Some important lessons from 2020

Written By: Charlie Gerow

There’s still some time before votes are certified and the Electoral College meets in mid-December to actually elect a President. But there are already some important lessons to be learned from 2020.

There was no Blue Wave:

There was barely a Blue trickle. If Joe Biden’s projected win in Pennsylvania holds up, it will be by a fraction of the margin projected by pollsters and the media leading up to Nov. 4.

Further down the ticket, Democrats fared miserably around the state and across the country.

We were told that Josh Shapiro would win in a landslide. He squeezed by. The other two statewide offices, Auditor General and State Treasurer, were captured by Republicans. It was the first time that’s happened since John F. Kennedy ran for President.

Republicans picked up seats in the state legislature, too, despite predictions of Democrat gains and even takeovers of the House and Senate. The Democrat House Leader was defeated.

Nationally, Democrats didn’t do much better. Despite spending billions to take over the U.S. Senate, most of their challenges fell flat. In South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Maine and Montana, Democrats not only didn’t win, in many cases they were beaten soundly.

In House races, pollsters and their fans in the media were telling us Republicans would have around 190 Members when the next congress convenes. As it looks now, Republicans will pick up about 20 more seats than projected.

Republicans won eight of 11 races for governor, including by historic margins in contests that pollsters said would be close.

Money Isn’t all that matters:

For all the Democrats talk about “dark money” and “big money” being dumped into the campaign, they neglected to mention that most of it was on their side. And it didn’t work. For all of Bloomberg’s, Soros' and Steyer’s billions, in race after race it didn’t make any difference.

There’s no reason to believe the pollsters:

After how badly the pollsters got things four years ago, you’d think they learned something. If you thought that, you were wrong. Almost all the national pollsters were guilty of what Frank Luntz characterized as “professional malpractice.” From here on, those who take their word as gospel do so at their own risk.

Or the media:

Nobody required the media to be polling groupies. Yet, because people like the horserace aspects of political campaigns, they glommed on to every poll like it was the Holy Grail, snidely mocking those of us who questioned their accuracy.

What is required of the media is that they report the news and separate commentary from reporting. They can’t be allowed to let the opinion page bleed onto the front page. Nor can they refuse to run stories or flavor those that are reported to fit their narrative.

Studies showed that 92% of media coverage was negative to Donald Trump. Hardly seems like that’s an example of good journalism.

The media doesn’t get to call elections:

The media’s arrogance was in full view when the New York Times declared, prior to Election Day, that it was the role of the media to determine winners and losers. If that were the case, we’d have had President Dewey and President Gore. Thankfully, we have a Constitutional process of determining who is elected.

It was main street not Park Avenue that supported Trump:

Joe Biden loved to inveigh against “Donald Trump and his Park Avenue allies.” But a quick walk down Park Avenue would have revealed just how far from reality Biden’s demagoguery was. Park Avenue was overwhelmingly behind Joe Biden. So were an overwhelming majority of the nation’s elites. It was regular folks on Main Street that supported President Trump.

America will never be a socialist country, at least for now:

The rejection of a “transformational election” and landslide that would sweep in a Democrat President, a Democrat Congress, a Green New Deal, and massive tax increases simply didn’t materialize. Socialism was explicitly rejected.

In Florida, Latinos from Cuba, Venezuela and Brasil boosted Donald Trump to a comfortable victory in a race that was predicted by many to go the other way. Those people knew what it meant to live under the horrors of socialism. They voted in record numbers to reject it.

The future is bright for the GOP:

Donald Trump got more votes than any Republican candidate for president in history. Despite being branded as a “racist” by the media he won more minority votes than any Republican in six decades. He won support in traditional Democratic households, among union families and working people without college diplomas.

With those factors comes the opportunity for the Republican Party to cement a new coalition and build onto it. With that will go control of the House and Senate in 2024 and more successes in the future.