Democrats entered the U.S. election hoping for a repudiation of Donald Trump that would sweep them back to power in Washington. Instead, they were denied their “blue wave” by the president and congressional Republicans who defied polls to make races for the White House and Senate control too close to call.
The results left Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden struggling for narrow victories in a handful of battleground states and the party’s chances of a winning a Senate majority all but out of reach.
Even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was bracing for a reduction in her majority, as Republicans defeated one House chairman and a former cabinet secretary-turned-lawmaker.
And while Biden retains multiple paths to taking the White House, the 2020 election will once again prompt soul-searching for a party that is still struggling to grapple with the populist fervor Trump gifted the Republican Party.
They must consider how Trump was able to run so close to Biden despite the coronavirus pandemic and what looked like record-breaking voter turnout in much of the country. States that Democrats expected to be closely fought, including Florida, Ohio and Texas, were runaway victories for the president.
Trump rode unprecedented support among Latino voters in Miami and the Rio Grande Valley to wins in Florida and Texas, underscoring the appeal of his tough-on-socialism messaging as he fended off Democratic efforts to flip traditional Republican strongholds.
And aides credited Trump’s relentless focus on the economy - and willingness to campaign even after his own bout with Covid-19 - for endearing him to voters more worried about their pocketbooks than the pandemic.
A Biden win would paper over some of these shortfalls — and exorcise the ghosts of Hillary Clinton’s loss to Trump in 2016 — especially since he was able to improve on Clinton’s performance by winning Arizona, a state she lost.
He remained within striking distance in Georgia and Wisconsin — where a pair of victories would all but assure he won the White House — and won cities and suburbs that Democrats saw as essential.
But Biden’s decision to largely withdraw from the campaign trail and his inability to inspire enthusiasm among the Democratic base - beyond the potential of defeating Trump - offered little help to down-ballot members of his party.
Vulnerable Senate Republicans including Joni Ernst of Iowa and Steve Daines of Montana glided to reelection, while Susan Collins of Maine and Thom Tillis of North Carolina led their races, dimming any Democratic hopes of wrestling back control of the upper chamber. GOP House candidates knocked out influential Democrats, including House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson of Minnesota and Donna Shalala, the former Secretary of Health and Human Services, in Florida.
Meanwhile, the presidential race threatened to stretch deep into the coming weeks, with Trump pledging to challenge the result to the U.S. Supreme Court early Wednesday morning.
“We will win this,” Trump told supporters at the White House. “And as far as I’m concerned, we already have won it.”
Without a clear result — so far, anyway — the election and its aftermath may be remembered by two of the defining characteristics of Trump’s first term: chaos and controversy.
Trump threatened a legal fight, saying his campaign wanted “all voting to stop” and saying that Democratic voters were “trying to disenfranchise” his supporters. Any aberration as votes are counted could trigger a more intense version of the legal battle waged in the 2000 Florida recount of the race between George W. Bush and Al Gore, which was ultimately decided in Bush’s favor by a conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
Biden, for his part, pledged patience, calling for all votes to be counted and saying he believed he would prevail. Later, his campaign manager issued a statement saying the president’s claims of victory were “outrageous” and “unprecedented” and vowing Democrats would fight any legal battle.
“We feel good about where we are, we really do,” Biden told supporters in Wilmington. “I’m here to tell you tonight we believe we’re on track to win this election.”