious affiliation. There will be a wave of harmful regulations from federal agencies (Project 2025 comes to life) that require public comment and we will make that convenient for you through our Action Alerts. Our lobby day is March 11. We’re fighting back and we’ll need your help.
