More than anything else, the gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey did not so much signify a resurgence of the Republican as a repudiation of Donald Trump. Let’s look back at the 2020 election that he claimed had been “stolen” from him by Democratic election officials.
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The Gubernatorial Elections
In nearly all the states that he lost – and well as in those that he carried – the Republican candidates for the Senate and House ran ahead of him. In fact, many Republican candidates won their state or congressional district while Trump lost them.
One may ask, then, why those devious Democratic election officials didn’t also steal these elections while they were manipulating the ballot count for the presidential vote. Did all those dead voters split their tickets – voting for Democrat Joe Biden for president and the Republican candidate for the Senate and the House?
Now, let’s turn to the 2021 election. We know that the Republican gubernatorial candidates both far exceeded expectations in Virginia and New Jersey. We also knew on the night of November 2 that their percentage of the vote far exceeded Trump’s percentage in 2020 in both states.
But then, political analysts compared the percentage of the vote that the Republican gubernatorial candidates in Virginia and New Jersey had in 2021 compared with the percentage Trump had in 2020. In every county, the gubernatorial candidates received a higher percent of votes than did Trump.
The real takeaway from the 2020 election was that Donald Trump was less popular among Republican voters than Republicans listed further down the ticket. In a word, Trump had very short shirt-tails. And the 2021 elections confirmed that Trump was less favored among Republican voters than Republican gubernatorial candidates.
Does Trump still have a huge following of ardent political supporters? Of course! Will they follow him to the gates of hell? Probably. But there is a ceiling to his support.
Trump Can't Admit That He Lost The Election
According to his niece, Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist and the author of two bestselling books about her uncle, it’s impossible for him to believe that he lost the election last year. He can’t admit it even to himself.
And so, he holds rally after rally, spending a good part of the time ranting about how the election was stolen from him. But of course, he’s preaching to the choir. Regardless of a possible Republican party resurgence this year, his shopworn grievance is not earning him any new supporters.
Were Trump to run again in 2024, he might still win nearly all of the states that he carried in 2020. But could he win the election? Not unless he can find a way to convince more Republican suburban voters that he’s not really a closet fascist, who will destroy our democratic form of government and possibly even cause the break-up of our nation.
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